THE CHEQUE LIST

21 September 2001

The story so far is one of euphoria and fear - it's all very well to dream of a trip this large in scope and simple in statement, but sitting down to the planning and organisation that needs to be done ahead of leaving on a journey of umpteen thousand kilometres is a little different.
There are days when of fear and depression, of "we can't do this" and the feeling that we are in well over our heads, not having the skills or fortitude to tackle the trip and all that lies on the road. The theory that it should just be another trip and can be handled day-by-day is fine when you're sitting in your home in suburbia surrounded by a system and society you know - more or less - how to handle.
Doing the same thing in a foreign country where language may be the first barrier, social customs a second and the truck doesn't want to start for some or other mechanical reason that we have not a clue about, is a completely different matter.
The big lessons of this trip seem to be more about self than about the places we are visiting. The old cliche about challenging oneself is no less real for being a cliche. There are days when the amount we need to learn about - from diesel engines and what medicines to pack, to biting your tongue and being patient with recalcitrant and obstructionist officials to the world of paperwork and bureaucracy that the global village has become - is too staggering and frightening to contemplate. On those days, we run away, avoiding any further work and hiding in the artificial world of the movie house or the increasingly real world of friends.
Days like this bring us up short and but they also remind us of how many friends we do have and how lucky (yup, it sounds syrupy) we are to have this invisible support base. Friends who help fix this, offer advice on where to sell that or buy something else and who make their specific skills available for us. The other days are much better - these are the days when somebody else's minor chore becomes one of our major victories. When learning something new and adding to our abilities makes us aware of all that we have learned over the months since we started planning this trip at the beginning of this year.
For several years we had been planning to move to the UK and were beginning to think about the technicalities of achieving this when I one day asked Lisa in a semi-facetious mood: "Why don't we drive to the UK?.
"Through Africa? I'd love to." The response, while debated and criticised by both of us over the following weeks, was never really in doubt and we slowly began changing our mind sets to cope with the size of the canvas we had selected. The first job was to find a vehicle and although we both would have liked to do the trip in our five-year-old VW Caddy (a Golf 1-based vehicle still being produced in SA alongside the Mk 1-based CitiGolf) we both knew that it wasn't really a viable proposition. We next began looking at two-wheel-drive bakkies (for those in the rest of the world, "bakkie" is the Afrikaans word for a small container and, throughout South Africa, is also the term for a 1-ton pick up truck) but that idea was discarded as we talked to more and more overland travellers.
Our final search category was 4x4 bakkies or station wagons, with the added requirement that it needed to be a non-turbo diesel engine. And it needed to be relatively cheap. From a large, inviting haystack of vehicles available in SA, we had - unsurprisingly - narrowed the field down to the proverbial needle. There are few non-turbo diesels in SA which have not been worked to death by farmers or building contractors and those that are in good condition command trouser-wetting prices. While they may be slow and unsophisticated, they are reliable, relatively economical and are easy to fix due to their mechanical simplicity.
We were looking for either a Toyota Hilux 2.4l or Isuzu KB250 diesel, both pickups. We were briefly side-tracked by the possibility of buying a damaged Isuzu Trooper with a 2.8l diesel motor but communications interfered and it was sold for R5 000 more than the R12 000 we could have bought it for when we first said: "Yes, buy it!" After a week or two of moping, interspersed with moments of wanting to throttle the friend who hadn't checked his cell phone messages, we again started trawling the second-hand car dealerships, Sunday car fairs and newspaper sales columns, despairing of finding the right vehicle.
Dubiously, I went to look at a friend of a friend, Hennie Prinsloo's, overland vehicle which he had modified and rebuilt for his own family's use but had to give up for a variety of reasons. I was dubious because the R50 000 was significantly more than we had budgeted for and it would make kitting the vehicle out that much more difficult, given our budget constraints. But as soon as I saw the vehicle I knew we'd found our travelling home. The deal was significantly sweetened by the fact that much of the equipment we needed was already fitted and would stay with the truck when we bought it.
Hennie needed to discuss selling the truck with his family and I needed to talk to Lisa - whose response was: "if you think it's right, get it!.
Three weeks or so later, things came together with us selling the Caddy on a Friday and collecting the truck the following morning.
Chugger, as the Hilux 2.4 diesel has been renamed, started life as a bakkie but has since had a canopy bolted permanently to the load area, a set of roof racks mounted - with the supports extending down to the chassis - and fitted with a rooftop tent (it's not a prerequisite but it does make life much easier), a 60 water tank (the roof isn't the ideal place to have water sloshing around) and storage space for the side and rear awnings.
She also came with a brush bar on the front, a second deep-cycle battery, an air compressor and tank for inflating tyres, running air-powered tools and pressurising the shower system, a 100l long-range fuel tank and as few automotive frills as possible (the fewer extras, the less there is to go wrong!). A rear-mounted spare wheel with skottel-cum-high lift jack base fitted as well as a fold-down table mounted to the side of the truck added that extra touch of "serious off-road traveller" to the picture.
Since buying the vehicle in June, we have added a small floor-mounted safe, roof-mounted flood lamps - for the extreme eventuality that we have to drive at night, a CD-player and radio and little else of a bolt-in nature. The list of extras considered essential for a trip of this nature has grown significantly to include a trio of Jerry cans (that staple of Camel Man adventure), a trunkful of spares, hoses, clamps, glues, pastes, unguents and other vehicle healing agents plus the accompanying chest of tools (by the time we finish I might even know what most of them are for), a spade - either to dig Chugger out of or deposit things into), a high lift jack, towropes, hand winch, repair manual and, of course, duct tape.
The list of things essential to our well-being is also growing - at about the same rate as our horror at how much we're going to be carting around. A medical chest that would make any hypochondriac weep with joy is on the cards (well, say the boffins, even if you don't know how to put the drip in, the doctors in Africa often don't have the right equipment to treat you), a bookshelf full of where is, what is, how to's, go to's and don't do's is weighing down the shelves of our temporary accommodation (we might rightly be called the "backroom boys", staying as we are with Robert Rademeyer rent-free as we get the last goodimagadgets and whatchamacallits together and set off).
Minimalist and unisex is the code for much of our clothing while the cooking, lighting, sitting and sleeping needs have been largely taken care of due to our accumulated stock of equipment used for prior journeys around South Africa.
Our major tribulation at this stage is getting rid of the last our unwanted household goods, organising for those we do want to be sent to Britain, arranging quarantine and transport for our cat - and possibly our dog, depending on how much more it is going to break my heart, and sorting out visas for those countries we need them for plus a settlement visa for Lisa for the UK.