I got going at 5:50am because I was picking up Liz from the airport who was meant to arrive at 6:15am. However the Singapore airline flights had been arriving early some as early as 5:30am. I was on the way to the airport when Liz rang to tell be she was waiting at the airport. I got into the P1 parking area (open air so I can fit Clancy in), and Liz and I found each other. So we loaded up and headed south to join the N3 towards Durban. It was a good drive. We got to Harrismith and went shopping at Checkers for supplies and then headed for Mt Everest Game Farm.
We got through two security gates to get in. We camped up the hill in the camping area with no power, but an ablution block. There are various animals wandering around Mt Everest. We walked around and saw various antelopes, zebra, wildebeest, Ostriches with great views of the mountains behind. We spent two nights at Mt Everest.
Mt Everest is a climbing destination. There were meant to be a large group of climbers arriving when we stayed, however they cancelled because of expected rain. We did see some climbers up the mountain.
Camped at Mt Everest Game FarmZebra at Mt Everest Game FarmA male and female OstrichWildebeest at Mt EverestEagle Mountain
The next ten days were spent fixing things. I needed to replace the 7 year old AGM batteries with new LiFePo batteries. As well I replaced the tail lights with new ones. Topped up diff oils, greased the tail-shaft. I also spent a couple of days building a new bike rack at the rear to hold two bikes.
Taking out the old corroded tail-lights after 7 years
Installing a replacement door lock
Building a new bike rackTwo new tail-lights plus a relocated diesel heater tank
I arrived in South Africa 9pm September 7th 2026. At the campground Clancy is stored at David had started up the camper and shifted near the kitchen. After a chat with Marion and David, I started removing all the stuff jammed in the camper so I could make room to sleep. The inside was musty and dusty, but sleep I did. I decided I needed two days to get everything ready for a run to the Botswana border to get a new TIP (Temporary Import Permit). My existing TIP had been extended by six months but was still expiring on the 19th September, so I had to drive to Botswana cross the border, then come back into South Africa and get a new TIP.
After two days I set off on September 10th towards Botswana and made it after 260km to Hunters Moon a campsite east of Zeerust. Hunters Moon was a nice campsite. It had big lawns and a river. The couple running it had built it up over recent years. It was cheap at 100Rand a night (about $A9).
camped at Hunters Moon east of Zeerust
The next day I headed west towards Zeerust. I had a leaking alternator oil return hose. I thought I had a spare but two searches had failed to find it (about two weeks later I found it stored in an electrical spares box!) . So I went to the Toyota dealer in Zeerust to see if they had a replacement. No luck they showed it out of production. They sent be to a spares place in a side street. They sold me hose, but told me that they couldn’t sell be connectors, they sent me to a place that did hydraulic hose replacements for earthmoving machinery. When I visited them a very helpful guy told be he could make the hose. So I removed the hose from the alternator and gave it to him. I watched him make the replacement hose. With a bit more cutting it fitted, and I had solved the oil leak. He charged me $A5 while the original Toyota part costs $A55.
Removing the alternator return hose in the yard to use it to make a replacement in Zeerust
I then headed north to a little border post north of the N4, at Swartkopfontein. This border crossing did not go well. The cop decided I did not have the right paperwork and made me follow him 40km north to the Tlokweng border port. There was a lot of back and forth and eventually I got released to Botswana with a fine. Then it was 9pm at night. I got through a very busy Botswana border post and then made another mistake. I exited the Botswana border post and headed along a road. It was confusing there were trucks queued along what I thought was a service road, and I was on the main road. I was very wrong, I was driving on the wrong side of the road, and along came a police car to confirm that. I followed him back to the Police Station in the border crossing to be given a 1,000 pula fine (about $A105). Eventually I got on the road again to arrive at Gaberone backpackers at 10:30pm at night.
The next morning I headed for the South African border wondering after all the problems yesterday if I would be able to get a new TIP. When I got to the border it was a long search to find anyone in customs. However after a bit of a delay I got my new TIP and was on my way. I headed again for Hunters Moon, and got there late afternoon. The next day was an uneventful drive back to the campsite in Benoni in Johannesburg.
