Disaster Movie....

I've forgotten to mention quite a few things on the blog recently and its been family asking questions thats reminded me.

We got back the £12,000 for the carnet we managed to swap over in cape town SARS office. The RAC in the UK were actually pretty quick so well done to them. We DHL'd the carnet back for a whopping £10 and it took longer to get from Heathrow to Bristol than from Cape Town to Heathrow. The delivery was a special rate. We used the DHL office just down the road from the SARS office.

(Disaster 1)
We left my portable Hard Drive in the UK by accident.

This was UPS'd back to me using Interparcel.co.uk and a phenominal service. Picked up by UPS literally 30mins after it was booked for collection from my mothers house around 3pm and in Cape Town by 11am the next day. This time it was £35.

Matilda is in the container as you can see from the photos. We had to pay for shipping va wire transfer from the UK. £25 of my money paying for them to send my money in Rand over here with a really crappy exchange rate. So not only do they charge you for the service they make a fortune from the exchange rate. Bloody banks....anyhow good service and nice people on the phone.

To get here in the container with a door height of 2.28meters we needed to remove the roof top jerry cans and gas bottle. This got us down to 2.32 or something so we then had to let a lot of air out of the tyres. With three on the rear step she went in the container fine. Pumped up the tyres and tucked her in.

(Disaster 2)
Not two hours after we loaded her they changed the ship from one that arrives in BA, Argentina on the 11th Decmeber to one that arrives on the 18th. This is way too late for our current plans so I complained and after a frantic few hours wondering what we would do in BA for a month, they moved it back. Thank goodness !! Thanks to the shipping company for saveing my Xmas and giving me two hours of stress.

Matilda is on the MOL Grandeur from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth and then the MOL Gratitude from PE to BA. (we hope!) Departs here on the 19th Nov and arrives BA on the 11th Dec. If you are shipping is quicker from PE. Much quicker but we've only just figured this out and really we should have been told by our suppliers. More on the entire shipping process after its all happened.

We've been to see Bourne Legacy. Wow. Really enjoyed it. Strangely the new James Bond film does come out here until the end of November so unless a miracle takes place and its on in Argentina in English we won't get to see it at the cinema. We'll just have to illegally download it because of the silly release dates ! Here is me willing to pay for it as well. Are you listening Mr MGM?

We've rented a car in lieu of Matilda. I hope shes not the jealous type. Its a one litre Kia Picanto. Since both my Mother and Step Mother have one of these, it seems to run in the family. Its not bad although the boot is small. We can fit the case in the boot,,,just. The cases we used form coming back from England are being recycled.

We found a bed a breakfast without the breakfast (cheaper that way) for 400rand per night. Its got a king size bed so we are happy. Its really near some shops and bars and stuff in an area we now know very well. Its in Table View near Dolphin Beach. Its walking distance from Ocean Basket and/or Cattle Barron. Des and Hennie.....only three nights left.....

All the receipts we have from stuff we have purchased are in the SARS office waiting to be stamped. Hopefully we can claim back the VAT. I'm not holding much hope on this as they have some impossible rules that I cannot meet. If we were flying home with the car as baggage we get all the tax back in the airport but since Matilda is off to Argentina I don't think they will give us it back and we will have to get some stamps in Argentina and pay import tax there before they will pay us it back here. This will be next to impossible as the stuff is all fitted to the car so is tax exempt there so how can we pay tax there on something now included on the carnet. Watch this space....