Windhoek - Namibia

Having said our good byes to Carol & Tanya we had to decide what to do next. Originally we had intended  to visit Luderitz and Kaokoland on this trip but by necessity had to forego both. We now could go at least to Luderitz but we were so knackered we couldn't face the long trip back South plus our niece and her boyfriend where due to meet up with us in Maun, Botswana in two weeks time so we decided to chill a bit in Windhoek and prepare for their arrival

Windhoek is a nice city nestled within a ring of mountains, being the capital it has good shopping and other services so after almost a month of continuous travelling in the bush it would be nice to relax for a while - or so we thought.

Rather than camp we decided to take a self catering chalet at the Arebbusch for the next few days, it would be a bit costly but we needed the facilities as Rupert badly needed a service and we needed somewhere secure to off load all the stuff in the cab (which is a lot!). It would also allow us to catch up with emails and hopefully the website, the only drawback was it was my birthday on the 4th so we had hoped to spend it somewhere nice in the bush but you cannot have everything.

Still it was very nice having a proper bed for the week with Sat TV, power and ensuite bathroom. Although not furnished quite as nice as the ordinary chalets the self catering also have the advantage of having a small fully equipped kitchen which would be ideal for us if we wanted to eat in, another nice touch is the braai area on the stoop so all in all for just over £50 per night they represent good value.

When we had last visited Namibia to do a self drive trip through the Kalahari we hired a 130 Landy from a safari company called Sandy Acres and had made the acquaintance of the owner Martin Bowen-Webb. Over the years we had bumped into Martin a couple of times at the Destinations Travel show in London and had agreed to look him up when we passed through Windhoek.

Martin has lived in Namibia for some years so he is a good source of information and he recommended we take the Landy into a small garage called East End Motors where an old Fundi (expert) called Johan had been working with Landy's for over 30 years.

The garage used to be the Landrover dealer at one time but this had now been taken over by a bigger, plusher establishment -  Martin warned they were not cheap but they do a very good job which was what we needed most as Rupert had been through a rough time since his last service in Gabs.

We were up early to leave Rup with Johan at 7.30am, the garage gave us a lift over to Sandy Acres where we had arranged to have a coffee with Martin after which Martin kindly gave us a lift back to the Arebbusch where we would sit out the day. As everyone knows its always fraught taking a car in for a service as you know they are usually going to come up with something expensive that needs fixing.

By mid afternoon we hadn't heard anything from the garage so we where starting to relax thinking it was all going well when the dreaded call came from Johan. He warned we needed to change the alternator as the bearings were going, we hadn't noticed any problems although we had noticed a slight squeaking noise but put that down to the pulleys.

Spare parts like Alternators especially genuine Landrover parts are expensive out here but as it happened we had a new spare alternator with us, problem was it was locked away in the back box with the rest of our spares and Johan needed to fit it now.

However, in true Africa fashion they agreed to send a car over to pick us up so we could unlock the box and good as gold 20 minutes later we were on our way to the garage. We have two ammo boxes full of various spares packed away right at the back of the box so it was only after some struggling that we managed to get the spare alternator out.

In the meantime Johan was going through what they had fixed so far, apart from the normal oils & filters they had changed three suspension rubbers, the drive belt (again) and replaced the plastic nuts on top of the radiator and water pump for brass ones as he warned the plastic ones would not stand up to the African conditions. He had also found a slight oil leak from the transfer box which meant the old O ring problem which Foleys had replaced just before we shipped the Landy had returned. This is a common problem with Landy's which they have cured in Namibia by re-boring the Transfer box casing but as that would be too big a job now he had plugged it with the good old Pratley steel which we had used (unsuccessfully) on the water tank leak.

More worryingly he had also noticed some play in the front diff which may indicate a worn bearing! Our problem was it was now late Friday afternoon so they had no time to check it properly,  it would have to be looked at on Monday however we planned to head into Botswana on Sunday and didn't really want to hang around Windhoek any longer. It was just sods law that the day before had been a public holiday so we had been unable to get Rup in until Friday anyway.

We decided to leave the diff until we reached Maun and have it checked there, even so it was getting dark by the time they had replaced the Alternator and we were heading back to the Arebbusch. We still had to re-provision and re-pack Rupert with all the stuff at the Arebbusch in readiness for Botswana  -  the relaxing period was well and truly over.

Next day Saturday we took Rupert to be cleaned inside and out, you get a really good job for about £5, problem is it takes them nearly two hours to do and we hadn't realised that most shops close at 2pm on a Saturday so we ended up missing the internet cafe and some other places we needed so would have to come back in first thing in the morning before we left for Botswana which was a pain.

It was after 6pm by the time we had finished re-packing Rupert but at least he looked nice and clean and was newly serviced so we were in good shape for our trip into Botswana to meet Ruth our niece and her boyfriend Jonathan (J).

The plan was to show them around the game parks in Northern Botswana and hopefully visit Vic Falls if we could or if not the Okavango. It would be Ruth & Js first time in Africa and it was also nearly 20 years since we had seen some of these areas so we were really looking forward to this next stage of the adventure.