I didn’t get any internet overnight in the wild camp. The local cell towers were 2G. I had this happen before in Zambia, and Angola finding 2G. Australia shutdown our 2G ten years ago, and even 3G last year. Anyway 2G is pretty useless for data.
I headed down the highway to Serowe. After getting slightly lost in town blindly following the GPS, I got to the Spar supermarket. Although there was a supermarket in Nata, this Spar supermarket was the first supermarket in a month that was close in its choices of goods to a supermarket in South Africa. I got some decent bananas, some pink lady apples, some tinned pineapple.
I continue on towards Palapye. I wander around a couple of shopping centres. Palapye is so big now, not the dusty town I visited for the first time ten years ago. I decide I am going to head to Segaigai which is a reserve and campground maybe 5km out of town. There is a campground in town, but the couple of times I have visited it, it has gradually gone downhill. Its good to stay in Palapye as its about 120km run to Martins Drift border crossing, and then its about 230km to Weesgerus caravan park which is not expensive (unlike anything in Bela Bela) and is a reasonable under 200km run to Benoni. So I whatsapp Segaigai, but I don’t get an immediate answer. So I decide I will head out there anyway. However on the way I get a message saying its OK for me to camp, and I tell them I will be there in 15 minutes, but it takes me much longer because I get lost. I get caught blindly following the GPS again getting stuck on roads that are not passable. After about 40 minutes of driving around I finally get there. Its a nice campsite, and after a little while James who is a New Zealander and runs the place introduces himself. He has been there about five years.
Later in the evening James takes me to the enclosure to feed the porcupines. I had never seen porcupines (they are nocturnal so that’s possibly one reason). They have six in an enclosure. We spent an hour feeding them, cabbage, apples. They are so tame that you can hand feed them apples. They are sort of scary looking, but quite friendly.
Next morning I was up at 5am, and got on the road by 6:30am. Crossing Martins Drift can be a bit crazy, its hard to predict what might happen. When I got close to Martins Drift, I drove past the 3km long queue of trucks waiting to get across the border. Lots of Zambia trucks driving copper products to Durban. In the Botswana side of Martins Drift there were about 3 cars and loads and loads of trucks. In the South Africa side it was the usual truck chaos. You squeeze your way through to a park. The passport side of crossing into South Africa is simple. The vehicle bit is trickier. I needed a TIP (Temporary Import Permit). I got onto a customs guy who was reluctant. However he came out to look at the vehicle, mostly to see that the registration number was right. Then he plugged away for about 30 minutes and eventually I got my TIP. Then it’s squeeze into the truck queue for the police check on the way out. The police were not interested in me this time (they have other times), and I was out into South Africa. Of course on the South Africa side there are 4km of queued trucks, plus food stalls and all sorts of other chaos. 8km down the road there is another police stop. I didn’t get stopped, but the trucks in front of me did. What is the point after you have gone through Martins Drift and all the checking, including a police check, do you need another police check just down the road?
230km later, and about 4pm I rolled into Weesgerus. Weesgerus is a strange caravan park that is a sort of 1970’s caravan park in Australia, full of 1970’s caravans and Afrikaners. It has a couple of swimming pools filled by hot springs. I probably have been there four times and I have never swum in the pools.
Next morning it was the final 180km run to Joberg. You pay tolls about 3 times on the N1 (about $A12 all together). It’s is full of cops pulling people over (didn’t happen to me this trip, but has before). The N1 gets a bit hairy and busy close to Joberg, at least for a very slow 1987 Landcruiser, but eventually I am on the R21 and exiting at Benoni.
PorcupinesPorcupines eating applesTrip ends, back in Benoni packing up and fixing things
I woke up to a slightly colder morning in Kameel. Not as cold as icy Joberg, but cooler than the night before. I got packed up and ready to go by 8:30am. Its 200km to Bray border crossing and its only open until 4pm in the afternoon. Its also not a very good road, so I don’t have a lot of time to play with. I have previously got to Bray at 3pm.
