Adventures and Plans of the Last Quarter of the Year 2024. And a Big Fire in the Bush!
In late September, we returned to Africa and our 4x4 overlanding adventure after our "summer break" in Finland while we saw friends and family and worked as bear guides. It's been a wild ride since!
Life on the road is the life we know the best nowadays.
Maybe that is why it feels like we’re returning home when we return to Africa and pick up Honey Badger the Defender from storage—starting her engine after months’ break feels excellent!
It’s a different feeling of freedom when you know there is again only the open road before you and no plans that are too fixed.
That freedom is probably what still draws us back to overlanding life after five years on the road. ❤️
We’ve been driving all over Southern and Eastern Africa for a long time, and during the summer in Finland, we started to feel that maybe this year is finally the right time to move on. But what does that mean?
It means leaving Africa, at least for some years, and heading for different continents! (We’ll tell you more about these plans later.)
But before that, we want to visit most of our favorite places one more time and those we haven’t visited yet. So, when we landed back in South Africa in late September, we had a skeleton plan. Maybe this will be our last tour in Africa for a while.
But it will be a tour to remember, for sure.
South Africa and Kruger National Park, an Old Classic
When we left our Defender for storage in early June, we had just changed the head gasket, installed a new LOF clutch and output shaft, and done many other things to repair and upgrade our trusted vehicle.
It is in heavy use most of the time, so keeping her in tip-top condition is the priority. We cannot compromise our safety, and it is our home, too. And who wouldn’t take the best care of their home?
When we returned at the end of September, our vehicle still needed some upgrades and maintenance, which we did in Pretoria. For example, we installed new, heavy-duty shocks and front stabilizer bars. They’ll make the vehicle more stable and easier to drive.
After all the work was done, we headed for Kruger National Park. We had a reservation that had to be postponed earlier, so now it was finally time to use it.
We had a small tour of Crocodile Bridge, Satara, Shingwedzi, and Punda Maria. From northern Kruger, we planned to cross the border to Zimbabwe. And if the Limpopo River was still dry enough and crossable, we could also pass through the Pafuri border and briefly be in Mozambique.
Zimbabwe's planned route was to finally visit the famous Gonarezhou National Park to see the beautiful Chilojo Cliffs, then head north towards the Chimanimani mountainous area in the Eastern Highlands. All these would be new places for us.
After the mountains, we wanted to go to Mana Pools National Park again, as we loved the place. Our target was to get to Mana Pools before the rains started, which meant getting there before the end of November.
Our other agenda for Mana Pools was to get those photographs of the famous standing elephants, which we didn’t get the last time.
With this skeleton plan in mind, we first headed to Kruger.
Adventures in Kruger National Park, One More Time
From Pretoria, we first visited one of our friends who lives in Marloth Park. We briefly toured Zimbabwe together last year, and seeing her again was great. She also joined us in Kruger for a few days, so we got to spend some bush time together, too.
We also had a shipment awaiting us at her place: in summer, we ordered a new mattress for our Alu-Cab Icarus tent—a HEST Dually Long mattress—and we were eager to test it out!
As the original mattress was worn out, we needed a new one. After meticulous research, we got the HEST, as so many people recommended it as the best choice.
And it has been great! It is a true upgrade for our sleeping comfort in our camper.
In early October, Kruger National Park was scorched. That meant good visibility in the bush but hard times for the animals. The rains were eagerly waited for, but they still evaded the Park.
During the days, it was +40C (or more!), and only early morning drives were reasonable before the heat haze kicked in and the temperature started soaring. During the day, everyone, humans and animals alike, was just looking for the deepest shades to lie on.
We had pretty good sightings throughout the park, starting from Crocodile Bridge. We frequently saw elephants, lions, leopards, etc. Only the wild dogs evaded us successfully, despite our best efforts to find them.
But it felt that the drought was taking its toll on the animals.
It was taking a toll on us, too. We felt so tired during the afternoons that we only managed to find energy for a few evening drives before sunset. We only opted for the early morning game drives.
But we still enjoyed our time in Kruger! We think that this was “the farewell visit” for us, as we don’t plan to be back for a long time.
Elephants crossing the Sabie River near Lower Sabie.
Our Time in Kruger Was Suddenly Extended
When it was our last morning in the Park, and we were supposed to start driving towards the Pafuri border from Punda Maria camp in northern Kruger, Universe had other plans.
All of a sudden, our car didn’t start! It was completely dead!
We had had a few “lazy starts” during the last weeks, but nothing severe or of which we had thought much more about. But now, we were standing in the Punda Maria parking lot and couldn’t start our Defender. That felt pretty downgrading, to say the least.
Our first suspect for the culprit in situations like these is always the ignition switch, and we always try to carry a spare because of that. We had a spare now, too. So we dug it up from the cupboard and headed for the Park office to ask for help.
There are no resident mechanics in Kruger National Park anymore (which is definitely not ideal). They always call in some local guys from outside the park. After we had asked for help and waited for almost three hours, a mechanic we knew from a few years back showed up.
