With the gracious help of Ian, a friend of Hluhluwe River Lodge, we made our way into Durban, and after a stellar night’s stopover at the Happy Hippo backpackers (next to Ushaka Marine World), we landed in Jo’burg airport. Now having traveled our way through Eastern and Southern Africa over the last 8 months we aren’t strangers to African-time or camping out in some fairly average ghettos, but I think we have finally found a winner.

Having pre-arranged a room (one of our first and only double rooms on the trip!) with Gemini Backpackers here in Jo’burg and having been impressed by their website and travel book reviews we were massively disappointed. Even though Gemini offer a free pick up from the airport, they don’t let you organise it in advance and we were told we had to call when we arrived at the airport. 40 minutes we were told – seemed fine too us. Our dudes arrived over an hour and forty minutes after we called… twice. It doesn’t sound like much, but after a cattle-truck style flight all you want to do is get to your accommodation. Except in this case, as we found out. Arriving at Gemini we were greeted by a group of locals, wasted and trying to play snooker, rotting building materials lying at the entrance, a ‘fully stocked’ kitchen with no utensils, dishes everywhere and rooves that leaked in the kitchen, dorm and double rooms. None of the electical outlets worked in our room either, but this was nothing compared to battling small jumping creatures – it doesn’t seem they clean the rooms or communal areas past a bit of moppig. Come on guys.

Now I know it sounds like a bitching session, but if guidebooks keep printing the same reports and pumping up backpacking joints that truly don’t deserve it, then how is there any chance to keep some form of quality control? Apparently, the same owners have had this place for over seven years and it looks like a run down brothel. I guess one good thing that has come out of it is free internet, from which we have been able to plan the very few remaining days that we have left in Victoria Falls, from the Zambian side.

If the only thing you do in Jo’burg is NOT come to Gemini Backackers then it has been a trip well spent. We have two nights in Jo’burg when we fly back from Livingstone in Zambia and we’re looking at other options… all of which also offer tours of the city, Soweto, the Apartheid Museum and other cultural sites around Jo’burg. ‘We have heard’ these are great places to stay. We’ll see… We have plans to meet up with an old lecturer and friend of Kate’s, Rick Snell, from UTas, on the 29th, our second last night in Jo’burg. Let’s hope we finish up our catch up dinner at a reasonably clean and comfortable backpackers this time!!!

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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You pay a lot to be in the Serengeti, but its worth it. The herds of Zebra, Wilderbeest, and Elephants dominate the dry savannah while the pride of sleeping lions we spotted under a fallen acacia took our breath away. It was on our only full day in the park that our troubles started.

Actually thats a small lie. On entering the park the afternoon prior, we blew a tyre. Simple enough, but after replacing the tyre with an already flat spare we discovered how quickly you can change  it a second time when you are parked next to a stack of fresh elephant dung. The tyres weren’t an issue, as the small garage in the centre of the park which happened to sell diesel at a price only weighted in gold, was able to repair our inner tube and fill all our tyres. We camped out the evening in the Dik-Dik public campsite, cooking up a storm with a group of lively overland tour cooks and guides in the bolted down, open air kitchen. As the sun dipped and the overlanders settled in for the night, Katie and I lay back soaking in the smells and sounds of the Serengeti. It really is something you will only ever experience here in Africa, the sky is so much bigger here and the sunsets are even more epic.

A quick breakfast of cereal and Ugandan coffee that we managed to smuggle out of Bwindi, and we were off. Helga was loaded up and we started our day full of planned self driving safari missions. We were keen to check out the distant north east of the park and look for the elusive elephants, while also travel past the hippo pools and into leopard charting territory. But what we encountered, wasn’t exactly the type of leopard we were expecting…

10:00am hit us, and along with it… our slave clutch cylinder in our ‘83 Toyota Landcruiser blew a seal. We had no clutch. We had no clutch fluid left, and we were in the middle of one of the most vast, wild game parks on the planet. But like most things we encountered on our adventure through Africa we weren’t along for very long. A fellow traveler rocked by in (dare I say it) his Landrover and threw us a small bottle of clutch fluid which I dumped straight into the reservoir. After what seemed like an eternity of pedal pumping we had just enough give in the cylinder (while poking under the gearbox) to snap into first gear and start rolling. We knew from our previous day’s tyre escapades where to drive to get to the mechanics, and as long as we stayed in first (or second when we could time the change right!) we would get there.

And get there we did, along the way we crossed paths with a mechanic from Leopard Safaris who just so happened to be an expert in Landcruisers. We lost the entire afternoon to resolving the blown cylinder, and although they didn’t have the correct part for our 4×4, the crafty mechanics were able to machine out the internals of a new Landcruiser slave cylinder and get us back on the road… just in time for a dusk game drive.

When we step back and think about this, how amazing is it, that in the middle of the Serengeti you can destroy the smallest of parts on your 4×4, purely from wear and tear, and have it fixed FASTER than if you did the same thing back home in Australia. Incredible. Tomorrow we pack up and head out towards Arusha to check out the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) and camp out a few nights in Masai Camp just out of the city. Until then, peace.

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…

With out African adventure quickly coming to a close, as we fly home to Australia in under two weeks, we drove ourselves south of Durban once again at booked ourselves into Aliwal Rest & Dive in the quaint little town of Umkomaas. Kevin and Debbie have been running the outfit here since June ‘09 and have a stellar setup. Located at 39 Moody St (off the main road) Rest &  Dive has two excellent little self contained doubles, all with ensuite and kitchen inside. Outside there is a braai area, outdoor showers with piping hot water, and a 4m training pool that budding young scuba instructors in the area rent from Kevin and Debbie for their pool sessions.

The 7m rigid hull that parks itself in the driveway is impressive. Being slightly smaller than your standard duck means that Bruce and Wise (the training skipper) can manouvre out of the Umkomaas river mouth, through the shallow sand banks and out onto the shoal.

After talking with Kevin we lined up two dives for the following day, first out to their secret spot to play with Raggies (not Raggie cave, but further out into the shoal) and the second dive up onto the touristy cave sites. An early morning wake up call of 5:45AM and coffee saw up slide into our neoprene and doning our tanks out on Aliwal Shoal. With vis of around 10m and a current of at least a few knots we struggled to keep on the bottom to see the sharks, but once we stuck ourselves to the rock, we had an incredible experience with the mighty fish.

Countless Ragged Tooth Sharks swam around and through us, one alpha male cruising past me slowly to show off the fishing hook that was slowly rusting its way free of his jaw. After chewing through our air overly fast we took a surface interval next to a shark diving (chumming) boat and stuck our heads under the surface to check out over 40 Blacktip Sharks and somewhere, even through we couldn’t see  him, a BIG Tiger Shark chilling near the chum bucket. Our second dive took place on the tourist route, outside Raggie Cave. Again, hardcore currents helped us chew through air but we were welcomed once again by a huge family of sharks.

Seeing these creatures in their own habitat is awe inspiring and anyone who has preconceptions of sharks and how they behave in the presence of humans MUST come and dive here at Aliwal Rest & Dive. No cage, and in their natural habitat. Check this video of us on our surface interval, incredible.

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