I drove up to the NWK co-op to get some diesel, and buy some contact adhesive so I can fix some more things. After driving back to Patrick at Kameel B&B because I had forgotten to give him the toilet key, I was on my way. I stopped at Stella briefly. Then headed out on the R377 towards Bray. The only village of any size is Piet Plessis and there is not much there.
I got to Bray about 2:30pm. It was an easy crossing, with the single Policeman writing down rego details and an engine number. Then it was over to Botswana. Botswana is such an easy country to enter and leave. I paid 390 pula road tax (about $A40) and got my passport stamped and I was on the way. I wanted to get a Mascom Sim card at the local general store, but they were closed because it was saturday afternoon.
I headed along the road to Werda, which I know from expeience is a terrible corrugated road. I turned north about 2km along to take a much smaller track that headed north to Khakhea. I saw a antelope (Kudu?) pretty early on. Then later a baboon sitting on a fence post. Donkeys, cattle and more antelopes. Then at the cut-line I was intending to camp on I found a broken down couple of utes (bakkies). They had a flat tyre and needed a tubeless tyre repair kit. Amongst the heaps of stuff I carry I had exactly the right thing. I dug out the repair kit, and they quickly fixed their tyre, and were on their way.
I turned left down the cut-line about a km and turned off into the scrub just before sunset and made camp.
The early part of the road to Braythe first sign mentioning Bray about 70km outBorder crossing success, stopped under a tree in Bray Botswana (its 30C)Tablet running tracks 4 Africa, USB fan (no aircon) and garmin GPSDonkeys on the roadA Donkey cart by the side of the roadThe locals who had a flat tyre, that I helped with a tyre repair kit.Sunset camped off the cut-line
This is my third visit to Kameel in a bit over two years. Kameel means camel. It is a tiny town with more silos than people (49 silos with 27 residents). They grow maize locally, although this year more sunflower, because the rains came late in January. The trucks and tractors come past where I am camping throughout the day. When I visited last year, a local facility had been converted into a hatchery producing chicks. This is still going, diversifying the economy. This visit there are several workers staying who are installing solar farms locally. South Africa is so behind Australia in installing solar farms. The area is perfect with blue skies and lots of sun all winter. So that will be another good thing for the locality.
Its a nice campground. Its a B and B as well. Patrick delivers a fresh loaf of bread not long after you arrive, it is delicious. I was going to only stay two nights, but I am going to stay a third and do some more electric fixes to Clancy.
I arrived at OR Tambo airport in Joberg on a Monday night at about 6:30pm on August 11th. It was odd arriving at night, nearly all the flights I have taken, I have arrived early in the morning. David from the camping storage place wasn’t picking people up from the airport at night anymore (which I don’t blame him). So after getting my baggage I had to get myself to the Uber pickup point in the parking garage at the airport. My Uber ride arrived, but I still wasn’t in the right spot, but after a time I figured out. I was wrangling my usual enormous case filled with spare parts, weighing in just under 30kg.
This trip was originally going to be a couple of months long with a trip into northern Zambia. Life got in the way, and it has turned into a month trip into Botswana, still it should be great.
I got out to the campsite, David had started Clancy the camper up (started first time after being stored for a year) and shifted it to camping area. I went to move it. The parking lights were on but the headlights wouldn’t work. This would prove to be a problem a few days later. I dragged stuff out (boxes, the bike, starlink dish, other stuff put inside to keep it out of the weather) to make room so I could make the bed and sleep. I had the start of a sore throat on the plane to Joberg, this also would prove to be ominous.
The next morning, stuff spread everywhere
The next morning was cold (ice on everything outside), but was soon sunny so I got to work fixing things. I was aiming to leave for Kameel on Sunday. Kameel is a good staging post for the Botswana border where I was going to cross at Bray. First job was replacing the solar panels. I had broken the solar panel two years earlier. The panel came on Clancy the camper from Australia, but replacing it because of its large size was tricky. I ordered from Takelalot (a South African online retailer) the same size solar panel twice. However each time they supplied a panel of a different size. Eventually I found a 4×4 place in Boksburg that had two smaller panels that together made up the right size, and I had picked them up on the way back from KZN last trip. So I had to install them.
