After we left our jobs in Qatar at the end of 2013, we began the ‘Countdown to Africa’ – Very exciting!!
January 2014 – Once we have: successfully completed the Euro-test-trip; visited all our Euro-friends; done enough skiing; and are confident that everything is ‘tickety-boo’ with the Truck, we plan to head to Africa. Detailed planning is a bit vague so far, but in May sometime we will probably ship the Truck from Germany to South Africa.
We would have loved to do the classic drive from London to Cape Town all the way overland. However in today’s political climate we simply don’t have the ‘cojones’ to venture through (on the East side) Syria and the Sudans, or (on the West side) Mali. We will therefore probably take the option to ship to the south and head north. Exact route and sequence of border crossings is intentionally vague so that we can make it up as we go along, particularly taking into account any changes to political and safety situations in each country as we go. The route is likely to include: South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botwana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Malawi.
February 2014 – We have applied to the RAC in UK for the essential ‘Carnet de Passage’ to get Cuthbert into South Africa and are waiting to hear how much this will cost. Until we have this in place we can’t book the shipping to Port Elizabeth. No doubt further admin to look forward to with this 🙂 Hurry up and wait…..
End of Feb: unfortunately the RAC haven’t received our Carnet application. Resending… more waiting!
March 2014 – At last!! Thank you Mr RAC! Carnet application confirmed – we can proceed to arrange shipping! We are planning to do this together with our German friends Peter and Heike who are also shipping a similar truck to South Africa in May. They are kindly making all the enquiries for both our trucks. Now standing by for the shipping agent to confirm the shipping date options for May 2014. Getting quite excited now about the departure to southern hemisphere! We should probably start thinking about a route for when we get there!
Spot Cuthbert in this identity parade of camper-vans parked-up in Calais!
End of March update … shipping dates for May are now released and we are arranging to put Cuthbert to sea in 1st week May! Some admin still to arrange with Carnet and customs formalities, but all being well Cuthbert will arrive in Africa by end of May! In addition to planning our detailed route for when we get to Africa, we now also have to plan what we will do whilst our home is on the ship for 3 weeks. Very exciting when a plan comes together 🙂
April 2014 – Europe Tester-trip is finished, a couple of weeks final prep in UK, then back to Germany to finally hand Cuthbert over to the shipping agent for his long voyage to South Africa.
Cuthbert and his new chum, getting to know each other before joining the cruise to Africa
We met up with our friends Peter and Heike who are also shipping their Bocklet truck and kindly assisted us with all the arrangements in Germany. The ship is departing in the first week of May and we will fly down to meet Cuthbert when the ship arrives at the end of May.
Finally at the ship. Cuthbert is getting excited about the on-board entertainment on the 3 weeks cruise 🙂
May 2014 – Cuthbert embarked on his Africa cruise in Bremerhaven, Germany in early May. The departure administration in the port did not exactly live up to the German’s reputation for efficiency, but he arrived safely and on-time in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
We arrived in Johannesburg a few days before Cuthbert was due to arrive in Port Elizabeth; we picked up a hire car and had time for a bit of shopping and a night-stop in Jo’burg. We then had an interesting drive over 3 days across South Africa to Port Elizabeth, via Kroonstad, Bloemfontein, Aliwell North and Port Alfred. Port Alfred in particular was a great place and we will make a point of going back there at some point on our tour with Cuthbert. We picked up lots of great tips from Marianne and Rob, the hosts at our guesthouse there (www.portalfredpanorama.com – highly recommended for a lovely stop-over). Arriving in Port Elizabeth on Sunday evening, we were so looking forward to seeing Cuthbert on Monday morning and praying that the port arrival/customs process would not be too challenging!
So near but so far… nice sunset over PE docks. Cuthbert is in there somewhere!
When we got to Cuthbert on the Monday morning, he was in great condition and we were really pleased to see him again, parked safely in the customs compound in the docks. The arrival and import procedure was impressively smooth and efficient, particularly thanks to Adrian at John Fisher Agencies (www.jfa.co.za). Apparently the on-board entertainment had not been to Cuthbert’s liking during the 3 week cruise from Europe, but thankfully he suffered no damage en-route. The arrival was celebrated with a new ‘image update’ for Cuthbert:
Cuthbert’s new look for Africa! Elephants walking down the side and Cuthbert’s personal logo added to the back!
The elephant decals were designed and prepared by Julie’s brother Ben Taylor and Cuthbert is really chuffed with his new look for Africa. The yellow stripe down the side is a legal requirement in some African countries for vehicles over 6m in length, so we had no choice over that. Ben designed the elephants to walk along the yellow line on each side. Cuthbert’s personal camel logo on the back completes his new look! We then needed a few days further preparation in Port Elizabeth, mostly more shopping!, but also a visit to the Iveco garage. Just before leaving UK, we had an oil seal on the transfer gearbox replaced, but by the time we had driven to Germany to put Cuthbert on the boat, the new seal had shown signs of leaking again!! At the Iveco garage in PE, Charl was particularly helpful and had ordered a new seal ready for Cuthbert’s arrival off the boat. When we took Cuthbert to see them on arrival, they had a very helpful team who quickly replaced the seal and gave us some great advice on maintaining the Daily 4×4 in Africa. It was very reassuring to receive such a helpful response from Iveco in Port Elizabeth (www.fdtrucks.co.za). This was all covered under the warranty and it was also good to confirm that if we need to take Cuthbert to the Iveco Doctor in Africa again, it will all be covered under the global warranty.
So we are ready to hit the road in Cuthbert for the African adventure! We’ll break the story down into a separate sub-page for each country as we go along.
For more info on the planning stages, click here for links to the Practical Info and Sources and the Africa Practical Stuff.
We hope you enjoy Cuthbert’s Travel Blog!
Hey… was this useful? If so, you might like to support our website costs with a donation below. Thanks 😊👍