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Travellin’ Light

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Scott CableOctober 8, 2013

Last week was a bit tense.
After all the false starts and revised plans (refer back to our new Binary Plan Numbering system), we finally got the car to Tilbury port and stripped of all the roof equipment so that it would fit into the container (30mm, 1 1/4 inches height to spare).

Unfortunately we were not allowed to get involved in the ‘stuffing‘ of the container (that’s a technical term for loading & lashing that we Stevedores use) due to the nemesis of the British economic revival – Health & Safety. When we were looking at shipping from Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, Italy, etc, etc I got the distinct impression we would be given a ball of string, told to crawl under the car and tie it down to the container ourselves. Although the guys at Youngs and First Base Freight have been top notch so far, they explained that the H&S Gestapo wouldn’t let us anywhere near the container once the car was stripped of equipment.
So, it’s done.
I’m reliably informed ‘it’s in there somewhere…….‘

Now we’re getting somewhere (we hope).
The car left UK waters last week for Cape Town and should get there around 28th October.
Fingers crossed.
Let’s hope its’ transit is a little less eventful than this trip was for these poor sods…..

The trigger to all this activity? The Carnet finally arrived from the RAC – we only found out at the last minute that it’s needed to load the car in the container, rather than just when we’re crossing borders in Africa.
Anyway, this is what all the fuss (and almost £4k per 12 months) is all about.

Now that’s done and dusted, Helene & I are travelling light.
Having put the ‘shell’ of our snail into the container we’ll be living out of a small rucksack and a 25-litre case for the next 6 weeks – particularly since we will be flying out to Cape Town by the cheapest (and probably most circuitous) route. Now, you may think that makes Helene a miracle-worker compared to how most women pack, but since my clothes are about 5x the size of hers, I think that makes me the real packing-genius.

Stats

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Scott CableSeptember 24, 2013

Didn’t Ewan McGregor do something called ‘The Long Way Down‘?
Lightweight.
Now THIS is the Long Way Down….
Just over 6 months….
10,319 miles (16,606 km) by road….
1,637 miles (2,663 km) by sea….
63 miles (101 km) by breakdown truck….
420 gallons (1,921 litres) of diesel….
£2,305 spent on fuel (average £1.22 per litre, average 24.5 mpg, average 8.60 km/l, average 11.60 l/100km)…
17 countries (UK, France, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy, Greece, Turkey, TRNC: Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium)…. 6 of them in the last 5 days!
Where are we after 10,000 miles?
41.6 miles from home.
Fantastic!

Temporarily back in the UK, waiting for the car to be loaded into a container next Monday for Cape Town. An unexpected treat and an opportunity to catch up with friends & family due to the difficulty in getting into northern Africa via either Egypt, Israel or Sudan.
Hopefully the car will leave here next week and we will follow a couple of weeks afterwards.
In the meantime, it was a hell of a round trip for a wedding – but it’s been a blast.

A Pig’s Ear

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Scott CableSeptember 19, 2013

Guess what I got for my birthday yesterday?

Airfreight express from Ashcroft’s in the UK.
I have to admit, neither of us was expecting to spend that much though!
Dinko’s garage have now got everything back together and we should be on the road today.
After seven days in Haskovo we’ve seen all there is to see here.
The town’s claims to fame are….
1) the world’s largest statue of The Virgin Mary with Child (32 metres),
2) the tallest flagpole in Bulgaria
3) …… that’s it.
We’re more than ready to be back on the road and can now reorganise the container shipping of the car from Rotterdam to Cape Town.
All we have to do is get across Europe.

Dinko thinks we’d be better swapping the Land Rover for a camel. As it is, he thinks it’s a dog and we’d be better with something Japanese, reliable, that’s not rusting to death, has air-con and a huge turbo-charged engine.
Unfortunately we think he believes the old saying….‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a pigs ear’.
Mind you, I believe you can’t eat pigs ears!

I decided to have the grilled pigs ears for dinner. Helene had the chicken (appropriate!) pancake.
I also decided that I would never eat pigs ears again.
Their menus here are very literal. They do exactly what they say on the tin.
You get exactly what it says on the menu: no more, no less.
Pigs Ears is exactly that (no herbs, flavourings, sauces, etc).
Helene decided she wanted a dessert from the extensive list and chose the chocolate (predictably).

