South Sudan, the second month

So am at the end of the second month and it has been an adventure, it has been incredibly busy. OK, so a bit later than 2 months, but has been stupid busy again...
After the trip to Malakal in the north it was time to start on the 2 machines in the south, so a quick day drive down the road to a town called Yei, south west of Juba, 160 kms, only takes 6 hours, the road isn't great, it was apparently better than last year when it took even longer. So myself and one of the mechanics from last year drove down on a Saturday, inspected the machiens and had a couple of meetings about some training for the operators that was due to start on the Monday (all the details like accommodation and what was required machinery wise for the training, stuff I had only found out about on the Thursday, even though it had been known about for 6+ weeks!) stayed at the Mine Action Group (MAG) Camp, where they have a tiny Red Duiker that someone found injured in the bush and a recently added baby Bushbuck, found orphaned. A very pleasant and well established camp outside of town near the airstrip, which included a small delay as the only bridge across the river was blocked after an SPLA (Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army) truck with apparently no brakes had driven off the brdge and into the river with about 40 people on board, so they closed the bridge for about a thousand people to stand on and watch the spectacle of trying to recover the injured, I found out later no one died fortunately, but the truck did have no brakes and the driver had been drinking in the afternoon and wasn't very popular with his commanders or the passengers who were lucky enough to be uninjured.

Monday it was start sorting out a trailer for dragging a big bit of kit down for the training, one of the headers for the machine, the flail, which is used for taking out anti-tank mines, less damage than the rotovator on the front if it strikes a mine and detonates it. The trailer hadn't been used for about 6 months, because "no one likes it", read in there, easier for the folk involved to have a hired truck do the move.
It had a small issue that because all the wheels steer, it would just wander off into the bush, doing lots of damage, so I made a plan and took it out for a test and it worked fine, so early on the Thursday left, across the big bridge over the Nile and then through town, in the middle of rush hour! Is a fair sized rig, so instead of sitting in the traffic jam, I was creating it!!
So off we set, I was hoping for about an 8 hour drive, knew it would be slow, little was I to suspect what was to happen at almost exactly the halfway point, about 10kms before we had to stop with a spring deciding it would pop out of it's holder and jam the wheels on that axle up solid, this was fixed with big hammers and using the Toyota Hilux following us to pull and then push the wheels around to get the spring back in the hole, wonderful fun in 35C heat!!
Then the wheels really did fall off, the photos say more than anything I can write, but I stopped pretty damn quick! One of the springs gave up and broke, giving me the opportunity to plough the road, not that I had any chance of making it any worse than it already was! (the most frustrating thing of this is when I finally arrived and told the guys, I got from two people that they had known the spring was broken, but kind of had omitted to mention it!! Was i ever mad!) The worst part being that there were two spare springs sitting in the yard I could have changed one before I set off!!
I had to disconnect the trailer and leave it, having taken off all the bits that could have grown legs and walked and left 3 guards with it.
So we finally made it it at 10.30, over 13 hours on the road.
Two days later of intense heat or pouring rain and the springs duly delivered down and changed (bit of an epic that too) back up the road to refit it all, we just hoped it wouldn't be a wet day as the trailer was in what would become a river if it rained, it sisn't was just 35+C all day!! Oh well you can't have everything! With the guards we had almost finished the job, with a crane and a Land cruiser before the 3 guards decided to put in an appearance, demanding more money as it had been "a very hard job" we had only been working there 6 hours and had it not been for one hitch we could have driven off and the guards would have been a bit confused to find the trailer gone!!
It was then a haze of driving up and back to Juba, repairing another rig and loading it before driving it down, then finishing repairing the trailer for moving the big machine, test loading it and working out how to get everything on to survive the trip, ready to load up and get the convoy underway that was taking the machines and storage containers and the mechanical kit to the work site out of Sudan swinging down through the north of Uganda, through Koboko to Moyo then back into Sudan into Kaji Keji county, where the camp was to be based for the de-mining to start.

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