Better late than never

Even the best of plans need the odd tweak here or there!!
Our planned departure date of 4th May has now been pushed by a week to 11th
May. Why? Many reasons, the main one being that we are not ready to go yet!
The truck has a mysterious clunking problem from underneath and thus is in
with Toyota today and possibly tomorrow to hopefully get that resolved.
Monday, Thursday, and Friday this week are all public holidays too, which
doesn't help, and we have a couple of problems with our aluminium canopy
that need to be sorted and that can't be done until next week. Oh, and Kaz
and Rich are dragging their heels, come on guys!!
So a weeks grace and a few more days to pull the rest of our hair out
getting it all done!!

Snug as a bug in a rug

Yes we made it thru our first 2 nights in the tent, despite the 4C and the
ground frost, and we are very glad that we made the effort to do the trip as
we discovered a few issues that we need to get sorted before we leave.
Getting the tent set up was not too bad but we spent quite a while doing it
to get it right so that it should be much easier the next time. We took
everything we had with us and emptied it all out so that we could work out a
plan for getting it packed as we want it. I am sure that the packing
arrangements will get modified during the trip but at least we now have a
starting point!
Since getting back we have been busy crossing off items from the 'to do'
list, although more seem to get added at the bottom than get crossed off at
the top.
And now the bit you have been waiting for, some pics of the truck and tent!!

the truck all packed up ...


the tent set up ...


the tent and extension ...


the tent without extension ...

First sleep for the Woolies

After a session of should we ... shouldn't we ... we eventually decided to
head for Clarens in the Free State for a couple of nights. And yes we are
very glad we did so. But tonight will be out first night in our roof top
tent, hope it is not too cold! We have the back up of Kaz and Rich's house,
we are parked out front, just in case we need something, like a toilet, no
long drops here!!
We packed everything we have into the truck and headed down here, and
tomorrow we will sort out what we have, and what we need and then head back
to Joburg on Friday with just two weeks to sort everything out.
After a 'couple' of sundowners and a braai under our belt we are quite
content, but we shall see come sunrise tomorrow as to how it all went. Hey,
perhaps we should just sit it out here until November instead of heading
north!!
The 'to do' list has already grown with just putting up the tent and
extension and cooking a meal, but nothing too serious that we can't sort out
in a day or so.

One step at a time

Well we are slowly getting there. We have our vehicle back after 2 1/2 weeks
without it while it was getting 'dressed'. It looks a bit different now, and
more fit for the job ahead.

It was with a company called Alu-Cab who fitted some essentials to it for
us:

- an aluminium safari canopy with side hatches / kitchen cupboard / rear
hatch and table
- our howling moon roof tent fitted on top of the canopy
- a rear bumper with twin wheel carriers
- a 60l water tank with a gravity feed drain
- a truck slide to take some of our storage boxes and our Engel fridge
- a rack at the front for additional storage for boxes
- the dual battery system under the bonnet with auxiliary battery to run our
fridges etc.

So it sounds like it is all done now, NOT! We still have loads to tick off
the list before we even consider that we are ready for departure!

We have ordered an 80w solar panel kit that I will fit to the canopy which
will help the aux battery take the strain of keeping the food and beers
cool, and we should be getting a roof rack for the cab today or tomorrow
where we will store a few bits and pieces.

Anyway, we are getting there.

The next step apart from buying all the remaining kit we need is to take the
truck for a test run down to Clarens in the Free State where Kaz & Rich have
a house so that we can try out what we have so far to see what else we need
to add to the list! I will take some pictures of the truck while we are
there and post them.

So, back to the grind, and off shopping, again!!