Johannesburg

Joburg has a reputation for being a dangerous city and its true you need to be aware of what's going on around you, however that's true for any city and in truth maybe we have been lucky but in all the times we have visited Joburg in the 80s, 90s and now we have had only one instance which was in any way threatening.

To be fair Carol lives in an area where most reasonably affluent folk have guards, gates and walls, not what we are used to back in the UK but when in Rome etc etc.

It had been some years since we were last in Joburg so we were interested to see what changes had taken place. First night we went to Sandton, one of our old shopping haunts in the 80's, for dinner. The place has certainly grown since we were last there with Nelson Mandela square now being the epicentre. The square has a prominent statue of the great man and some very nice open air bars, clubs and restaurants around it's edges, it being Saturday the place was humming which felt a bit strange after the solitude of the last few weeks.

The pressing need whilst in Joburg was to get a Zip bag made for the rear roof rack. Up to now we had been tying stuff down and covering it with a tarpaulin which Sue made out of two ex Army gas capes bought at the Landrover show. It worked quite well but it made unpacking and packing the roof rack a very tedious and slow process so we wanted to get a big bag into which we could pack our stuff and zip it up securely.

The main problem was finding someone who at the drop of a hat could make a rip stop canvass bag measuring 4'x4'x2'. Carol had been ringing around various suppliers whilst we had been on the road but most could either not make a bag that size or could not do the job in our short time frame.

On Monday after many phone calls we finally agreed a spec and price with the Safari Centre at Bryanston. They could have the bag ready by Thursday providing we left a deposit the next day, so Tuesday saw us in Bryanston.

Safari Centre is a nationwide chain of camping and outdoor stores, we had bought most of our camping kit needs in Cape Town (before we knew about zip bags), however, you can never have enough toys so whilst we were there we noticed they also did a nice line in canvass seat covers for the Landy.

We had seen similar covers by Melville & Moon before we left the UK at the Landrover show in Malvern but balked at the high price. In Joburg they were roughly half the UK price so in a fit of largesse we ended up buying a set of four covers as well. The only problem was they would take a couple of weeks to make and would have to be couriered to wherever we were at the time however we would worry about that later.

Thursday arrived but guess what the zip bag didn't, some delay in finishing off the zip and fasteners apparently, they promised it would be ready Friday and would ring us when it arrived. There was nothing for it but to wait, from Joburg we planned to head over to Swaziland and we were keen to get on the road again as City life was no longer for us.

Friday midday and still no call from the Safari Centre so we called them, the bag was not expected to arrive until late afternoon, this was a bugger as we were hoping to leave for Swazi the next day and this would leave us no time to fit the bag and re-pack the roof rack. Rather than fight the rush hour traffic we decide to pick it up first thing Saturday and leave Sunday.

Saturday we headed over early to Bryanston to get the bag, being half day closing it was especially busy so we have to hang around until Bernie our man is free. Whilst we are waiting we see a guy suddenly rush in with a parcel but think nothing of it.

Eventually we get to see Bernie and he proudly brings out our zip bag, it was perfect just as we ordered, great stuff. Basking in the glory of yet another satisfied customer with a flourish Bernie next brings out the parcel we had seen delivered moments earlier! "And here are your seat covers" he announces  triumphantly.

These days it's not often I'm gob smacked but this was one of those days,it is almost unheard of to get something this far ahead of schedule in Africa! Suitably amazed we open the bag and sure enough there are four seat covers with all the pockets and fastenings in the right places. Bernie proudly tells us the company which makes them had done a special rush order just for us so now there was no need to pay for couriers and run the risk of them getting lost, happy days indeed.

However, in our initial euphoria we had failed to notice one small thing...they were the wrong colour! To contrast the colour of the Landy we had ordered light brown, these were sand coloured and almost exactly the same colour as the Landy! The strange thing was we couldn't have ordered them in this colour as it wasn't amongst the samples on offer in the shop, so it was a mystery were they came from.

It was about now that Bernie's triumphant look started to give way to one of disbelief, he checked the order (twice), next he grabs the delivery guy from the manufacturer who also checks the order twice - yep they were the wrong colour alright. The delivery guy gets on the phone to his boss to report in, the response is if we insist on the brown then it will take four weeks to re-do them or we could accept the sand ones now.

Actually the Sand was very nice and would go well with Rupert  but sensing an opportunity for a bit of discount we make a big deal about how much we wanted the brown and the Sand was too much like the colour of the vehicle but we may take them off their hands if they gave us a discount - that way they save more costs and we save - good sense all round.

The delivery guy seems amenable but Bernie isn't keen as clearly his commission will suffer, however after a bit of a verbal tussle the delivery guy rings his boss and we get a 10% discount - everyone's happy except Bernie.

That day I suspect Bernie learnt the same tough lesson I learnt long ago that an order means nothing until the customer takes the goods and pays for them (hey Chris!) Sorry Bernie it was nothing personal.

Next day we said our goodbyes to Carol and Tanya and headed off  to Swaziland.