Taking on the Sani Pass in Helga, our Toyota Landcruiser, was definitely an experience. With the majority of the Pass being only 5kms in distance yet necessitating a climb of around 2000m in altitude it took us two hours of constant, low range 4×4ing. Check this short video clip of our climb, and although it shows a small degree of what to expect on your drive up the Sani Pass, beleive us when we say this was one of the relatively easy portions of the track!

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We have called her home for the last seven months and she has finally been passed onto her new owners, who are looking forward to her guiding them back up towards Kenya over the next few months. If there is one recommendation I could give to any overlander thinking of doing a similar adventure to what we have done going overland through Africa, it would be to buy a Toyota Landcruiser above any other 4×4. What is the reasoning behind it? Let me spell it out for you.

Toyota are the most common vehicle anywhere in Eastern and Southern Africa

You have the advantage with a Toyota. When times get tough (and I can guarantee that they will) not only are parts available in every country, at any time of day, bush mechanics can pull apart and repair almost any part on a Cruiser. The rival 4×4 on this continent is the Land Rover Defender, but no word of a lie, almost 95% of locals and travellers that we have met on our journey have voted Toyota.

Our experienced with broken roof racks, blown clutch cylinders, leaf suspension, and water pump failure all occurred in the middle of nowhere. Whether it was atop the Zomba plateau in Malawi, the desert savannah of the Serengeti, or the mountainous ranges of the Drakensberg the local mechanics have always had us up and running in a few hours, each time, every time.

Toyota’s hold their sale value

South Africa and Kenya are the two countries most recommended to purchase a 4×4 prior to your intrepid adventure through the ‘dark’ continent. Both countries have ample supply of vehicles of varying ages, quality, and price. Out of all of the vehicles we had the pleasure of test driving or inspecting the Toyotas (between the ages of 1980 and 1996) held their value at resale. With any purchase you will generally lose a small amount on its resale, especially if you include all of the gear you aquire during your trip, but for the most part your initial investment will be returned if you are able to advertise the resale and close a deal in either Kenya or South Africa.

Note that at the moment South Africans cannot ‘legally’ import a vehicle (which means convert the foreign registration to South African) but individuals are more than willing to purchase and use on their farms or jump the Botswanian border and register it over there. An import duty of around ~20% is applicable there.

Toyota engines, especially older more hardy engines, will run for 1,000,000 kilometres

Although the 1 million figure is slightly metaphoric, the older Toyota engines are built strong, solid, and will run forever. With general maintenance and care the engine will need minimal work done in order to keep it in top condition. Our trip across Eastern and Southern Africa called on us to replace a few work parts such as front propshaft, wheel bearings, and similar items but after 15,000kms of African ‘roads’ it is to be expected. All of this, yet no work needed on the engine. Experience speaks for itself here.

So to sum it up, we will be handing Helga over to her new overland owners once the cash clears, and then we start the planning for our next adventure…

Now with two sets of potential buyers for Helga once we finish up our travels, and knowing that our new friends from Hluhluwe were rustling up as many funds as they could before giving us a formal offer, we left Sodwana Bay happy and relieved.

Driving back along the N2 through Pietermaritzburg and out to Underberg, we camped the night out at Sani Lodge for a second time. If you are planning on coming out to South Africa you must visit the Drakensberg, and Russell and his crew at Sani Lodge, located on Sani Pass road just out of Underberg are tthe best in the business. Having written the ‘Backpackers Guide to Lesotho’ and helped create many of the walking trails and activities in the Underberg area, Russell is an endless knowledge source on everything to do in the mountains. We picked his brain the next morning after chowing down on cereal with fresh Jersey milk that Sani Lodge produce onsite (also you can’t pass up buying a block of the stunning Jersey cheese from the Giants Cup Tea Garden, next door to Sani Lodge) and started Helga for the mission up Sani Pass.

