OverlandSphere » Tincaninafrica

Start of a new trip! UK and Europe May- September 2013

Tincaninafrica — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:35:39 +0000

Norfolk England 10th May 2013 Windspeed 35mph Temp: 6*C Hello all our loyal followers! We are back again in sunny England after 6 months back in OZ whilst Tin Can froze through the English winter in a hay shed somewhere in Bedfordshire. Tin Can’s wintering place- a hay shed! The plan is to do some touring around the UK and…

Europe – the final leg

Tincaninafrica — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 20:52:10 +0000

19th October Bedfordshire UK Kms Travelled : 36,503 Well, due to popular demand from many readers who have contacted us to enquire what happened after we left Turkey and where we are, here is a final brief summary of the 5,745kms and 5 weeks spent travelling through the Balkans, Germany, Switzerland and France to our final destination here in Bedfordshire…

TURKEY

Tincaninafrica — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:54:11 +0000

Gallipoli 13/9/2012 Kilometres travelled: 30,639 Well the good ship Nikolay Konarev finally loaded our vehicles amongst 65 huge Turkish trucks and set sail for Mersin Turkey at 3.00am in the morning of Friday 1st September- 5 days after we first arrived in Port Said and 3 days past scheduled departure. Probably not too bad a delay for Egypt all things…

EGYPT

Tincaninafrica — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:11:04 +0000

13/8/12 Aswan Egypt Temperature in shade: 48*C Total KMS travelled so far: 26,328 (No change from the last post as Tin Can remains stuck on a barge in Wadi Halfa Sudan the last 5 days). Allah u Akbar! We have arrived in the land of the Pharoes! Allah is indeed merciful! (We think, but time will tell)? There was more…

SUDAN

Tincaninafrica — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:54:55 +0000

8/8/12 Wadi Halfa Sudan Temperature in shade: 49*C Total KMS travelled so far: 26,328 Wherethefukawe? Well, at last we were about to test all the views from just about anybody with an opinion and who has listened to the Media, that travelling to Sudan was “on the edge”! Also the fact that the Australian Govt. DFAT has a “do not…

Ethiopia # 2

Tincaninafrica — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 10:36:46 +0000

27/7/12 Gondar Ethiopia KMS travelled 23,156 With Marianne recovering in bed at Paradise Lodge, with little to do the second day I teamed up with a retired Swedish diplomat, Carl Jungen, who was in Arba Minch in an unofficial capacity trying to achieve the release of two Swedish journalists who have been in an Ethiopian jail there for a year…

ETHIOPIA

Tincaninafrica — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:19:29 +0000

16/7/12 Arba Minch Total KMS travelled so far: 22,520 ETHIOPIA “You! You! You!” Who knows what silly Westerner first taught Ethiopian kids the word “you”, but that has become the catch cry at high pitch whenever they see a “farange” or foreign vehicle! We know that in the schools they try and teach something better like: “Hello! What’s your name?”…

KENYA

Tincaninafrica — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 18:53:04 +0000

5/7/12 Nairobi Kenya Total KMS travelled so far: 20,675 KENYA After dodging more than a few trucks on the road to Eldoret and passing through countryside gradually changing from Uganda type tropical to subtropical as we climbed higher and higher to 2400M, the first night in Kenya was spent at a very good campsite 18kms outside Eldoret called Naiberi River…

UGANDA

Tincaninafrica — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 14:51:49 +0000

29/6/12 Jinja Uganda Total KMS travelled so far: 20,076 UGANDA A Ugandan Kob antelope First stop after crossing the Rwanda/Uganda western border at Cyanika was a fairly new and pleasant campsite at a place called Muko Campsite at the northern end of the lovely Lake Bunyoni. (Co ordinates lost but the campsite is in Tracks for Africa). We were the…

RWANDA

Tincaninafrica — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 12:27:06 +0000

21/6/12 Kigali Total KMS travelled so far: 19,318 RWANDA Rwanda. Land of 1,000 hills! The first thing that struck us about Rwanda (other than how mountainous the “country of 1,000 hills” is with greenery all around) was how neat and orderly most things seemed to be compared with other countries in Africa? The government of Paul Kigame has certainly kept…