The solar panels on the left lined up ready to screw in
I got my bike together and rode into Brentwood shopping centre for some supplies. When I get there I store my bike with the same car guard every time. Car guards are a mostly South African thing. They watch a group of cars in exchange for tips. Each car guard is assigned an area in the car park. This car guard I know is from Malawi. I met him just before my trip to Zanzibar via Malawi three years ago. So three years later he is still at Brentwood getting tips from shoppers parking their cars. He wanted a gardening job, but never managed to get one. He is sending money home to his family in Lilongwe Malawi, and visiting them by bus once a year. He is a cheery guy, he doesn’t come across as bitter. This is life for some in Africa.
Once the solar panels had been installed I found that the hinge of the right side flap was about fall apart. These plastic hinges promised years of trouble free use when I bought them, but they were not. They degraded in the UV, and then started to split apart. However I was stuck with them. Everything fitted with the hinges, replacing them with something different would required a huge amount of rebuilding, which I didn’t want to do. So I had spare hinge with me (I had already replaced the door hinge and the left flap hinge). However it really tricky installing the replacement hinge. Its almost impossible to line up the screw holes, and it is hard holding it all up while you attempt to screw into the top hinge into the camper. After much stuffing around however it was all done.
Old broken hinge still attached, new hinge to install
The flap problems didn’t end. One of the gas struts had failed. So I order replacement ones from Takealot. I get 100NM ones because the 200NM ones are out of stock, and hope they will work. I get them express same day from Takealot for the vast shipping price of $A8.
My sore throat from Monday night had turned into some sort of full-blown virus. It was Thursday and I was feeling terrible. I tested myself for Covid, but it was negative. I made up the bed Thursday afternoon telling myself I would rest and listen out for the Takealot delivery. I woke up just before dark, to find the Takealot delivery of new gas struts was sitting outside. The next day I was worse, and spent the whole day sleeping. Friday I felt a bit better and drove down to Oakfields shopping centre for some more supplies, but even then when I got back, it was back to bed.
Saturday I tackled the small problem of the headlights not working. I try my hardest never to drive at night in Africa, however I have done some desperate nighttime drives (Zambia border for example three years ago). Clancy the HJ75 Landcruiser has very simple electrics, but even then they can be fiendishly complicated. I found that the parkers didn’t work at all (even though they were working Monday night). I spent hours pulling stuff apart. Eventually I found one fault. A fusible link, that looked absolutely fine turned out to be broken only when you pulled it off the battery and really looked at it.
The broken fusible link
Fixing the fusible link solved the headlight problems, but did not solve the parkers and tail lights. Eventually after pulling the steering wheel off and removing the indicator stalks I found that the wire for the parkers had burned out including burning out the fuse. Very strange. I manage to jury rig a fix for the tail lights if I absolutely needed them. During that process I found one of the brake lights had another bad connection and required fixing. Some of this is just the vehicle sitting for years in the open. Things after six years have just corroded.
digging through the wiring looking for the faults
Each day I was gradually getting better. A lot of coughing, runny nose, finishing early and going to bed. I missed my Sunday departure. I got some more supplies Monday, and Tuesday aiming for a Wednesday 8am departure.
David let me out of the gate 8am Wednesday. I told him I would be back September 22nd. I headed down towards Benoni, then Boksburg until eventually I got onto the N17. Usual thick Joberg traffic with me travelling much slower and hugging the left lane, playing with the trucks. Then onto the N12 heading south east towards Kimberly. I turned off the N12 onto the R501 working my way towards the N14. I got stopped at a police stop about 150km out. They were just checking rego, and they let me go pretty quickly, I talked about Australia but their only knowledge was Sydney and the 2000 Olympics. I tried to talk about the eucalypts that we were stopped next to, and how much the terrain looked like Australia. However they don’t see eucalypts as anything from Australia, they are so common in South Africa. Its about 400km all up to Kameel. Once you get about 200km out the traffic thins, and slows and it gets much more rural. Made it to Delareyville about 3pm. Then out of town a couple of km onto a little rural potholed road for about 40km to Kameel. I arrived about 4pm, and set up camp.
