Following a few weeks in Cape Town getting MrO ready (note to self do not leave a car in storage for so long EVER again!) my mom joined me to drive across to Durban to meet Kevin off the plane. I had had several issues with the car that needed sorting least of which the gearbox and the head gasket, though at last we were on the road, if a day later, taxi drive home and second farewell from the family. Afterall its not adventure without unplanned events, at least time is a great healer so the stress and anxiety of a poorly MrO will fade.
It was great to be back on the road again in MrO and made more special as I could share it with my mom. This year we seem to have done a number of road trips, one in Ireland along the Wild Atlantic Way and now across South Africa. What the trips had in common was lots of laughter, a little bit of stress and the calmest seas we have ever seen. For 4 days along the ‘Wild’ Atlantic Way my mom kept asking if what she was looking at was a lake, it was not, we had the same again as we drove out of Cape Town along the coast that hugs False bay, this time she didn’t ask the same question but the sea was once again like glass, maybe a sign that after all the car troubles calm had returned.
The planned route was Cape Town to Still Bay to see my maternal aunt then through the Karoo, skirting the left side of Lesotho and looping through Golden Gate National Park and on to the Royal Natal Park to meet my paternal aunt, Paddy, before heading to Pennington just south of Durban on the coast.
When you have the head on your engine replaced the advice is to not strain the vehicle for the first few hundred km’s. This ruled out driving over Sir Lowries pass to reach Still Bay but at some point we would have to tackle the mountains of the coast to reach the central Karoo. On the way over the Outeniqua pass, a winding road from sea level to 800m of what felt like 1 in 2 gradient, I had my eyes glued to the temperature gauge. This was not helped either when travelling over 50mph downhill there was a juddering through the steering wheel and into my arms which was enough to give visions of the front axel falling off. My mom reliably tells me it was rather pretty though even she wasn’t immune to my worries about MrO. Needless to say when I relayed the juddering to my husband he dismissed the severity of it, though how can you blame him, I had been calling him for the last 3 weeks with constant car issues, half expecting that he could diagnose the fault from 7000miles away. A quick balancing of the tyres did solve this issue and at last MrO seemed to be smiling, from here we galloped across the country arriving as planned in the Royal Natal park over looking the Drakensberg or Mountains of the Dragons.
Most people might think a week in the front cab of a noisy Landrover with your seventy something mother might not be rip roaring fun but I can honestly say I have memories I will treasure forever (and I am not just saying that as I know my mom will read this). The wind battered us from all angles and the anxiety of the car was at times extremely distracting but the kilometres passed quickly as the company was brilliant.
It wasn’t long and we were back at the coast, this time on the east, overlooking the Indian ocean.
misteroverland 
Lovely read
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