That’s what she got. No more, no less.
I was thinking about having the ‘Granny Cake’ but I’m not sure what’s in it!
Huge thanks to all involved in getting us moving again: Dinko (who’s time we’ve taken up much more of than we have paid for); a number of his English-speaking customers (particularly Hristo) who he has roped in for hours as translators and taxi-drivers for us; and Liz & Frank at the garage in Cyprus (for being on the other end of the phone for the last week whenever we needed technical advice – or a dose of Northern Wit).

Top Tip 1

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Scott CableSeptember 16, 2013

If you hear a whining noise (whether from your gearbox, or your wife / husband) DON’T ignore it.
It never goes away on it’s own.

Gearbox shaft, rebuild kit and bearings are ordered from UK.
Hopefully to be delivered to the hotel in Bulgaria within the next 3 days.

We’ve given up giving our plans letters (there’s only 26 in the Roman alphabet).
I think we’ll move onto some sort of Binary Coding.

Clutching at straws

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Scott CableSeptember 14, 2013

It’s not the clutch.
It seems that ‘…Bang, clatter, crunch, clatter, grind, bang, oh-shit…’ is the sound gearboxes make when they go terminal (I guess clutches go more ‘…Whine, scrape, grind, what’s that smell, oh shit…’).

It seems that the main shaft in the gearbox has sheared. Not sure what caused it or if (unusually) it just failed.

Dinko owns the local garage and he and his guys have been scouring the countryside for any sort of gearbox they can find and fit for us – even if only temporarily.
There’s not a lot of Land Rovers around here. A bit of a black & white selection – either battered old trucks or top end Mercs, Audis, Toyotas, etc.
By 7.30 yesterday evening they had found an accident-damaged Disco 2 at some farm in the countryside and by around 9pm had got the gearbox out of it and in the back of the truck. Dinko’s dinner was apparently waiting for him at home, but he insisted on giving us a quick tour of the town – the monuments, memorials, parks, best places to eat, etc.

Like many of the places we’ve been, people seem genuinely prepared to put themselves out and help.
Yesterday we had 3-way conference calls between Dinko in Bulgarian, translated into English by one of his customers, who was on the phone to Frank & Liz in Cyprus trying to diagnose the possible cause of the failure and what options we have.
This morning (Saturday) Dinko is back in his workshop seeing if the Disco gearbox fits and is good enough to buy – trying to get us back on the road later today.
If not, Plan B will come into effect. Not sure what Plan B is yet, but no doubt one will turn up.
More importantly, dinner was an experience last night. I’ve heard before that Bulgarians like their meat and will eat every bit of the pig – including the ‘Oink’.

This time I chickened out (unusual for me) and had the mixed meat plate.

Meal for 2, with drinks and coffees etc £22.

Womble Country

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Scott CableSeptember 14, 2013

It’s been quite an eventful 2 days getting out of Turkey.
We decided to drive through the heart of the country, rather than back round the coast, in an effort to get to Rotterdam as soon as possible to put the car into a container for South Africa.
The towns in the heartland are fascinating and vary from dusty little villages to cities with beautiful Mosques and gardens.
We stopped over at Konya (thought to be one of the oldest cities in the world – inhabited since 2,000 years BC) and stayed at a great place opposite the main Mosque.

Making good time, we went on to Sapanca and stayed in a little B&B by the lake (about 100km east of Istanbul). Really nice Turkish / German couple there and a very nicely set up house. A real bargain price too. They sent us down to a restaurant on the lake for dinner and we had the speciality of the house – salt baked sea bass. Superb.

I’ll know better next time though and ask the price first. £90!! Three times the price of the room (with breakfast). Let’s hope we can live cheaply for the next week or two.
After that, a long day driving through / round Istanbul, to the Bulgarian border. Again, a bit of waiting around on the Turkish side but much less painful than previously. On the Bulgarian side, lots of queuing for passport control, Customs searches etc. Most of the cars were gone-over with a fine-tooth comb.
One Asian car held up the queue for at least 45 minutes. There didn’t seem to be much in it other than loads of children – maybe that’s what they were smuggling? When it came to our turn to be searched the harassed-looking Customs man took one look inside our back door, said “That’s OK” and waved us through. I guess he’d had a long day too and didn’t need the grief of emptying an over-loaded Land Rover.
3 hours later, just as it’s getting dark, in the middle of nowhere…..

