An epic drive

We stopped for a late truck lunch.  As nice as it was, I was already worrying about dinner!  We were still at 2500 metres.  It was cold and windy so we were all adding layers and changing from shorts to trousers!

Suitably refreshed, we pushed on.  We climbed again, up to 4500 metres this time.  We stayed at this altitude for miles.  It started to rain heavily.  None of us were relishing the prospect of bush camping (or cooking!) in the wet and cold!

The verges of the winding roads we were travelling on all day were littered with memorials to people who have died in motor vehicle accidents, as many as 20 or 30 on particularly dangerous bends.  It was a sobering thought as darkness fell!

We carried on through the evening as the rain continued.  We passed through villages where we thought we might have stopped to ask if we could camp in a sports field or school grounds (as we have done before when overlanding through Africa).  But we didn't stop.  We kept on driving.  Eventually, we stopped at a roadside diner.  Ritchie came in the back where Nikki was to ask what she thought we should do!  We were baffled, to be honest.  These two nights were scheduled as bush camps on the itinerary.  We hadn’t been held up by any protests, so why were we in this situation?  Surely, there must have been a plan about where we might camp?

Anyway, it was decided we would have dinner at the diner.  My cottage pies will go another day.  The food was good, but by the time we had finished, it was 9pm and we still didn’t know where we were going to sleep!

Ritchie asked us all to get our sleeping bags out of the locker and told us he was driving on for a few miles.  He said he would find somewhere to stop but that he wouldn't come back in the truck.  He said we should just sleep in the truck!  I said that when he found somewhere, we would assess the place, but that we would probably prefer to put our tent up.  He seemed a bit reluctant to let us, but I knew neither of us would get any sleep on the truck!  There were 4 of us in the two front seats, and I was sitting by a window that leaked like a seive!  I was cold, wet, and not best pleased! 😂

So, we drove on.  And on.  And on.  We were thinking we would never stop!  Eventually, we did pull into a makeshift campsite that the crew had used before in transit.  Why didn’t they tell us that we were heading here?  At least then we would have known what to expect.  Anyway, we arrived, and Ritchie gave those of us who wanted to, the option to pitch our tents.  We were the only ones who did, the rest of the group opting to bed down in the truck.  It was still raining a bit, but the joy of our pop-up tent is that it is up in two minutes!  We didn’t bother pegging it or using our self-inflating mattresses.  We arrived at our stop at 10.20pm and were in bed by 10.40!

The joys of overlanding! Today will be something we can laugh about later 😂🤣.Read more