Ups

The road gets stony again, all stones are round volcanic projectiles. I speed slightly because it’s just pure fun to drift around with this well-balanced car! But its front ground clearance could be better ... I take an even smaller side road where the tracks are very deep and the mid-ridge is overgrown with grass which is pretty bad because it hides potential stones. Driving next to the track is impossible because of big stones all over the area. Additionally, with the low sun I cannot see anything! This is where I hit a bigger stone with my underbody skidplate. *klong* Hahaaa! Not that my skidplates were not totally bent and scratched anyway, but this stone deforms the 7 mm thick aluminium in a way that it touches my right drive shaft and makes some rattling noise. Shit. In order to not miss the sunset and continue to find a spot for the night I quick-fix the issue by loosening some skidplate screws. But there is no way to escape the wind, no bush, nothing. So I sleep in the open, ashy landscape. The car gets shaken by the wind the whole night. Strange night. I continue at sunrise just to find a quiet corner further down the road in the valley where I have breakfast, drive the car up some stones and begin my bush repair workshop. Both skidplates I unmount and at first try to re-straighten them by using the car’s lifting jack and the car's weight. But the plates are so strong that I just lift the car with the jack without bending the aluminium at all. Damn. The ugly but working solutions is using the big stones around. I align the plates accordingly and with well-aimed hammering of big rocks I can straighten the bent parts. More scratches but very effective! The plates are as straight as they were before I entered Botswana :DRead more