Here we go again.
Clutch failed.
We managed to get the car to the side of a busy dual-carriageway, in front of some fruit stalls and got hold of a rescue service. We bought as much fruit as we could to keep the stall owners happy (not a penny in Bulgarian Levs between us as we hadn’t seen a bank up to that point). After 45 minutes they were getting pretty grumpy about the fact that we were parked in their prime-retail spot and putting off the passing customer – I guess they were expecting one any day now.
With the help of a couple of burly Bulgarians we pushed the car round 180 degrees (turning circle of a super-tanker on a Land Rover) and across the dual carriage way, out of their way. Now that’s how you play ‘chicken’ properly. I didn’t know I had that much strength. Crossed the road in record time.
Bang (or rather…Bang, clatter, crunch, clatter, grind, bang, oh-shit…) goes our chance of keeping our expenses down.
Currently in a small town called Haskovo, Bulgaria, waiting for the garage to take the clutch apart and let us know what they can do with it.
Oh well, I guess the Rotterdam boat next Monday is a bit of a long-shot now.

The Great Escape?

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Scott CableSeptember 9, 2013

We’ve GOT to get out of here!

To bring everyone up to date briefly….
We didn’t get the car into the container in Limassol last week.
When we got to Limassol Customs Office, our shipping agent got us through the first line of desks, then one of the Customs officials queried where we had brought the car into Cyprus from.
She called in her Supervisor, the supervisor called in his Manager and the manager called in the Director of Customs. He shouted at us for 15 minutes, with a face like a wave on a slop-bucket and a voice that could open a bottle of whine!
He was obviously enjoying the opportunity to show off in front of his minions and told us in no uncertain terms (many words of only one syllable in fact) and with a great deal of finger-wagging, that there was no way were going to ship out of Cyprus and we could bugger off the way we came back to Turkey.
So we cancelled the container and have spent the last week arranging a cargo boat back to Turkey from the northern (“hostile and illegally occupied“) side of the island.
Plans turned on their head once again.
Managed to get the car packed up in record time (although I’ve no no idea where everything is) and Helene spent the few hours before we left frantically doing the last-minute things it seems all women do: cleaning (before the cleaners come in), re-tiling the bathroom, learning Turkish, etc. etc.
We left ‘southern’ Cyprus this morning. We made it without incident through the border at Nicosia and are currently waiting to see if we can get onto the cargo boat which sails at 2am tonight back to mainland Turkey (and all the fun we had before with their Customs people).
May not get much internet from here for a few days, but will report when we know more.
In the meantime, huge thanks to all the people who’ve helped us since we arrived in Cyprus.
In particular Phil & Caroline (Mr & Mrs Deboys) for so graciously lending us their apartment for so long while we sorted out all this travel nonsense. It’s been a Godsend.

Also, to Liz & Frank of F&E 4×4 Services just outside Paphos. Not only have they done some great work to the car while we’ve been here (new Ashcroft gearbox, new oil-cooler system, new radiator, etc) they’ve been great hosts and become good friends. Frank even spent a while with me when the car was up on the ramp and went over all the things for me to look out for while we’re travelling. Mind you, after that (having picked up where my mechanical talents lie) he did say “Oh well, maybe just keep the oil & water topped up-, fill it with fuel and get someone in each country who knows what they’re doing to look it over for you.”
Thanks for everything guys.
S&H x

Shipping Forecast

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Scott CableAugust 28, 2013

‘….and now, The Shipping Forecast.’

There seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel.

As mentioned previously, although the Cypriot Customs in Nicosia issued us with Temporary Import paperwork for the car, what those papers actually mean is ‘you can drive the car around a bit for a few months but after that, you can jolly well bugger off back the way you came’.

As a result all (but one!) of the shipping companies here said that we won’t be able to ship the car anywhere from Cyprus because we brought it over via Turkey.

