two face....half tanned....30/4/2012  look at the arm....
OK...i'm not looking at my "babies arm" but i think i've dropped the soap. You should see the next shot......Full Moon  Today, Sunday we had breakfast at the five star hotel down the river near the falls. The breakfast on the Island was off/cancelled due to high water which is a shame as its literally on the edge of the falls. Anyhow we had a wonderful breakfast including Julies favorite, Eggs Benedict ! It was a little cheaper than on the Island but all the same we got to eat on the terrace and watch the river flow past. The reason for this is its my Birthday this week and also Julie's 40th in a few days. Mum paid for our breakfast in lieu of a card and present. I've also been saved the normal hassle of going into Doncaster to exchange my gift as Mum normally buys me a load of rubbish (i think now she does this deliberatly and carefully). Thanks Mum ! The flight home would have been expensive just too exchange the gift. To cap this off we are thinking of taking a microlight flight above the falls. We are still thinking about it as its a lot of money but not too much it will break the bank. Watch this space.  Wonderful World ???29/4/2012 We've been thinking that we've been around a bit and we were actually trying to find a list....What are the "7 wonders of the world" ?
Anyhow from a few of the lists we've seen this is what we have ticked off. We've been near to The Great Barrier Reef and to some of the others but not actually touched them. We want to see the Nothern Lights and go to Machu Picchu, Peru. There's some others that would be nice and we will do them on this trip. So the question is,,,,,we've already done more than 7 so they need a bigger list. Possibly we could start the "26 wonders of the world" list and make some money printing t-shirts. Petra, Jordan Pyramids, Egypt Grand Canyon, USA Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe Great Wall of China, China Taj Mahal, India Channel Tunnel, England (and unfortunately France) CN Tower, Canada Golden Gate Bridge, USA Empire State Building, USA Colosseum, Italy Yosemite National Park, USA (according to my Dad...) The rise and fall of a Queen....29/4/2012 Its highwater and its pouring over the falls. Its well worth the $20usd each to get in the falls area. Finally something of value in Africa. Its something to behold. The photos of me are by Julie. She wants some credit for making me look good. This is pretty difficult to do,,,, so she must be doing something right. I've made my first fire its now becoming a habit.            Six Months....27/4/2012 17310 Miles.
27857 Kilometers. 189 Days. By the end of today i will update The Costs section with some totals and percentages. Its not good.....and we've done nowt ! Costs updated....took longer than i thought. New Photos in Photo Section.23/4/2012 Some Photos from our recent trip to South Luangwa National Park in Zambia are posted in the photos section under the Animals Africa Section. Photos Here:- Glad to see we can go shopping I made fire Sat having a beer Are those my Diff marks in the mud? I needed to get towed off both Diffs....so they were my diff marks. Another Angle Cutting Wood. Thanks to Mustafa ! Cheers ! Tit for tat...I get rescued by a Toyota, so i rescue a toyota right back.....         Slow internet you'll have to wait.22/4/2012 Sorry everyone. The mobile is slow in the park so the pictures will come later. The one for Mia was a special case............
Signed Sealed and Delivered.....22/4/2012 There you go Mia. The Elephants have their letter. I can only apologise as to the late delivery, six months is a little long......... 
Sugar land Express....19/4/2012 You should see the queue for sugar.....OMG.....its nearly as big as the one for fuel. In actual fact is probably longer.
Thanks for the pointers on fuel but we are getting out of Malawi and coming back. i'm getting a card for internet so more in a little while.......today....and hour or so....please wait..... Fuel Glorious Fuel.....15/4/2012 The trip to the National Park in Malawi is cancelled. Thanks to a bit of irresponsible travelling and a stuck lorry which we had to drive around (a rather long way to get 150meters past it where the detour came out was about 30km) we don't have enough Diesel to go to the park and still make it out of Malawi. We don't have a sim and are using the dongle in Mzoozoozoo to post this so we won;t have email proper for a while. The town where we are is OK and has some reasonable shops to get some stocks of food. We are re-stocked in alcohol which is the main thing. We've done the washing and its out to dry in the good weather we are now getting a few nights of heavy rain in Chitimba Beach and Lukwe Camp were dampening our spirits (quite literally) and considering we had no spirits left we are happy to be here in the dry with vodka.
