Monday Aug 10

We are currently sat in an internet cafe in Keetmanshoop, Namibia which is quite a big town (for Namibia). Its in the middle of the desert and its hot!! Its got a real African town feel to it, with people just wandering around doing nothing and dusty roads that have random shops doing random things like sheet metal repairs etc.

Anyway, about a week ago we left Jo'burg and headed for Kimberley to see the biggest man made hole in the world. We'd timed our journey so that we'd arrive at the camp site just before sunset at around 6pm. At 10pm, 9 hours after setting off, we finally rolled into some hostel after circling Kimberley about six times just trying to get out of the place!! We gave up trying to find the campsite after a mix up resulted in us driving 10km down some back road past old diamond mines and ended up settling for the easily sign posted hostel. As a reward for our troubles, we treated ourselves to our first meal since breakfast and had 2 bananas each before collapsing into bed.

We woke up early thanks to the rowdy kids in the dorm next door running around slamming doors, but it was a good call to get ready and pack the landie ready for the big day! We were off to see the giant hole!
We got to the big hole entrance and it was like a mini town built to replicate what the place would have been like back when it was a diamond town. There were old pubs and shops and auction houses which you could walk around in. We then went on the tour and heard how the first diamond was found by a small boy in the 1800's (or something.... I don't do dates).
Our tour guide was something special. We went down an 'authentic' lift like they had in the olden days; it was actually a normal lift with some banging noises coming from the roof. At least the American bloke next to us enjoyed it while he closed his eyes and pretended he was there.
Now the tour guide's big moment came. We were told to prepare for a mining explosion. We all gathered round the site in anticipation. You could almost see the excitement on the tour guide's face.
Then the explosion arrived. Some red lights flashed on and off a bit, with some smoke effects, but the real kicker was the tour guide wobbling around in a dramatic fashion whilst we all looked on in disbelief.

After our death defying experience, we headed upstairs to see the diamonds they had. We had to go into a vault to see the best ones and I sort of get why women like them so much now. They were pretty special! My favourite though was the South African Star, a massive stone, which somehow made its way to Dudley a while back. The biggest uncut diamond was also there and it was big, real big!

We made our way to Upington with Stu driving. About 10 minutes in the car with trailer infront of us started slowing down. Stu was looking at the map in my lap. All I remember was a moment of "oh s**t" before Stu pulled to the right to get past this thing. The car infront then started snaking as he struggled to control his trailer under more extreme braking because we just happened to have moved into the bit of tarmac he was aiming to use as he turned right. We went even more right and overtook him, nearly off the far side of the road as he looked on in shock. We wiped the seats and carried on. To be fair though he wasn't indicating and the brake lights didn't come on, namely because like many of the cars over here, his car lights weren't working.

We arrived at our campsite in Upington in the day time thankfully and drove past the monkeys that were running around to our camp site where we set up our tent and started our first Braai. The campsite was pretty cool and we were parked up next to two German couples who had come down in massive overland trucks.

The next day we hit Namibia. We crossed the South African exit post and got our exit visas and set off into Namibia. We realised that we didn't have our Namibian entry visas in our passports though, so officially we weren't in South Africa OR Namibia. 15 kms down the road and we were starting to worry if we'd missed the Namibian immigration, but luckily their border post appeared on the horizon.

We were now driving through desert on the way to Ai Ais, a small place that the guide book recommended. It was a relaxing drive and we were excitied about the dirt roads we knew we would have to drive on to reach the place. We hit the dirt roads which are just like normal roads, but made of dirt and gravel. You could feel the car sliding round the corners, especially as we made our way down into the valley over hills and round sharp corners. On one of them we pretty much drifted round it which felt awesome! The scenery was amazing!

Ai Ais ended up being a resort with some thermal baths and jacuzzis with water from a nearby hot spring. It was 60 degrees and it seriously took balls (away) to sit in it for more than 10 seconds!
We met a guy in his Land Rover who had driven all the way down from England. It was weird seeing a car with GB number plates. The guy and his partner came over and shared stories of his trip over a few beers.

We spent 2 nights there and on one of the days we walked up the start of Fish River canyon. We walked for an hour through the rocky canyon before stopping when we saw wild horses drinking in the distance.

The next day we set off towards to the viewpoint. This was where the first of our car troubles started. It wouldn't start. The battery was dead. So we asked around and got some jump starter pack which got us going.

We were heading for the impressive view point over the canyon, apparently the 2nd biggest in the world, but the roads there were unbelievably bumpy and rocky. Our car (now named Kim by the way) took a hammering and it pained us to listen to her suffer. You could almost hear the bodywork falling apart around us.
At one point we stopped and it turned out that we were stuck in 2nd gear. We limped slowly to the next town before figuring out what to do.

A local man who loved sniffing oil tried to help us, but his nose detected that the oil he had in some old tub in his shed wasn't the right stuff so we thought 'sod it' and got going again. Except that we didn't because the car wouldn't start. So we recruited the help of some random people standing around to help us push start Kim and got to the view point before turning around and heading all the way back along the same sodding road to get back to the road we needed to be on.

We were now heading towards the place we are in now and Sean was driving. The roads were dusty, but Sean was handling it like some rally driving pro without the use of 2nd gear. We passed some wild Ostriches and made our way to the camp site.

the campsite was empty except for one man who came over and started chatting. He was an oil worker who worked on a rig off the coast of Equatorial Guinea. He was out in Namibia for tax dodging purposes and had a fair few interesting stories about life on the rig. While he was over, he commented on our Braai. His words were "This is a f-ing good Braai for a bunch of Pommies". And he was right, it was! (the best chicken and baked potatoes you have ever seen).

And that brings us to today. Our car is sat in the garage getting a new alternator which should sort out the battery charging problem and after that we will take it somewhere else to get the gear box looked at. Hopefully it will just be a cheap oil top up.