Since leaving CT we have both silently been wondering what and when would be the first major incident with MrO, after all he is a 20 year old Land Rover that needs constant love, attention and encouragement.
Basically from day 2 we had a new rattle, this has since turned out to be the exhaust pipe bracket – no biggy. Then the brake light started flickering, this is still not fixed but the brakes work fine so on we go. Then there was a small intermittent water leak from nowhere where we could see, a daily top up of water and no overheating means this is no big issue – for the moment.
So having driven some of the most corrugated roads I think MrO has ever seen we thought it best to head for Keetmanshoop and just have things looked at. This also gave us a chance to explore a kokkerboom forest, a tree that my mother loves having grown up in the Northern Cape and a chance to visit the giants play ground. Basically Namibia is a geologist’s dream and since this is what Kevin studied it all fitted together rather well – we could not have been luckier!
Yesterday evening, after been chased by a cheetah while on our bikes (I will come back to this) I noticed a not insignificant leak from the fuel tank. By this morning we had lost a fair amount of fuel this is after Kevin having investigated the problem and tried to fix it bush mechanics style. The fuel draw for the engine had snapped off the fuel tank. As there were what looked like 2 fuel draws we hoped that we could still make it to town for the service we had booked for MrO. We didn’t get out of the campsite before needing to call the recovery and a tow into the mechanics. Anyway by lunch time we were back on the road with new filters and the fuel pipe fixed – we are now silently hoping that from now on it’s just our usual love and attention that will get MrO around Africa. After all we have every other spare part he could need! (There is no photo of this as I was banned!)
The cheetah chase – Where we were staying was also a sanctuary for cheetah’s though we had not seen them on arrival and were told to come back at 5pm for the evening feed! So with some time to spare Kevin and I had poodled to the pool on our bikes without incident and on the way back as we rounded a corner rather close to a farm fence out of the corner of my eye I saw something chasing me – thank god for that fence. Though needless to say I looked akin to road runner. Apparently the cheetah was just ‘playing’ and it wasn’t a real charge – lets hope next time that happens I am in the car! (we went back for photo’s once our heart rates had returned to normal and we had stopped laughing at ourselves)
misteroverland 