Camped at Kameel, silos in the backgroundThe route to Kameel, also showing the border with Botswana
We left Monks Cowl Sunday morning. After a great show at Falcon Ridge we got going late, at nearly noon, to make a campsite near Reitz, 240km away. We did most of it on the N3, but then turned off heading to Bassfeather Country Lodge near Reitz. With 3 different GPS’s giving us different routes, we settled on Google Maps, which ended up giving us a short but rough track to the campsite. Bassfeather was pretty well empty, but expensive (420 Rand). Next morning we headed off towards Joberg. We stopped at a 4wd drive place in BoksBurg to replace the solar panel that we lost a year ago with two smaller panels that will just fit to replace the larger one.
So a day of fixing and packing up in Joberg before we fly out to Singapore on Wednesday.
Our last day in Injusuthi turned cold and rainy. The temperature peaked at 6C, and we ran the diesel heater all day in the camper. We left Friday morning.
We moved a whole 8.7km straight line from Injusuthi to Monks Cowl, however it required 50km of driving. Part way through the drive we stopped to look at some vultures, and I found oil leaking from the engine. We pulled a way off the road, and examined things, and it looked quite bad. However I re-clamped the alternator return oil hose, and it was fixed. We were on the road again, after a oil top up.
Monks Cowl is a valley over from Injusuthi. However the Monks Cowl valley is totally different from Injusuthi. The Injusuthi valley has a spread out village, that ends at the park border. Then 12km of nothing until you get to the campsite. It feels pretty remote. The Monks Cowl valley is full of tourist facilities. Bakeries, restaurants, zip-lines, hotels and more.
We got to Monks Cowl and found a good campsite. We had to be careful again, Vervet monkeys and Baboons were around. It was still pretty cold and overcast, so we didn’t do much the afternoon we got there. Next day in the afternoon we did a walk out to Sterkspruit Falls, when it was sunny.
On the way out Sunday morning we visited the Falcon Ridge Bird of Prey Centre, which puts on a display every day. It was an hour long with lots of Eagles, Falcons and more put through their paces.
The clouds came down and filled the valleyClouds and rain, we put up the newly fixed awningCamped at Monks CowlThe up to 3200m Drakensberg peaks overlooking Monks CowlFishing Eagle at Falcon RidgeFalcon ridgeFalcon Ridge
We arrived at Injusuthi camp Monday afternoon, finding we were the only campers there. It is such a stunning location. The camp is at 1500m, while around the camp towers the Drakensberg mountains from 2000m to 3500m.
The campsite is plagued by Baboons, we have to be careful keeping everything closed up.
The next day on Tuesday, in great weather, about 28C and sunny, we spent the afternoon walking to Grindstone cave. It was only about 3.5km, but 350m of altitude gain. We were already at 1500m, so we found it hard, and gave up and turned back 2/3 of the way in.
On Wednesday we headed for Battle cave, about 6km away, and again 350m of altitude gain. The weather was good, sunny and warm. We headed along a river valley following the river on a track cut into the hillside above. We crossed the river, continued on the other side and then crossed at a confluence of two rivers. The rivers flow well, fed by creeks and waterfalls high up the hills. Eventually we got to Battle cave, and unlocked the gate with the key we got from reception. Some of the San paintings under the rock overhang were very detailed, with fine lines for things like spears.
We headed back to camp. We were trying to get back before a cool change came through the area.
Drakensberg Walking to Grinders CaveWalking the track to Battle caveBattle CaveSome of the cave art in Battle caveCave art Battle caveWalking in DrakensbergWalking in DrakensbergA weaver bird that took a liking to usSunset over the DrakensbergLooking eastThe cool change came clouding the hills
