Adventures on (and off) the road!

Another two day trip – at least, that’s what we planned (Thursday – Friday last week). First stop Matamba. We reached this little town safely, met with the relevant people and dropped some things off for them, had lunch (in the VIP lounge resplendent with comfy chairs, posters and even a radio which we immediately turned down) and continued on our way. We knew the trip to the second town, Makete, might not be so easy, but the scenery was spectacular as we passed through Kitulo National Park (about 2600 metres above sea level, 8530 feet) – an area preserved particularly for its flowers which were evident all around as the rainy season has begun and turned everything a beautiful fresh green.

However, in the midst of these awesome surroundings we hit a terrible patch of road where we got stuck – grounded. We eventually got ourselves out (digging, jacking, stones etc.) but by then it was too late to continue so we decided to turn round and come back by a track running alongside that bad stretch of road. This went fine until we hit a patch of soft sandy soil where we just kept getting wheel spin and slipping. We tried everything that we could, but failed to proceed, so while waiting for help we kept ourselves warm in the car and watched an episode of ‘The Good Life’ on my laptop (which I had anticipated watching in a comfy guest house in Makete)! Eventually reinforcements arrived in the shape of 3 colleagues, by which time it was dark and cold. They had a go too but also failed and got it stuck even worse than we had! In the end we called it quits and abandoned the vehicle, getting home about 1am. Friday I then returned to the scene with folk from a garage who (after first getting their own car stuck) eventually managed to tow our Land Rover out. Our journey home took us down a road with 60 hairy hairpin bends, but we reached the main tarmac road safely. Surely nothing else could go wrong? Well, just a little hitch – we got a puncture. The garage guys whipped the wheel off and replaced it in no time and we finally reached the office in one piece, to my intense relief!