Helpfully, now most of the Turkish shipping companies we’ve approached have also effectively told us to ‘bugger off’ because we’ve been in Cyprus.

So, we will be taking the car to the guys here who say they can do it on Monday afternoon and (after removing the rooftent and other equipment up top) squeezing it into a container for shipping on Wednesday.

Fingers crossed that these guys have got it right.

The car will go to Cape Town (apparently via Beirut) and take about 40 days to get to South Africa. We chose South Africa over Walvis Bay, Namibia as we’ve found a shipping agent there who comes recommended regarding temporarily importing cars. The travel time is also about 10 days less than Namibia, so we will get back on the road sooner.

The other 6 main options we looked at had come down to:
a) Ship to Sudan: That would mean flying back to the UK for 4-6 weeks before we could get Sudanese visas (or flying to Aswan in Egypt to get them quicker), then getting the car back to Turkey while we organise the container.
b) Ship to Israel: Ditto above re visas, but then get boat to Israel, drive through to Jordan, get ferry to Sinai Peninsular in Egypt then drive through Egypt to Aswan for barge to Wadi Haifa, Sudan.
c) Ship to Mombassa: Not heard too many good reports about East Coast ports in Africa. Would still mean getting the car back to Turkey.

So, by the time we did all the number crunching and, given that Egypt may be feasible to get through but it’s unlikely to be fun due to the violence & disruption becoming more widespread, it turns out that the shipping option to Cape Town is actually about 10% cheaper than the others and (hopefully) a lot less hassle.

All we’ve got to do now it turn the last 4 months of route planning on it’s head and see how we can get around S Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, and Kenya to Uganda whilst avoiding the rains that make a number of the routes tricky to some of the areas we really want to see.

That should keep us occupied whilst the car’s relaxing on it’s cruise.

Spoilt for choice…..great!

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Scott CableAugust 9, 2013

Right, what’s the status then?

Well, we’re still in Cyprus. The nice guys at Nicosia Customs renewed our papers for bringing the car in and gave us another 6 weeks. But that’s the end of it: after that expires we have to leave.
Mind you, that’s what we’re trying to do – it’s just not that easy.
We’ve been looking into options to get the car (and ourselves) into North / East Africa from Cyprus. We’ve been through a number of shipping agents and they’ve all given us quotes to ship the car in a container to Port Sudan in (surprisingly) Sudan.
By doing this we would avoid the current unrest in Egypt (which looks like it’s about to get even messier) and get round the problem that the only remaining cargo & passenger boat from Turkey to Egypt has recently been cancelled.
Unfortunately, we’ve just been told that the paperwork we have for officially bringing the car into Cyprus is not actually a ‘Temporary Import Approval‘ – it’s actually just an approval to temporarily be able to move the car around the country (???).
Therefore, since it’s not actually been temporarily imported, we can’t actually now export it!
Since the car was brought in from Turkey, the Cypriot government don’t recognise it as actually being here and, therefore, it can only leave the country the same way it came in (and we all know how much fun that was). The Turkish part of the island is not officially recognised by the Cypriots (hence the United Nation patrolled buffer-zone) and is only referred to in official documents (such as our ‘Import Papers’) as ‘…that part of the country that is currently not under the permanent control of the Government of Cyprus…’
So, one way or the other we can’t keep it here, but we can’t take it where we want to go. We need to remove it via the same ‘illegal‘ route through which we entered Cyprus.
Therefore it’s back to Turkey for us and we need to rapidly re-evaluate how we get into Northern Africa from there.
Options are limited, and frustratingly complex….
1) Egypt, with the car: We can’t get the boat that takes passengers & vehicles from Turkey to Port Said, as that has been indefinitely cancelled since President Morsi was removed from office.
2) Land route: We can’t drive round to Egypt from Turkey as the previously accepted route involves Syria (out of the question obviously)
3) Container to Sudan from Turkey: Looked feasible for a while but the sea-freight will take about 25-30 days and it seems there are only 2 ways to get a Visa to enter Sudan (apply in person back in London, which takes 4-6 weeks to get an answer; or apply for one in Cairo while driving through Egypt, where one can usually be granted within just a few days). Obviously we can’t put the car in a container before knowing for certain that we would be able to get Visas and actually collect it, so that process would take about 10 weeks in total.
4) Via Israel: We could get a boat from Turkey or Greece to Haifa in Israel, cross Israel to Jordan, drive down to Eilat, get a ferry across to The Sinai Peninsular in Egypt and then head for Cairo before taking the more established route south to Sudan via Aswan and the Wadi Haifa barges. There are currently security issues in The Sinai, but the biggest issue with this route is probably that The Sudanese have a policy of not allowing anyone into Sudan who has any evidence of having been in Israel in their passports. We can possibly get round the passport issue, but keeping any Israeli stamps off of the Carnet (car paperwork) is more tricky and even if we manage it, we could have a bit of a job explaining how we therefore arrived at the Sudanese border via Jordan and Egypt. We may be able to bluff our way through the border, but it’s a hell of a long (and expensive) way to go if we’re subsequently turned back.
5) Container to South Africa: Resolves most of the visa issues, but means either driving back to Amsterdam / Southampton and then shipping the car from there to Cape Town / Walvis Bay or sticking the car in a container in Turkey, from where it will be sailed back to Southampton then shipped out to Cape Town etc. May end up the most sensible option, but seems like back-tracking a hell of a long way. Would also mean turning our route-planning upside down and arriving in Uganda much later than we had hoped.
6) Container from Turkey to Egypt: If the cargo boat taking passengers isn’t running, maybe we can put the car into a container and ship it in, then fly into Cairo and pick it up? On the up-side this would possibly make it easier to get a Sudanese Visa. On the down-side it means the Carnet for the car will be about £3,000 more expensive than if we could avoid Egypt and we’d still have to pay out for a container & flights for ourselves.
Enquiries are out at the moment.
So far no-one seems to be coming back with much good news, but we’ve got fingers and toes crossed that something will turn up to make either options 3) or 6) possible (and a bit more affordable).
If not, we’ll end up tossing a coin between options 4) & 5).
In the meantime…