To tell this ordeal as shortly as possible so as not to bore you, here goes:
The first mechanic made a short in the system while trying to change the new ignition switch (he didn’t know how to connect the right wires and where), even though we tried to help him. But he didn’t listen. We then spent three extra nights trying to sort this out in Punda Maria. During this time, he ghosted us twice and never showed up again!
Then another guy was called out, an “electrician.” He managed to reconnect the wires to the ignition switch (while we told him how to), but the car didn’t switch off. So, something was not right. He claimed that “there was a short in the ABS ECU.” We didn’t really believe him, though.
So, his solution was hotwiring from the electric window relay (!?!) so that when we wanted to start the car, we needed to connect two wires and only then start the engine. When we wanted to switch it off, we first needed to disconnect the wires.
FAR FROM IDEAL! But it was all he could do. We were not happy!
However, we had no choice but to settle for that. But now we had to make a plan. We couldn’t drive to Mozambique and Zimbabwe like that. But yes, we should teach ourselves more about auto electrics so that we could change all these by ourselves…
We decided to backtrack and drive to Hoedspruit to repair this disaster at an independent Land Rover workshop. It meant several days of delay again, but it was all we could do. We just hoped that the ABS ECU would be fine.
Luckily, it turned out to be fine, too. But fixing everything correctly took two trips to Hoedspruit from Maroela Camp. Fortunately, we got a short booking at Maroela Camp, from which we could make these 140-kilometer roundtrips to Hoedspruit.
But before we got all the electrical issues fixed, we had some excitement to experience in the bush – a veld fire like no other we had ever seen so close!
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A BIG Bushfire in Kruger National Park!
On the evening of October 20th, we were sitting in Maroela camp when we noticed some pretty big flames on the horizon.
It’s not uncommon to have frequent bushfires when it’s so dry as it was back then, but this fire seemed bigger than usual, so we kept a keen eye on it (as did the rest of the camp's guests).
After a couple of hours, it was clear that the fire was rapidly approaching, and some people started packing their camps! Usually, there is no need to worry, as the Park staff manages most of the fires and they seldom reach the camps, but this time, it started to get uncomfortably close.
The fire just seemed to grow and creep nearer; the night sky was blazing red…
There were no Park staff in camp from whom we could have asked for guidance (!). Many people had already packed and left for the nearby Orpen gate. It was already dark, and we were also pondering whether we should leave.
After a short time, we also decided to pack everything up and drive to Orpen gate, as staying in the camp felt more dangerous than going, and the flames were already very close. We were among the last to drive from Maroela Camp to Orpen Gate.
Luckily, we have excellent offroading (4000 lm per spotlight) spotlights, so darkness was not a problem. However, when we drove out of the camp gate, the flames were already on the other side of the road.
When we arrived at Orpen gate, we met with many staff members, confused other guests, and started waiting for further instructions. After a few hours, we started asking around and were arranged a place to stay the night, as returning to camp seemed impossible for that night.
This was the first time we needed to evacuate ourselves out of the way of a bushfire.
Luckily, it was in Kruger – a pretty safe place. Had it been somewhere in the middle of nowhere, like the Central Kalahari, it would’ve been much more scary as we would have been all alone. Here assistance was near.
We then drove to the nearby Hans Höhelsen Wildlife Research Center for the night. Thanks to some efficient SANParks Kruger National Park staff for arranging a safe place to spend the night out of the thick smoke!
The following morning, we heard they eventually got the fire under control around midnight. A big area had burnt, and the fires almost swallowed one camp, but it was saved, and no one got hurt. So, this adventure ended well for everyone.
We then drove back to Hoedspruit to fix the electrical issues. We knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we went prepared.
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Electrical Issues Got Finally Sorted
After the first trip to Hoedspruit, we thought everything was in order, but halfway back to our camp in Kruger, our electric windows ceased working, and we knew that the workshop in Hoedsruit hadn’t done everything correctly.
We taped garbage bags to the window for the night and drove back to town the following morning.
Seldom in our five years overlanding in Africa have we had worse customer service than in that workshop in Hoedspruit! We were immediately met with shouting and discrimination, but we take no s*it from anyone, so after some “heated arguments,” they agreed to correct all their mistakes.
Funny enough, after we had shouted more loudly than the workshop owner and threatened with police, he completely reversed his behavior and was like the “nicest person ever.” Everything was repaired as it should have been, and we soon drove off with everything in order again. Our Defender started like a dream, and the electric windows were working properly.
It only felt so frustrating that you must always be “a bad guy” for things to work. It eats so much energy out of you. But when it’s the only way to get things to work, so be it. Never let too much s*it slide!
But the main thing was that we were finally ready to leave for Mozambique and Zimbabwe! :)
After all this, we still booked a few extra nights in Kruger (one in Letaba and a few in Shingwedzi) to rest, and then we headed for the Pafuri border and Mozambique. Although it was already almost the end of October, we still had enough time to visit Gonarezhou and Mana Pools in Zimbabwe.
After all these delays, we were still going to make it, and we were so happy! :)
In the next chapter, we move to Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile,
Stay Wild,
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