Tanzania

Tincaninafrica — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:11:55 +0000

15/6/12 Mwanza Tanzania Total KMS travelled so far: 18,417 TANZANIA Crossing the Malawi/Tanzanian border at Songwe was relatively painless, but once again we had trouble with acceptance of our European AXA 3rd party insurance cover. After some argument (and Marianne spitting her dummy) we were forced to take out East Africa Comesa yellow card cover for USD$120 – which should…

ZAMBIA

Tincaninafrica — Wed, 30 May 2012 18:42:43 +0000

17/5/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 14,225 ZAMBIA A taste of “big smoke” civilization! Lusaka is nothing much to write home about (and the traffic in Cairo Road is horrendous), but Manda Hill shopping mall with the chance to have some Illy coffee and scones and hit a large supermarket made a welcome change after nearly two months “outback” Namibia,…

MALAWI

Tincaninafrica — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:43:02 +0000

26/5/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 15,895 MALAWI Lake Malawi – sunset at Cape Mac Clear Malawi may be one of the poorest countries in Africa and therefore the world, but what a green and pleasant place to visit after the dry bushveld of the past 3 months! One starts seeing tropical greenery with banana and sugar cane plantations again…

USELESS INFORMATION AND IRREVERENT OBSERVATIONS AND OPINIONS

Tincaninafrica — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:29:24 +0000

17/5/12 Having now travelled 14,000+ kilometres in 13 weeks through 6 countries of southern Africa, we thought we might dot point in no particular order a few titbits of information and general observations for other travellers to take/leave, disagree with or accept whatever they choose when planning their trip: (We will add to this page as time goes on). Rolling…

SADBABWE

Tincaninafrica — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:49:47 +0000

11/5/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 13,008 SADBABWE (Zimbabwe) What better place to write a blog than on the banks of the Zambezi River in Mana Pools National Park whilst watching the sun go down highlighting elephants drinking on the banks and hippos snorting in the river? There is no doubt that the wildlife areas and views across Lake Kariba…

BOTSWANA AND THE OKAVANGO DELTA

Tincaninafrica — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:04:22 +0000

30/4/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 11,975 BOTSWANA AND THE OKAVANGO DELTA Crossing into Botswana from Namibia at the Mahembo border post on the Okavango panhandle was easy enough (the border official girl even sang us a welcoming song!), but from there on things got slightly more difficult. After staying first night at Drotskies Camp near Shakawe (which was quite…

Caprivi and the wild places

Tincaninafrica — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:12:59 +0000

17/4/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 10,325 THE WILD & SOLITARY PLACES- CAPRIVI There really are not too many of them left in the world regretfully, but one or two exist – at least in the Caprivi and Kavango regions of northeast Namibia. And we found some! Caprivi -a land of endless bush and myriad channels and swamps where the…

ETOSHA AND TO THE CAPRIVI

Tincaninafrica — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:09:15 +0000

8/4/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 9,144 ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK & ON TO CAPRIVI From West to East across the top of Namibia is not a small distance! As kilometres are adding up (and the litres of diesel going into the tank) despite previous thoughts of heading up through Sesfontein and to the Epupa Falls on the Kunene River which…

NAMIB DESERT AND THE SKELETON COAST

Tincaninafrica — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 13:33:20 +0000

Sossuvlei 30/3/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 6,580 NAMIB DESERT AND THE SKELETON COAST The wind keens mournfully through the low thorn trees on the edge of the vlei and whips sand off the ridges of the surrounding red sand dunes. The shadows are lengthening across the sand gullies. A jackal scurries through the undergrowth whilst casting several quick glances…

Namibia

Tincaninafrica — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:01:38 +0000

23/3/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 5,883 NAMIBIA First things to be said about Namibia (at least southern Namibia) are: The roads are great! Mostly gravel but well graded and little traffic to mess them up. But we stick to 80 – 90kmh on the gravel despite the temptation to go faster -as rolling Tin Can is not on the…

