Posted by Chris on June 24, 2009
Thursday, 11 June 2009
It is the day before we leave, and we’re very excited. I’m a bit worried though as my bakkie has been in for some repairs for well over a week now and they still don’t know if I’m getting it back this afternoon. After numerous phone calls to the dealership during the morning, I decide at 15:00 that I’m going to drive there to talk to them in person to find out what is going on.
When I get there I can see they’re a bit surprised to see me. I immediately go to one of the managers to ask him what’s going on. After speaking to the workshop manager, I ended up driving to the place they’d need to go to get some parts because they couldn’t get hold of the place on the phone. I get there and the parts aren’t ready, so I headed back to the dealership.
After a bit of discussion they said they’d be willing to lend me one of there vehicles for the trip. For this I am very grateful, because otherwise we’d have to cancel the trip.
There are still problems though. This vehicle doesn’t have a canopy, so we’d have to pack very sparingly to fit in everything we need. This meant leaving the fridge at home, but we decided we’ll survive without it.
Just after getting back from the dealership, I get showered and dressed and off we are to the LA Sport 4×4 Shop opening evening to represent EC Offroad Adventures. We don’t even drink a beer, although it’s been a hectic day, because we know we leave at 4:00 the next morning.
LA Sport Opening Day
At about 21:00 we head back home and back everything in the vehicle.
Puppy wants to go with
Posted by Chris on June 24, 2009
In 2008 I took part in our first Spirit of Africa event with a friend. This is an event sponsored by Mitsubishi Motors and run by the famous rally and race driver Sarel van der Merwe. The competition is split into 2 parts, the semi finals and the finals. During the semi finals about 400 different teams of 2 people each take part over a 3 month period. Each group of about 15 teams go take part for 3 days, and then whoever gets the most points ends up going to the finals. The competition tests your 4×4 and rallying skills, but is also there to learn a lot from the master himself.
This year I decided to take part alongside my wife as my team mate. We also decided to make a nice holiday out of it, instead of just rushing there, taking part for 3 days and rushing back. We planned everything earlier in the year already, booked our spots for the competition and then also got our accommodation sorted.
We like not planning too much ahead when we go on holiday, so we used our holiday club’s points to book a place we’d stay after the event, but for the days before the event we decided to just wing it and see where we get. I don’t like sticking to a schedule when we’re driving, because I like taking detours and stopping off at different places. I also didn’t want to rush through the 1900kms we’d have to travel just to get there.
When the time finally came to go, a lot of things started happening. Projects got delayed that I was going to be a part of, the recession hit, my Colt’s repairs wouldn’t be done in time and we just felt perhaps it’s not the right time to take the holiday. But having already spent the money on everything, we decided to just stick it through. Best choice we could’ve made!
Maritime Motors in Port Elizabeth was kind enough to let us borrow one of their Mitsubishi Triton’s to practice a week before we went up. This proved to be a bit of a mistake to my thinking. We wanted this competition to be about fun, and at the end of the day, having practiced so much beforehand just made us put too much pressure on ourselves. But we are still very grateful for them allowing us that!
