Ladysmith adventures

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June 14, 2009

Before sunrise we are awake, watching as the sun peeks its yellow round head, and colouring the sky in yellows, pinks and a variety of orange. It is so magnificent. Again we gear up to start the final drive to our destination.

We are excited and can’t wait to see the glory of the big mountains. We get to a town called Dundee, and do all our food shopping. O’ my, but the cost of food is so extremely high. We pack everything into crates in the Landie and then fuel up. Okey so the journey begins once again. The road is beautiful as we drive and we sing along to some Sunday tunes.

Then just before getting to a small town called Ladysmith the Landie makes some funny noises. We stop and call Ric, there is no power steering, we decide to push forward, and we are about 3km from town. But as we pull away, we hear some funny noise, get out, the fan belt has gone to pieces, and we don’t have an extra one. Again on the phone with Ric. We drive slowly into town and stop at the first petrol station to see if there is someone to help us. We get the number for a 24h mechanic who offers to help. Once he gets there the news is not good. It is Sunday and all the shops are closed. He offers to see what he can do, takes some parts out the front and tells us he will be back. We wait, time is ticking, we still have to get to the mountain and pitch our tent, and we discovered that the Landie’s lights are not working so we don’t want to drive at night. Close to 4pm, when the guy hasn’t returned we ring him and about 45min later he drives into the parking area with some good news. He fiddles here and there and we are good to go. We got the lights to work, but only on bright.

We drive off in the dark and push ahead for the berg. We are scared to drive fast and everyone coming from the front thinks we are rude driving with our lights on bright. We keep on apologising, thinking they will hear us. We stop in a small town to get some more KFC. Then we have to drive to a place we have no idea were it is. At about 21h30 we arrive at the campsite. Stressed out and tired. We start pitching our tent (which we have never used before and have no clue how to set it up). Soon we have a tent ready, mattress pumped all duvets and sleeping bags ready and about a half a bottle of Old Brown Sherry in our belly to keep us warm from the 1°C. We very quickly snuggle in to bed, my feet have never been so cold, and I lie in bed trying everything to heat them up. We are ready for a cold night with all fingers crossed that we have enough to keep us warm.

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