For those of you that haven’t heard about the Pass, Sani Pass is the only entry point into Lesotho for the Kwazulu-Natal region of South Africa. It also happens to be one of the most hectic 4×4 roads in Southern Africa, so much so that the road is sponsorsored by local 4×4 clubs and tour guides take travellers up Sani Pass as a dedicated expedition. Knowing all of this we were keen to tackle the road in what may be the final mission in our beloved Helga.

It was just around lunchtime that we received a phonecall from our friends in Hluhluwe. Chris and Joanna has scrapped together some funds and gave us their final offer on purchasing Helga, our 1983 Toyota Landcruiser. Before we could agree, they also threw in a night at the Hluhluwe River Lodge… we couldn’t refuse! With the deal done, and the money transfers underway we took off along Sani Pass road towards the South African border post. Receiving our exit stamps for South Africa we started the climb up the Pass just ahead of a number of minibuses and ultra-heavy laden bakkies (‘utes’, in Australian language). The drive in low-range the whole way, gentley and slowly edging up the twisted rock faces, being careful to dodge the boulders and slippery gravel the whole way up. Watching the temp gauge for the entire 5km we stopped several times to allow crazy minibus drivers to  scoot past us and also to admire the stunning views back into the Drakensberg. After the most intense 2 hours of driving (yes, 2 hours for 5 kms…) that we have ever had the pleasure of completing, we made it to the Lesotho border post, at the top of the Sani Pass.

It was here that we learnt a very valuable detail about the Toyota Landcruiser. After making our way through customs we noticed a decent amount of smoke billowing from Helga’s exhaust on startup. Now normally on a cold startup the 4×4 will smoke for about a minute and then stop (an issue with the cold startup solenoid running rich) but we had just driven the most intense 4×4 track in South Africa. Ben almost had a heart attack, especially given we had just sealed the deal on the vehicle sale! We drove on to the highest pub in Africa (although I have heard that there is a pub in Ethiopia that may challenge this!) just over from the border post and sank a Savannah cider, thinking about our options, watching the Basotho people wearing their thick blankets and tending their goats, all while taking in more stunning scenery on the mountian ranges. After lunch we walked back to the our vehicle and noticed something odd at the right front wheel. Looking closer, we found that the rough terrain and intense rock hazards of Sani Pass had snapped one of the leaves in our suspension! Not suprisingly, we made the decision to head back down the Pass to camp the night out at Sani Lodge again before finding a suspension house that could repair Helga’s suspension.

But back on the exhaust smoke and the Cruisers. Once back on level ground we had a phonecall from friends in Durban. We explained the unlucky events of the Pass; the suspension and of course the smoke. Before we could explain anymore Trevor said in passing, “Oh yeah, its just altitude, all Toyota Cruisers run extremely rich as you climb up in altitude. A small adjustment to the fuel by leaning it out fixes it every time.”. Thank god for that. With our minds slightly more at ease we arranged Midland Springs in Pietermaritzberg to replace our springs in the front (which they did an excellent job, for around R700) and started our drive down towards the coast. Funnily enough the lower we came down in altitude the less the car blew smoke, and once at sea level there wasn’t a sign of any unburnt fuel making its way out of the exhaust. There’s a trap for young players. Remember, if you own a Cruiser and are heading into altitude, don’t stress about unburnt fuel blowing out.

With our failed mission into Lesotho now over, the suspension fixed better than new, and the smoke being no issue we both decided to head towards Umkomaas to try and take a break from the four wheel driving and dive with the resident sharks of Aliwal Shoal!

We received the call from Rory at Rory’s Garage that Helga has been fixed up and is ready to roll. Saying another goodbye to Jan and Trevor (it must be the sixth by now!) and Tim and Annarosa we piled into our rental Opel Corsa come go-kart and made the distance back to Pinetown. We collected Helga and after checking out Rory’s handy work on the propshaft, engine mounts and powersteering unit, we made tracks for St Lucia, for a few nights stopover before hitting the diving scene with Coral Divers in Sodwana Bay.

