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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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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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!