Impressions of South Africa

Tincaninafrica — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:55:18 +0000

23/3/12 Some impressions of South Africa after 8 weeks and 5,000kms (and 3 visits over the last decade) The countryside is beautiful and ever changing -from the green wine growing areas of the Cape to the subtropics of Kwa Zulu Natal to magnificent Drakensberg mountains of Lesotho, the arid areas of the Free State and Northern Cape. It is a…

THE ORANGE RIVER AND KGALAGADI TRANSFRONTIER PARK

Tincaninafrica — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:51:46 +0000

20/3/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 5,175 THE ORANGE RIVER AND KGALAGADI TRANSFRONTIER PARK Many kilometres are now behind rolling through vast expanses of dry, dry countryside between Kimberley and the northern Cape town of Upington which reminded us so much of Outback Australia- very little but scrub and low acacia and thorn trees. No kangaroos, but the odd…

Lesotho The Mountain Kingdom

Tincaninafrica — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:48:30 +0000

11/3/12 Total KMS travelled so far: 3,398 THE SANI PASS & LESOTHO After hearing much about the Sani Pass which winds its way 2900 M up the Drakensberg mountains into Lesotho and is rated one of South Africa’s premier 4 wheel drive challenges, we had always thought we had to give it a go – and Lesotho was The Drakensberg…

KWA ZULU NATAL

Tincaninafrica — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:29:24 +0000

6/03/2012 AN INTERESTING TRACK THROUGH THE TRANSKEI After some initial shock at seeing how the population and number of huts has grown in Pondo women Coffee Bay Transkei the Transkei after we first saw it 38 years ago, we finally made made it to a beautiful camp ground at Coffee Bay called “White Clay” – where we were made welcome…

Rolling through the Eastern Cape

Tincaninafrica — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 09:14:37 +0000

Rolling through the Garden Route and Wild Coast “auww !Where you say you come from? In this strange vehicle with strange number plate?“ “Australia. Land of milk & honey and kangaroos.” “Is it far? Further than Cape Town?” “Yep. This vehicle, Tin Can, had to come by ship. It took 2 months.” “2 months! Auww! Does it drink South African…

Hit the road Jack!

Tincaninafrica — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:16:49 +0000

On the road at last! Only 3 weeks late. TIA! There she is! To kill time last week and to generally keep on schedule with Tin Can’s arrival being 3 weeks late, we decided to fly return from Cape Town to Johannesburg to see Marianne’s other sister Tineke and brother in law Dave. They were most hospitable and Mango Airlines…

Waiting,waiting……(the joys of shipping companies).

Tincaninafrica — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:02:35 +0000

Cape Town 9th February 2012 Well, it’s a good thing that Cape Town is not too bad a place to kick one’s heels around (and that Marianne’s sister and BIL are good hosts), because Tin Can’s time of arrival in Cape Town has become a moving target! The local agents have been pretty good, but the story with the MSC…

Africa at last!

Tincaninafrica — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:16:49 +0000

Table Mountain At long last we have arrived in Cape Town on the 26th January after a long (30 hour) but uneventful flight! The past month sitting in Australia waiting to get going has been tiresome – as there has been little organisational stuff to do after Tin Can left other than a few last minute things. The past…

Cocked and Loaded

Tincaninafrica — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:39:28 +0000

December 12th final loading Separation anxiety has set in as today Tin Can was delivered to the Melbourne shipping agents. Much though I would have liked to have supervised the loading into a container, I was not allowed due to Australia’s painful Health & Safety regulations. Just had to hand over the keys to an ethnic gentleman who said “she’ll…

Final preparations

Tincaninafrica — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 04:29:06 +0000

Shipping schedules have changed and the shipping date from Melbourne to Cape Town has been brought forward a week to 12th December and time is now coming to a crunch! The vehicle is packed and ready and has had its final service by Rex Gorell Land Rover Geelong. (Next stamp in the book Land Rover Nairobi)?Insurances for both the vehicle,…