Helga was running beautifully on the cruise up to the St Lucia wetlands which is located 2-3 hours north of Durban. Turning off at Mtubatuba we wove our way through the massive pine and eucalypt plantations and into the rather surfy town of St Lucia. There are a few places to stay here in the town but we really enjoyed Bibs, on the main road just up from the fruit and veg market and across from Wimpys. Although the decore is becoming a little tired, the place is clean and staff are ace, with free morning walks of the wetlands to check out hippos and crocodiles as well as table tennis and pool in the bar. They do have an outdoor pool but it currently looks like the amazon river (it is a fair guess to say the filter is broken) and there is quick internet in the lobby.

The next day was our chill day, and we spent it wandering the town and scouting hippos from the shoreline, and heading out on a river cruise to find more wildlife. To be honest, I could take or leave the cruise. It was nice but everything we saw on the cruise we’d seen on our 3 hour walk around St Lucia. But it does give you the chance to see hippos up close and personal as well as the odd fish eagle hunting its prey from the trees.

I swear the sun starts shining hard at 5:00am here in Africa and after a few cups of instant coffee we loaded the tent and strange battery light contraption that Ben has created back into Helga, enroute to Sodwana Bay. Heralded as the best dive site in South Africa we were keen to see what all the fuss was about. After paying our park entrance fees (R20 per person, per day) and camping costs (R65 per person per day plus a community tax of R5 per person) we chose a stellar spot just south of the Coral Divers outfit. Now, we had heard previously that the dive operations here are very similar to a business production line, pumping divers in and out of the water, and mass producing both PADI Dive Masters and PADI Instructors. But we were to find that this only made them more professional and reliable. Both of us being competent divers we checked into the 7:00PM briefing and signed ourselves up to do 7 mile reef and 1/4 mile reef which had just been reopened after the raggies had fallen pregnant.

Eager to get wet we trekked back to Coral Divers from our campsite the next morning and loaded our gear onto the beach shuttle. Well actually, not all of our gear made it on. Ben, being daft as he is, left a plastic bag and wandered off to check something random out. The vervet monkeys in the park have adapted well to human behaviour and are always on the lookout for a freebie. Having spied the lone bag, one brave monkey dropped down from the wooden beams and threw his hand inside, digging out a fresh box of seasickness tablets with a wad of R40 (South African currency) tucked inside. In an instant the money was swiped by another monkey and taken off to their treasure trove in the jungle, while the original perp took a strip of tablets out of the box and gently popped out a single tablet, sticking it in his mouth. It didn’t take long for the little guy to realise it held no taste and the whole packet came raining down from the roof as he spat the tablet straight out!

Glad he didn’t get his hands on anything of real value, we made tracks for the beach and started kitting up. The curents had turned and the vis had been reported as being below par on 1/4 mile, plus the raggies were all hiding out getting ready to give birth, so we all agreed that our second dive would be on Stringer, a set of elongated reefs in close to shore.

7 mile was a great dive. Although the vis was average and the currents mild to strong we saw a great array of sealife: sleeping turtles, trumpet fish, angelfish, nemos, and loads of nudibranchs. The reef topology is gorgeous as well, with lettuce leaf corals and sponges making the scene quite spectacular. The second dive was just as epic, with a myriad of smaller fish and similar reef design, while the front of the group (which was six strong) missed the sight of a huge Raggie swimming underneath us at the end of the dive, just after a large Leopard Ray spooked and glided out into the distance.

But we didn’t come up here just for the diving. It just so happened that the young couple from Hluhluwe a month earlier who had seen Helga and were interested in doing a similar trip to us, were here in Sodwana as well. Chris and Joanna were keen to take a closer look, and now that there had been interest in their bakkie they wanted a test drive and to see what Helga could do in the deep sand and rocky tracks just outside of the park. Taking it in turns to drive her, Joanna and Chris led us out to Lake Sebaya where we knocked back a few beers and watched the sun set over the crocodile filled lake, listening to the grunt of an irritated hippo in the distance. More than happy with how the 4×4 handled the sand and dirt Chris and Joanna agreed to get back to us with an offer, just in case our other sale from guys in the UK fell through.

Not a bad trip up to the coast in the end; great diving and a potential sale on Helga for when we finish our trip, which is now less than 17 days from ending… Crazy!

