It was nice to sleep in a bed for a night, and I even snored a whole lot less apparently. It still was a late night though and we were all up early for the drive to Chobe (Kasane).
Ah yes, the drive to Chobe. A few hours in, the truck pulled up without us asking (we’d normally ring a bell from the back whenever we wanted a pit stop) and we all piled out. Colin, the driver, felt something strange, and checked the front tyres – they were shot completely. One of them had an entire half of it balded, the other had eaten through the rubber into the steel meshing of the radial, and in one place through that to the rubber below! The day prior, Colin had the truck serviced and the wheels “computer aligned”. A quick measure with some twine showed the alignment was out by just over an inch! So Colin and I got to it.
It was difficult to adjust the alignment without a pipe wrench to turn the bar, but we eventually got it. There was only one spare wheel, but another was taken from the back wheels which were doubled up on each side (one wheel on the back could easily handle the bearing load of the truck in its current configuration). The spare wheel was up above the kitchen area at the back of the truck, about 2.5m above the road. To get the spare down we just climbed up and pushed it off and waiting for it to stop bouncing and rolling.
Getting the dud one up – that was a mammoth job. We’d already spent over an hour under the truck, bolting and rebolting these great big wheels, but for Colin and I to lift this one, well, even the girls all stood up to engage in the spectacle. Just think about how heavy a wheel must be to bear the weight of and steer a 20 tonne truck (with load). Nat climbed up to the platform, Colin and I took deep breathes and hoisted. Getting it to shoulder height wasn’t too bad, but getting it above my head was really tough. As we’re both standing there, trembling under the weight on our heads Colin says “right, now we have to lift it right above our heads”. I told him that I was pretty darn sure that I couldn’t manage that, and we still wouldn’t reach. We called the girls to bring over some chairs (small camp stools that fold in half to pack down) but I told Colin I wouldn’t be able to climb that either (and he was quite a bit shorter than me anyway). Hmm. After a bit he hoisted his end a little to put it on an edge on the truck, climbed up on a stool and then came the big moment – it just had to go up.
1, 2, 3 and with a big surge of energy, sure enough I did manage to hoist the tyre high enough for Nat to get half a hand on it. Colin scrambled up the back and finished the flip and lift, but the day was mine, with steel mesh splinters in my hands and small but vicious ant bites all up my legs the girls clapped and cheered and swooned, and I was the hero from then on. (Until I accidentally burped out loud over dinner one night and lost every piece of noble standing I had).
On the road again, and an hour later we made a pit stop. I was just unzipping my pants when Abbie called from the truck to look up – there was an elephant not 30m away! At first I thought “Oh wow, that’ll be a nice view while I’m going” but it very soon dawned on me that I was in quite a bit of danger, as he was staring right at me and actually started to move towards us. I yelled over to Nat who was making a quick dash for a bush, and she skedaddled quick smart, as did I. Plenty more bush down the road.
And so it came to pass that we reached Kasane, quite late, it was all we could do to throw some foodstuffs together in an esky and jump on the truck that was taking us down to the safari game cruise along the Chobe River.
It was a really nice cruise, we saw bachelor packs of elephants mucking around in the river, a large group of hippo, a mother crocodile nesting, lesothos, fish eagles, pied kingfishers, other sea birds and some cattle. Yeah cattle: along one side of the river is the Chobe national park in Botswana, and along the other side is private land in Namibia. There’s even an island in the middle that the two countries are still arguing over.
That night was our last in tents for the tour, and I can’t say I was disappointed about that either. Up early in the morning we went on a game cruise through Chobe National Park in a safari truck. Our guide was great, Leash and Loz sat up front and worked on him to see if we could find some big cats (there are lion and leopard in the park apparently). So in between the copious numbers of baboon, impala, hippo and elephants he’d stop the truck whenever he came across paw tracks, and even followed them back and forward. Right towards the end as we were heading towards leaving the park we stopped next to another group who’d found one of the two lion prides in the park. After finding out where they were we were off, and off the beaten path too, in 4WD mode and all. 
We found them soon enough, and we were all stoked to see wild lion. They certainly weren’t phased by us at all though, which I found slightly odd; they looked right through us as though we weren’t there. This was great though, a real highlight of the trip. We found out on the way back that the driver wasn’t actually supposed to leave the roads, so we tipped him quite well at the end.
That was it for Chobe for us, we jumped on the truck and off to Zimbabwe we went.
The border was interesting, after leaving Botswana and just before going through the gate into Zimbabwe, some guy off to the side in some home-boy jeans and dodgy shirt hassled us to see our passports and receipts for the visas we’d just bought. This guy had no ID or even official pose or demeanour. We followed Colin’s lead though, and did what he asked. He slowly but properly checked everything was in order and asked us what was in the truck. Colin answered not untruthfully, but didn’t mention the blank CDs and DVDs that were being taken into and through the country because they would be taxed of seized or some such weak excuse. He and Nat said to us it wasn’t really smuggling though. Hmm. At any rate this guy was too lazy to check for himself and he waved us through. “Let’s go throw ourselves off things!” Colin cried as we climbed back into the truck.
