WE'RE IN GOD'S HANDS NOW

It was our second day of driving the Badger when we encountered our first mechanical issue. We were halfway from Dar to Kilimanjaro, when the front left wheel began to screech and the steering wheel lurched in Cam’s hands, as he wrestled the Badger to the side of the road. With whisps of smoke escaping the sizzling wheel hub, the first call was ‘we’ve done a bearing’. But after some prolonged diagnostics, extended text messaging to Ash in London and a lot of wheel kicking, the CV joint was suspected.

Mechanical issue aside, the scene was actually quite beautiful. With the sun setting, we limped the Badger 60km’s through lush green landscape dotted and scarred by ochre clay huts and dust tracks, struggling to discern the smells of locals burning rubbish, from something more sinister in the dodgy wheel hub.

That night we drank beer, flicked through the Badger’s manual, googled images and blow-ups of wheel hubs and reflected how typical it was that mechanical issues strike on one of the few occasions we would be driving to a deadline. We had 2 days to make it to Nairobi, for 2 reasons. Firstly, I had a flight to make, to unfortunately return to Australia for the funeral of my amazing late Grandmother, may she rest in peace. Secondly, the Badger's Carnet (pursuant to which he validly remained in Tanzania) was expiring (ie the Badger’s visa was about to expire). We needed to export the Badger before it did and Kenya appeared to be our best option.

The following morning, we were up and under the Badger before sunrise. We inseminated the CV joint with a shot of grease and optimistically set off for Kili and Kenya. We got about 2km’s before the wheel was squeaking and screeching out of control. We stopped, jacked the Badger up and this time the play in the wheel told the story we had been denying. We had done a bearing.*

We soon discovered the non-responsiveness of the Tanzanian Automobile Club and that the nearest mechanic of Western repute was a German named Manfred, 300km away in Arusha. I spoke with Manfred who said we he would speak to his Tanzanian offsider ‘who knows a man’. A few minutes later a text arrived from Manfred stating, “Please call [number redacted] the name is God! Rgds Manfred”. What followed was one of the more biblical conversations I have ever had;

“…Jambo.”

“Jambo. Is this God?” I inquired.

“[indistinct Swahili]”

“Right, ok. I need to speak to GOD” I insisted.

“[more indistinct Swahili and what sounded like the screech of some sort of bird]”

“Can you please put GOD on the phone” I pleaded.

[Some shuffling and background Swahili, including the word ‘Mizungu’]

“Hello, this is God.”

God had good English and a handsome accent. He instructed us to return to Kerogwe and somewhat prophetically ensured us that “you will find me”. Indeed, we did find God, whose name turned out to be short for Godwin. God’s ‘fundis’, set to work on the wheel in the hotel carpark, with the full peanut gallery (including what appeared to be God’s young son) in tow. Once the assembly was opened, the bearings tumbled out like broken teeth, ashen and bone dry. After 2 hours and more hammering than I would have expected, the bearing was replaced and we were good to go. The price for parts and labour was about $60AUD. Even this was no doubt a gross inflation, but God only realised his under-calculation when we laughingly accepted.

The second time that bearing went was in the Massai Mara National Park, about 100m from a herd of elephants. We elected not conduct the diagnostics then and there and drove the Badger to the nearest fundi. There we met a boy-bandish South African Nat Geo presenter in Khakis and an Arafat chequered scarf. In between sips from his beer we learnt that he was there presenting a show called Safari Live, or ‘Safaaaaari-Liiiiiiive yaaaa’ as he said it. He was quite amused, when we jacked up the Badger, then lit up the BBQ to cook brekky eggs on the side of the road, whilst the fundi (who looked about 14) worked his magic. We were taken aback, when he declined to include a segment of this in the show.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, but very frustratingly, the culprit on this occasion was the same as the first. A severed spacer in the wheel assembly was noted by God, but a replacement could not be found in Kerogwe, so it was re-incorporated to allow us to drive to Nairobi. Cam had the whole assembly replaced (or so he thought) by the mechanic in Nairobi, who had clearly done a bullshit job and didn’t replace the offending spacer. See below, the spacer should be an unbroken circle and you will note that it is not:

Otherwise, our mechanical apprenticeship has continued though other inglorious moments, such as my filling the CV joint with motor oil (rather than grease) and Cam’s gluing the driver’s window shut with araldite. But the Badger persists with our stuff-ups and we persist with the Badger’s bastardry, as this endeavour will not last long, should we not be tolerant of bastards, stubborn and/or incompetent (and/or corrupt, as it has turned out).

UPDATE

The trip began on 21 July 2017 in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.** I spent a few days in Dar with Cam’s old work mates before heading over to Zanzibar. (Rod, Brad and the rest of the crew were incredibly helpful and accommodating and a heap of thanks go to them).

Cam arrived in Dar on 28 July 2017 and we met up with Lauren (a Queen’s College mate) and her boyfriend Adam and headed to their home in Bagamoyo. We would have loved to stay longer, but unfortunately the time pressures described above prevailed.

We then had our encounter with God and bolted up to Moshi (past Kilimanjaro) to Nairobi. I returned home for a few days for Nan’s funeral, whilst Cam had the Badger serviced. We then headed to the Massai Mara, which was quite simply incredible. At around this time of year, all the wildebeest from the Serengeti migrate to the Massai Mara in Kenya and there are literally millions of them. It is not possible to convey in words or photographs the sheer scale of this. In some ways, it almost felt like driving through a farm. Everywhere you looked, there were herds of all sorts of game and the landscape was heavily grazed as a result. But when the wildebeest come to Massai Mara everything else comes with them. You name it, we saw it – lions, cheetahs, elephants, rhino, hippos etc etc. It was eerie, but cool, that beasts' skeletons littered the park and you would literally keep lookout for buzzards circling to find the big cats’ latest kill. We had a great couple of days in the Massai Mara and some hair-raising nights camping out with the wildlife. One night, in pitch black, we could hear sticks snapping all around us, which we concluded were elephants (a worry, but not a huge worry) only to find a hippo a couple of metres from the campfire (a real worry)! Another interesting fact (which I learnt from the safety of the Badger), the collective noun for hippos is a ‘crash’, perhaps the most appropriate I’ve ever heard after that night. Another night, the only accom cost hundreds of dollars, so we ended up camping in the local pastor’s paddock. We ate pasta in the pastor’s paddock, whilst his daughters gawked! I’ve tried to capture the Massai Mara as best as possible through photographs which I have posed. They will no doubt do a better at describing the place than I can here, but will still fall short of how incredible the place is in real life. Check them out.

From there, we were going to go to Kisumu but were foiled by some light post-election rioting, so we headed to tea country in Kericho instead. Whilst things died down, we camped out in Nakuru National Park with the leopards and the rhinos, and did the dance with the anti-poaching fuzz.***

Which brings us to Uganda. We are currently at Jinja on Lake Victoria, where we intend to golf at the source of the Nile and try white water rafting.

The lessons have been coming thick and fast, and there’s been as much camping and Khaki as there should be in life.

I hope you are all well. For those in Melbourne, know that I have probably been rained on as much as you have (cue Toto). Please spread this blog to anyone interested as I’m sure I will miss people in my mailout. Send me a FB, email, Whatsapp, or a message through the Blog if you have any Q’s, comments or abuse.

Cheers,

Stu

* Big shout out to Andy Blanks for all his help. Absolute legend!

** 'Interesting' fact – Tanzania was called Tanzania as it was an amalgamation of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. There you go.

*** If you are looking at the photos, Nakuru NP is the one with the beautiful lake and the spooky trees.