 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
There is something therapeutic about writing about things that go wrong. It helps to let it go and move on. If that is true Zambia has been very therapeutic indeed. Zambia for us started in Livingstone – a booming little town that is cashing in on the misfortune that has hit Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. There are new lodges springing up everywhere, new shops, but old roads. It lacks the compact charm of Vic Falls townsite and is much less pedestrian friendly. We met up with Eve and Paul in Livingstone. We had bumped into Eve a few times through Namibia and she was working with Paul taking tourists on tours through Namibia and beyond. Catching up involved going on a booze cruise on the Zambezi River (US$40pp includes dinner and all you can drink). These are always messy as you become obsessed with making sure you get your value for money in alcohol while you drift along the river watching the sun go down and seeing hippos frolicking in the late afternoon light.     Having gotten our value for money, we all hit the bar at the Zambezi Waterfront long into the night. Needless to say we were a little worse for wear the next morning and were restricted to lazing by the pool, which was fine by us. The next day we had to say goodbye to Paul and Eve, always a hard thing to do, and go our separate ways. We had decided to head towards the Lower Zambezi National Park for a few days. The roads from Livingstone are a little rough for around 20km or so, but after that they are pretty good. The road between Kafue and Chirundu is getting a major overhall because of the large number of trucks that use it due to Zambia’s mining boom. The road works are pretty well managed if somewhat slow, but the road will be a good one when finished. It is a treacherous pass and the old dirt road was claiming too many trucks from what we can tell. The turnoff to the Lower Zambezi is unposted – as is much of Zambia, so we had to use our instincts somewhat to find it amongst the some 300 odd trucks that were parked waiting to cross the boarder or to receive their paperwork for Zambia. We were told that they usually hole up during the day and travel at night (a good reason to be off the roads before dark) or very early morning, as it is cooler and placed less stain on breaks and engine along the winding mountain pass. We headed then to Gwabi Lodge to camp for the night as we would not make the barge and park gates before dark. The trip from Livingstone was around 6 hours. The guy who runs the lodge is a little arrogant unfortunately but the camp itself is pleasant enough. I awoke to a bad dose of Bali Belly (a result of being careless and indulging in a few too many cheep fancy drinks with ice in Livingstone I suspect). After spending the night shitting what looked like murky river water I was dehydrated and running a bit of a fever. We had little choice but to get a chalet with aircon so that I could escape the 40oC heat and rest up for a few days.     The camp ground was pretty good with lots of grass and shade right on the river and cost ZK30,000 pppn (around AUD $8 pppn), but the chalets were overpriced for what you got. Still it helped with the recovery. Having blown the budget here, and missing out on the opportunity to go tiger fishing, we decided to head for South Luangwa National Park. We headed off and made it to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. We stopped for lunch and hit the road again. We made it as far as Luangwa bridge campsite, around 4 hours further down the road. This a small little campsite run by an English couple. We had the camp to ourselves until a German tour bus turns up. This thing is like a hotel on wheels. The front half is like a regular luxury bus, and the rear half is sleeping quarters, similar to berths on a small boat. There are many ways how I would like to get around Africa, 4wd or by motorbike are two that sit at the top of the list, but this is not one of them. How you can get a realistic experience of Africa on this thing amazes me. They were taking three weeks to travel from Dar to Windhoek, which would mean you would spend most of every day just on the bus. Hitting the road early the next morning we were keen to get to Chipata and then on to South Luangwa NP. The road between Luangwa Bridge and Chipata is pretty good except for a shocking section between Kachalola to Sinda that is riddled with potholes, is very narrow in places and full of trucks and fearless speeding bus drivers who have decided that they pay taxes and therefore they own the road and we can just be content with the little bit of gravel on the edge of ‘their’ road. Everyone here gets around on bicycle, the old type you see the French Resistance people riding on in movies set in World War Two. They transport all sorts of things on them and even carry the family to church on it. Speaking of churches, there are three thing Zambia has a lot of, churches, schools and potholes. We made it to Chipata, and true to Zambian form, the turnoff to South Luangwa was not signposted. We asked for directions and combined with a reference from the GPS we found the road. This road is a corrugated poor excuse for a road. It shakes your car to buggery making conversation pretty much impossible. About a third of the way in disaster struck. I hear a loud bang, followed about a kilometre later by another and a loss of roadholding. We stopped to have a look and found that we had blown our two rear shocks, and I do mean blown. The oil from the shocks had superheated, exploding the seals and spraying everywhere. The Bilstein shocks have a plastic shield that was melted like candle wax. Once removed the shocks pull apart in your hand. There was nothing holding the cylinder and the shaft together, it was totally destroyed. These were supposed to be heavy-duty quality shocks that are worth a lot of money, but closer inspection revealed that possibly they are not up to the task. We had no option but to head back the way we had come to try to get repairs in town. This meant some 40km of hellish roads, locked in first gear with the back end free to slide out at will. It is fair to say that I was exhausted driving back – it took three hours – and Jacinda was a nervous wreck thinking that we would end up sliding off the side of the road at anytime. As I assured her, that we’d be ok as we were not going fast enough to do any damage. We made it to Chipata and stayed the night at Deans Hillside Camp. Dean is a English missionary type – a surprise in Zambia I know – and a really nice guy. This is a great place to stay if you find yourself in town for the night – or as we found, for a few days. The next morning we headed into town to try to find