…a large gin & tonic is on the cards.

Stalled?

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Scott CableJuly 24, 2013

It’s been a varied sort of 6 weeks in Cyprus.
The excitement of Philip & Caroline’s wedding; pals Judith & Paul coming out for a brief visit; brothers Gareth & Gordon here for 10 days; and, best of all, daughter Charlotte & Luke here for a week (and now engaged!).
Great stuff. The rest of the time has been all about planning the main part of the trip – into Africa.
Planning meetings are serious stuff.

We’ve got maps, cross-referenced with books, research from a variety of Forums like The HUBB and numerous reports from the blogs of previous overlanders who have travelled either up, down or around Africa.
Unfortunately, just as we were going a bit stir-crazy in Cyprus and preparing to leave Cyprus, the situation in Egypt has gone pear-shaped.
Egypt’s first democratically elected president (Morsi, who took over from Mubarak exactly 1 year ago in a wave of optimism) has been overthrown in what seems to be a military coup, backed by the popular voice of the people.
Not friendly. So far over 120 people killed, demonstrations in all major cities, a great deal of tension and distress for the people of Egypt.
As a result, all shipping seems to have been suspended into Port Said and there’s no obvious route into Egypt.
We can’t drive round (Syria is way too volatile), we can’t go across from Tunisia (transit visas are not possible through Libya) and we can’t get a boat to Israel then Jordan / Egypt (as any sign of Israeli stamps in passports / Carnets will prevent us from getting into Sudan and then further south to Ethiopia / Kenya).
To cap it all, we’ve been told that we need to take the car back to Nicosia as the temporary import paperwork we currently have will expire in 3 days and Cypriot Customs are reluctant to allow us to extend it by another 4-6 weeks (which we need in order to stay here and make alternate travel plans).
Not really sure what happens next – tomorrow we go up to the border crossing where we entered and do a bit of friendly begging to try and keep the car here.
That at least would allow us to spend a bit more time investigating putting the car into a container and shipping it to Sudan through Suez (or to somewhere else on the east coast of Africa). Not a good solution, but it may be the only one open to us. So far though the cost of that option looks absolutely prohibitive ($7,000-9,000).
Step 1, make sure we don’t get thrown out of Cyprus within the next 72 hours.
Watch this space.