Author: Greg

I was late leaving Zvakanaka Camping at 10am because I was trying to cook everything, because it was the last power I would have for I don’t know how many days. It was mostly downhill from the top of the mountain range driving on the N1. At the turn off to Pafuri I stopped at the service station, to fill up the last empty jerry can with fuel. Then it was a fairly quiet road. I plodded again at about 65kmh. I stopped for lunch on a side road, and only 2 cars drove past. Then onto Masisi. 3 years ago we got fuel at Masisi, but this time they were closed. They were having a landlord dispute, which they hoped would be solved soon, so they could open up again. Another 12km to Nthakeni Bush camp. No one camped here. They are expecting an onslaught of early school holiday people next Thursday, so I am a few days ahead of the dreaded South African school holiday rush.

Weather has been good, with most of the afternoon about 23C.

I left again around 8:30am. This time it was impossible to avoid the N1, it is essentially the only road.  I plodded along again, pulling over many times to let people pass. It was only 110km to Louis Trichardt, so I was there again before lunch. I went to PnP and Checkers to get even more supplies. I am loading up as I am not expecting much in Mozambique since I am taking the inland route.  I then went to the service station and filled up the tank and four jerry cans with 115l of diesel, which cost nearly $A300 at 26 Rand per litre. After that I crawled up the big hill to Zvakanaka Camping, where we had stayed before 3 years ago. I was lucky to get in, because there is a big bicycle race tomorrow, and every other campsite is booked.

Another 170km on. I left Weesgerus at 8:30am, continued to potter along the R101, got to Polokwane around lunch time. I drove to Makros and got even more supplies, spending an hour or so browsing. Then it was off to the outskirts of Polokwane, to Boma in the bush campsite. Nice campsite, I was the only one there. I spent time in the sun going through the boxes, trying to get rid of junk, and throw it in the bin.

I left late because there was always more things to do. I avoided the N1 and drove through Pretoria, then via the R101. I was trying to avoid police road blocks, which I thought would be more frequent on the N1. However there were several police road blocks on the quieter R101. I didn’t get pulled over though. The R101 suited me better, I could plod along at a low speed. I arrived at around 4pm at Weesgerus resort 3km west of Modimolle. It was an OK caravan park. Its hard to find caravan parks close to Joberg that are not expensive and over the top resorts.

I arrived back in Johannesburg on May 1st 2020, two years and two months since racing back to Australia at the start of Covid. I had 58kg of luggage. That included one change of clothes, the rest was car parts etc for fixing Clancy.

Clancy had been sitting out in the weather for those two years and had taken a bit of a beating. The good things when I arrived. The cranking battery was good having spent two years attached to a solar panel. The deep cycle batteries were good, having been totally disconnected, but still had a voltage of over 13V. I hired a car for the first 3 days and drove around Joberg getting things like epoxy resin, car parts and tools.

I spent five weeks fixing things. The list:

*Replacing the hinge of the door. I had left the door siliconed up, because the hinge broke the day before I left. This included fibreglassing the aluminum edge back on the door.

*making a new lid for the roof box. The roof box was something I made at the last minute before I drove to Sydney to load into the shipping container. The lid was badly designed and leaked when it rained, so I had to extend the lid so it fitted over the top of the roof box.

• Repaint Clancy all over. The paint had faded over two years. Partly because it was painted so badly. I was still painting it the night before I left to drive to Sydney to put it in the shipping container.
• Derust, I used rust converter on many parts that has rusted in the weather.
• Replace the radiator. The radiator was leaking, and I had brought a replacement radiator just before Covid, but had never installed it.
• Replace the tie rod ends. This caused a lot of problems. I sucessfully replaced the tie rod ends, but then it needed wheel aligning. Over two days and four different wheel aligners I found no-one could do it. Either Clancy was too heavy, or too high, or the rear wheels were too covered stopping the alignment targets being attached. Eventually the last guy I spoke too told me how to do it myself. I did and it drives quite well.

  

   

• Numerous fibreglass fixes. I had many little pieces of fibreglass that needed fixing, or improving.
• Replacing flap hinge. I needed to replace the hinge on both side flaps. I did one side, left the other side until later.
• Replace the water pump and many valves. I am not sure what went wrong, but many of the 10mm ball valves got corroded, and the water pump died. I possibly think that because I pumped a bleach solution into the tanks before I left, and it probably sat in the lines and the pump, and corroded everything. I should have drained the water lines.
• Installed the UV filter in line with the existing filter.  However I did not tighten it down enough, water got into the UV light and the ballast shorted, so it doesn’t work.
• New inverter. Cabled but when I connected it up it blew all the fuses in the inverter. I pulled it apart and replaced all the fuses, reconnected it but something else blew. I have disconnected it pending further investigation.