new shocks all round – closer inspection had revealed that we had blown three shocks, two rear and one front – so the decision was made to replace them all. The road to Deans Camp can best be described as a 4wd track, that normally would have been a lot of fun, but without shocks, it was hell. The first place did not have any shocks to suit and were not interested in ordering any in for us. We then found Quickfit Chipata. We ended up spending the whole day there trying to source shocks. They mentioned that they could get ARB Old Man Emu shocks, which I know are very strong and in hind sight should have been fitted in the first place. They were able to source these from Lusaka overnight, so we left them for a few hours to do internet (that was not working) and have a coffee (which does not exist in this town). We were walking back through town and we saw Ana and Antonio driving past (we had met them in Moremi NP and had been trying to catch up ever since). I jumped out in front of them waving my arms around. Ana, who was driving got a fright and pulled over once she recognised us. Warm greetings and hugs were exchanged as we told them of our story. They said that they would stay with us that night and we could all head into South Luangwa the next day once our shocks were fitted. We told them we would pick up our car and meet them at Dean’s. We got back to Quickfit to find out that they had still not organised for the shocks to be shipped. I spent two hours trying to do their job for them as the manager was unable to make a decision and was reluctant to fork out the cost of a phone call. TIA. They did not know if they could guarantee that the shocks would be the correct ones. Finally they confirmed that they would ship the correct shocks. The overnight courier would get to town at 7:20am, so we should be there at 8:00am to get them fitted – perfect. We spent the night at Dean’s again. We headed down the next morning thinking that we would on the road in a few hours. We waited, and waited, and waited and the shocks finally arrived after lunch. In the meantime Antonio took the opportunity to rotate his tyres, do oil changes, change fuel filters and flush his radiator while we waited for our truck that was “coming very soon”. The local guys who worked in the workshop were keen to learn as much as they could and Antonio was more than happy to pass on what mechanical knowledge he has. They are like sponges, keen to absorb anything they can and better themselves. True to form when the shocks arrived they were the wrong ones, they were OME, but the wrong type. It was all too hard for the manager of Quickfit (quick in name only I suspect) who became less able to make a decision, if that was possible. I thought I was very restrained given that he has use of all his limbs still. He refused to make a phone call except under extreme pressure to do so and looked for any distraction to not deal with the situation. All the while time was slipping away to get the correct parts to us for the next day. Finally it became clear that they would not be able to get the parts to us and Jacinda and I decided to make a run to the boarder the next day and try our luck in Lilongwe. The road was supposed to be good so we figured we would take it slow and get parts before the weekend. We phoned Johann, you might remember him from our time in Cape Town. He said that if we ever got stuck to phone him and he could help us out anywhere in Africa. We phoned him, told us of our plans and asked if he could help. We also asked if we could get heavier duty rear coil springs that should help to reduce the strain on the rear shocks. He said he would see what he could do. We left the next day at 6:00am and had a great run to the Malawi boarder and then a smooth trip to Lilongwe. We left the Spaniards to head into South Luangwa and we would rendezvous in Malawi a few days later. We arrived to find that it was a religious holiday and not all the shops were open. The places that stocked OME were all closed. We found several places that tries to tell us what we needed, which was the wrong shock, until we found Kalpesh who runs Multi Auto Parts Company who rang around for us and confirmed that no one in town had the shocks for our car. He let us use his phone to call Johann who had tried to call us at Dean’s Hillside Camp at 7:30 that morning to find we had left a few hours earlier. He could get our shocks for us, plus heavier OME springs for the rear to replace the King Springs and have them DHL’ed to us for less than Quickfit could do the shocks alone for. We should have them in a few days, so hopefully we will be on the road and drama free for a while. Johann is incredibly professional and an all-round nice guy. If you are stuck in Africa, anywhere, give your business to him. He is reasonably priced, knowledgeable and incredibly efficient. We have learnt that if anything else goes wrong we will get in touch with him and he can have our parts to us in a few days. So unfortunately Zambia has been a county of missed opportunity and misfortune. We are a little upset that we missed some of the parks, but were also a little keen to get to Malawi and a fresh start. Jacinda reminded me the other day of a dream I had before we left Australia. Apparently I told her that I had dreamt that we had blown the shocks on our car while we were in Africa. I told her not to worry as it was unlikely and just a dream anyway. I am thinking of maybe starting to read peoples palms as a job on the side now. I have never blown a shock before, never met anyone who had, or let alone heard of anyone who had done three in the space of a kilometre or two, so that’s one for the grandkids then I suppose. Hey it’s not a holiday, its an adventure. So the list of destruction to date so far reads as follows. Destroyed Rear diff guard. Three Shocks. Damaged One tyre puncture – Plugged and good as new. One fuel line rupture due to cable tie. One oil leak cause by oil filter not being fitted with a rubber seal. Three stone chips on the front windscreen Apart from the replacement ECU, all our troubles are general mechanical non Land Rover specific problems that could happen to any vehicle. Given the state of the roads, we are very impressed with the Cooper STT’s. We should have had several punctures by now, and only having one, which was a 1-2psi per day slow leak, is testament to the tyres. For a trip like this, a diesel is the only way to go. Given the statistics below, if you were in a petrol 4wd you could comfortable halve the economy figures below. Total km’s travelled to date: 8,686km Cheapest Fuel: AUD $1.04/L – Botswana Most Expensive Fuel: AUD $2.00/L – Zambia Average Cost Of Fuel: AUD $1.29/L Worst Fuel Economy: 5.36Km/L Best Fuel Economy: 8.41Km/L |