CX748 Johannesburg --> Hong Kong
Ah yes, the drive to Chobe. A few hours in, the truck pulled up without us asking (we’d normally ring a bell from the back whenever we wanted a pit stop) and we all piled out. Colin, the driver, felt something strange, and checked the front tyres – they were shot completely. One of them had an entire half of it balded, the other had eaten through the rubber into the steel meshing of the radial, and in one place through that to the rubber below! The day prior, Colin had the truck serviced and the wheels “computer aligned”. A quick measure with some twine showed the alignment was out by just over an inch! So Colin and I got to it.
It was difficult to adjust the alignment without a pipe wrench to turn the bar, but we eventually got it. There was only one spare wheel, but another was taken from the back wheels which were doubled up on each side (one wheel on the back could easily handle the bearing load of the truck in its current configuration). The spare wheel was up above the kitchen area at the back of the truck, about 2.5m above the road. To get the spare down we just climbed up and pushed it off and waiting for it to stop bouncing and rolling.
Getting the dud one up – that was a mammoth job. We’d already spent over an hour under the truck, bolting and rebolting these great big wheels, but for Colin and I to lift this one, well, even the girls all stood up to engage in the spectacle. Just think about how heavy a wheel must be to bear the weight of and steer a 20 tonne truck (with load). Nat climbed up to the platform, Colin and I took deep breathes and hoisted. Getting it to shoulder height wasn’t too bad, but getting it above my head was really tough. As we’re both standing there, trembling under the weight on our heads Colin says “right, now we have to lift it right above our heads”. I told him that I was pretty darn sure that I couldn’t manage that, and we still wouldn’t reach. We called the girls to bring over some chairs (small camp stools that fold in half to pack down) but I told Colin I wouldn’t be able to climb that either (and he was quite a bit shorter than me anyway). Hmm. After a bit he hoisted his end a little to put it on an edge on the truck, climbed up on a stool and then came the big moment – it just had to go up.1, 2, 3 and with a big surge of energy, sure enough I did manage to hoist the tyre high enough for Nat to get half a hand on it. Colin scrambled up the back and finished the flip and lift, but the day was mine, with steel mesh splinters in my hands and small but vicious ant bites all up my legs the girls clapped and cheered and swooned, and I was the hero from then on. (Until I accidentally burped out loud over dinner one night and lost every piece of noble standing I had).
On the road again, and an hour later we made a pit stop. I was just unzipping my pants when Abbie called from the truck to look up – there was an elephant not 30m away! At first I thought “Oh wow, that’ll be a nice view while I’m going” but it very soon dawned on me that I was in quite a bit of danger, as he was staring right at me and actually started to move towards us. I yelled over to Nat who was making a quick dash for a bush, and she skedaddled quick smart, as did I. Plenty more bush down the road.And so it came to pass that we reached Kasane, quite late, it was all we could do to throw some foodstuffs together in an esky and jump on the truck that was taking us down to the safari game cruise along the Chobe River.
It was a really nice cruise, we saw bachelor packs of elephants mucking around in the river, a large group of hippo, a mother crocodile nesting, lesothos, fish eagles, pied kingfishers, other sea birds and some cattle. Yeah cattle: along one side of the river is the Chobe national park in Botswana, and along the other side is private land in Namibia. There’s even an island in the middle that the two countries are still arguing over.
That night was our last in tents for the tour, and I can’t say I was disappointed about that either. Up early in the morning we went on a game cruise through Chobe National Park in a safari truck. Our guide was great, Leash and Loz sat up front and worked on him to see if we could find some big cats (there are lion and leopard in the park apparently). So in between the copious numbers of baboon, impala, hippo and elephants he’d stop the truck whenever he came across paw tracks, and even followed them back and forward. Right towards the end as we were heading towards leaving the park we stopped next to another group who’d found one of the two lion prides in the park. After finding out where they were we were off, and off the beaten path too, in 4WD mode and all. 
We found them soon enough, and we were all stoked to see wild lion. They certainly weren’t phased by us at all though, which I found slightly odd; they looked right through us as though we weren’t there. This was great though, a real highlight of the trip. We found out on the way back that the driver wasn’t actually supposed to leave the roads, so we tipped him quite well at the end.That was it for Chobe for us, we jumped on the truck and off to Zimbabwe we went.
The border was interesting, after leaving Botswana and just before going through the gate into Zimbabwe, some guy off to the side in some home-boy jeans and dodgy shirt hassled us to see our passports and receipts for the visas we’d just bought. This guy had no ID or even official pose or demeanour. We followed Colin’s lead though, and did what he asked. He slowly but properly checked everything was in order and asked us what was in the truck. Colin answered not untruthfully, but didn’t mention the blank CDs and DVDs that were being taken into and through the country because they would be taxed of seized or some such weak excuse. He and Nat said to us it wasn’t really smuggling though. Hmm. At any rate this guy was too lazy to check for himself and he waved us through. “Let’s go throw ourselves off things!” Colin cried as we climbed back into the truck.
CX748 Johannesburg --> Hong Kong
posted by Tim at 12:00 am
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