Blowout! - Day 30

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Our second cooked breakfast in a row! But we were soon off into town, Camilla and Chris to do the shopping while Ian and I tracked down an internet cafe to get off some photos. We found one where a delightful young lady manager helped us through the niceties of getting our photos off and printing out long newsy emails for us from Karen and Neil. Unfortunately the speed of internet here is not much better than Botswana. I expect we will have to wait till SA before we will find any broadband.

We also found an excellently stocked Bottle Shop and were able to replenish our cellars before setting off westwards along the Angolan border, hopeful of covering as much ground as we could in the day. But it is the 13th - unlucky for some! We were on a stretch of non tarred road where work was being done and the deviation, which by African standards was an excellent bit of road, was being graded and there was a line of earth down the centre of the road, left by the grader. I had one wheel either side of this line and was making good progress at about 40 mph when suddenly there was a huge rock, dug up by the grader, right in my path. I realised it was too big to straddle without risk of damage underneath the car so swerved to avoid it. Just a fraction too late; I hit it with my left front wheel and Ian, who was following, said he saw the car leap into the air. I pulled up immediately, expecting the worst, and was relieved to find that it was only the tyre that had blown - no damage to the wheel rim or the car’s undercarriage.

It took us about an hour to change the wheel and I am now driving with only one spare. But I suppose that I can count myself lucky that no other damage was done. From there on we have been driving more or less exclusively on dirt roads, but the quality is excellent and we have been able to maintain speeds of 60 to 70 mph without any trouble at all. The roads have been dead straight, through scrubland forest now all green since the start of the short rains. The forest is very beautiful but after 2 or 3 hours of this, even beautiful forest can become rather monotonous! Before we got to the more populated area near Oshakati we drove off the main road down a very sandy fire break, managed to get off this into the bush under a spreading acacia, and set up camp. Looking at the blue sky I don’t think we will be threatened by rain tonight.

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Comments

[Jana]

Thanks..and Good Luck
Hi guys - I've been following your route every day and am still very envious. Hope you travel safe and enjoy every mile of the way. The delightful you lady manager from the Internet Shop!