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If we made it to Swakopmund, the only mechanic we managed to get hold of could only look at Helga on one day the 4th of January, when he reopened. There is a massively high chance that he will need to Cruiser for at least a few days (to order parts and look at the issues the AA brought up) we didn’t have any longer than a day. We’ve learnt better than to rely on ‘Africa time’ – everything that is supposed to take a day always seems to take longer!! So, we have decided to leave Namibia for our next overland trip to Africa. This has broken our hearts, but we know that one day we will be back here and we’ll be spending longer than 2 weeks, so it’s been a lot easier to deal with. We are both upset because so many of our friends and fellow overlanders had told us how amazing it is and we were sure it was to be a favourite of us both! The plan is now to enjoy more of what South Africa has to offer (it really is the most physically beautiful country, and varied, of the trip so far) and at the same time, get the car back to Durban as quickly as possible so our girl could be fixed and be ready to sell – we really can’t afford not to at this point!!!!

The trip back involved 3 days of solid driving – not the best when your car isn’t feeling great, but we decided nevertheless to try and get there before the 31st. Our mechanic, Rory Flett, a 4×4 specialist, was actually open between Chrissie and New Year, unlike most others, so we wanted to take advantage of a few days here and there before he closed for a bit, for him to get started on the car.We found Rory through the Landcruiser Club of SA (South Africa). A load of Cruiser enthusiasts put his name forward and we have not been disappointed by any of his work.

Our goodbyes were sad, but we hope to be back in Cape Town for this guy to buy the car, so we hope to have more days to enjoy what we’ve missed out on. We had three 10 hour days of driving (bear in mind that Helga only goes 80kmph), but our first stop was again Jeffreys Bay, for a noisy night in a dorm (no room for camping… we missed our personal space!), followed by a stop at Port St Johns, the hippy capital of the Wild Coast, and indeed South Africa we’re sure! The guy who came to greet us was so stoned, and high, he didn’t know what day it was. We felt really uncomfortable, but it was late, so we camped down for the night and were gone by 6.30am… they were harmless, but very unprofessional. If you are visiting Port St. Johns then try and stick to the public camp sites or Amapondo Backpackers. Trust us.

On the third day, we drove straight to Durban airport where we’d organised a hire car for quite a cheap price (around $40 per day Aussie, just before New Year, we thought that was pretty good!), so we’d decided to really take advantage of not having Helga and do some of the Drakensberg Mountains, literally meaning ‘Dragon Mountains’. Ben drove the new car while Kate followed to Rory’s garage (8 Cherry Rd, Pinetown, just outside of Durban) where we dropped off Helga, with strict instructions of what to fix, and we threw enough stuff in the car for around a week’s camping and set off.

Driving the little Holden Barina (or over here, they call them Opal Corsas) after Helga felt strange – we thought we were scraping our backsides across the ground and would die every time we hit a bump! We’re definitely used to having very high clearance and sitting on top of the world. But it was nice to be able to drive the speed limit over here (well, let’s be honest, we didn’t actually drive the speed limit for the highways because that’s 120kmph and after 80, we felt like at that speed we’d die – so we kept to 100!). We headed straight for Underberg in the southern Drakensberg Mountains, and to a place about 16km away from Sani Pass into Lesotho, the Sani Lodge Backpackers. This place is in the middle of nowhere and it could not have been more relaxing… the Berg towering in the background, and knowledge that Lesotho was only a short step away. We pitched our tent on the 30th of December and relaxed. The 31st was a quite day, relaxing, reassociating ourselves with Monopoly, reading, Kate writing in her journal and admiring the mountains. The evening of the 31st was spent with a couple, both biology academics newly retired from the UK, two mates from Pretoria, and a young Belgium couple. We popped a couple of bottles of champagne, toasted the new year, and had a very quiet evening under the shadow of the ever epic ranges of Lesotho and the thunderstorms that batter down in the distance. And although not our prefered option, it isn’t a bad substitute for the desert of Namibia.

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