We knew before we arrived that the owner here was Korean. They aren't here!!! but the replacement hosts are.... The Korean Girl and here partner (who learnt korean in 2.5 years BTW) had dumplings, soup, bap, kimchi last night for us (the Kimchi was just for us). Tonight is Bibimbap but no kimchi as she's run out. Run Forrest Run......10/4/2012 Matilda has a new set of legs...... Air bags gone. Helper springs fitted at the "healthy!" price of £216 (UK) or 550,000 TSH. The garage didn't have any so in true African style stole some off another car in the garage (so second hand 25,000km used and off Puma 110 so Genuine Land Rover parts). I wasn't going to complain. They did a get job of fixing them on in about 2 hours. Then we discovered the rear anti roll bar needed some new Universal Joints but they were two expensive at £40 each and i needed two. So we cobbled together some old bushes i had and using the Dremmel made them the correct shape, re-greased then and refitted the UJ's. Another thing for the shopping list for the UK when we come home. The UJ's have new boots fitted to hopefully keep the grease in. PHOTOS
Photos are all Julies work. Good work !             Darn it......9/4/2012 it may work better than epoxy....by darn i mean damn and blast and the woollen thing you grannie does to your socks. My epoxy didn't hold and neither did the three bolts put in for good measure. To my father, you cannot see the 3000kg rated hi-lift farm jack on the rear bumper. That and the little bottle are holding the car up. Two Jacks. It was later the dodgy lifting started but at that point the wheel was back on and i was working on the spring with the wheel attached. Still buttock clenching time. I hate farm jacks. So we are stuck in the Christian Mission for another night.....we need to move. This place isn't very good. Its CHEAP though and has a flat good car park for jacking ( the car ! ). Two other cars arrived today and they left to another place quite quickly. We may follow. Tomorrow i need to try to fabricate another top mount from wood and metal. It will work i think but i'm relying on local "craftsmen". Somethings they can do but others they try and fail. Lets see..... Second option is the dealer for real Land Rover helper springs and ditch the airbags....How much and do they have them,,, including the mounts???? Hmmm. 3rd plan is continue on my HD springs. Speed bumps are the issue. They arn't gentle in Africa. Zambia and Foley's possibly..... Pictures, Large Spacer is knackered.   Long Way Round.....8/4/2012 I bet the team of helpers for those two bikers never let them drive 140miles for no reason. Matilda was in a hurry to get to a recommended campsite on the lake called Malawi. She was driving at night through 75cm deep water in what is really her first swim. (this wasn't planned as the camp was 60km further than we thought on tracks) She did this twice only to arrive at the third swollen river, which wasn't a charm. An earlier bus and truck were blocking our path and just sort of "floating" there in the distance. The locals we great and tried to redirect us on the long way round. Turned out to be a VERY long way round so we aborted in favour of backtrack. So we had to backtrack over 100km to the camp we'd seen earlier in the day,,,much earlier. We arrived there at well past 10pm. We've now gone back to the main town to a Christian Mission to basically fill up with Diesel before heading into Malawi. Our little excursion had used 140miles from our 800mile range and we need this in Malawi as they have very little Diesel and what they do have is poor quality and $4usd per litre (if you can get any). A thoroughly rubbish day..... To top all this off i noticed the suspension was broken so i spent today fixing that. The top rubber mount for the Air Lift system was broken. I hope my epoxy is good at sticking this type of plastic/rubber. It doesn't look like polypropylene. Fingers crossed it isn't otherwise i will need to get one made from wood somewhere.     A clean slate...8/4/2012 actually a clean sheet. For those of a sensitive disposition please look away now...... 
Mouse Hunt......8/4/2012 we have a hitch hiker....we noticed that rather than using the toilet bottle i have to use a little critter has done his business all over the car. We emptied the car and cleaned and couldn't find it but did find poo in every corner.
Now we remember the mouse in the lounge in Jungle Junction....this was either the place we picked him up or the place we dropped him off.....we will never know. The car is mouse free we think. We are checking in a week for additional little markers...... Too Fast Two Furious.8/4/2012 We got a speeding ticket the other day. 30,000TSH for the ticket or 15,000 for "the bribe" we opted for the plea bargain and paid 13,000TSH. We did go back to check the speed was posted on the sign before we paid our due. We we legitimatly caught at 73 in a 50. We didn;t see the sign and i thought it was 80 limit. We arranged our decoy wallet on the trip to check the sign with small bills and then pleaded poverty. The normal rate is 10,000TSH for the bribe anyhow so we slightly over paid. The normally start at 100USD or something mental. I'm blaming julie as shes my second pair of eyes and she was in photo mode and not concentrating on my driving.......
Two Time Winners...4/4/2012 Again we have free accomodation in Morogoro at Dragonaires. We really like it here, not only because Guy Mcdonald the owner his wife ans son (also called Neil) have given us a free room for the second time the staff here are great and the people that come here have given us tips for south america (and bought us a drink to boot). The food and bar is great. I'm waiting for tripadvisor to accept my listing before i can post a review. Would you believe it they aren't listed on there so i need to sort that out right away and get a review posted !
We were on standby for the room as he had paying guests comeing but Guy still got us a shower and when the guests cancelled we were give the key ! Absolutely superb. Thanks to Guy and his family for making us extremely welcome and to all his staff for the superb food and service. Their "just cleaned" fish tank made me think of my little fishes which i gave up to come on the trip. When i get home i'm getting more. Into the blue...2/4/2012 after leaving Morogoro and the free hotel, car wash and beer luxury we have moved on to Dar Es Salaam and the Beach Campsite at Kigamboni (or something like that..). This is a nice place with one fatal flaw....they don't have any fresh water ! none....
The showers are salt, the pool is salt and so is the sea about 10meters away. So once you have dipped you can't get un-salty. Its annoying. The have a bore hole and this water is used for everything and the water is Brackish which means mostly salty. We've had to order water to rinse off. Ordering it at a cost i might add. Combine this with the fact that its damn hot here its not the best campsite in the world. If they had fresh water it would be lovely. Also I've taken some photos of Julie for those who cannot remember what she looks like and are moaning that i don't post any ( he doesn't actually take any of me!). |
