All photographs are taken either by my wife or The Famous Alan Foster (TFAF), unless stated otherwise. Apologies for the lack of Landy pics, but this was more a route documentation trip. 

Before I had a Landy, I was a speed freak (how I got cured is another story). In March 2000 I embarked on my first holiday with my truck. We decided to go down to Mosselbay and then onto Montague for a 4X4 trail. Seeing that it was going to take a long time to do the 1300 odd km’s to Mosselbay, we decided to take the scenic route and do it over two days. I am driving the best 4X4Xfar….

Come Friday morning, we are packed and ready to go. Being nervous and mostly paranoid I did my routine preflight check. I discovered that the engine was leaking water from somewhere. Great start! Eventually at 17h00 we are on our way from Forsdick's LR in Westgate. We headed for Kimberley where we stayed overnight. Well, the road really sucked. This was the same road that Bles (Bridges) was to die on a few hours later. Anyway we got to Kimberly very late.

Part of the whole idea was to take dirt roads as far as possible. You know, to travel off the beaten track…We went from Kimberly to Hopetown by tar road. Then from Hopetown through

Poupan(No pou and no pan in sight),

Potfontein,

As we headed down the first dirt road from Hopetown to De Aar, we hit the first mud bath. Yes, a mud bath in the middle of the Great Karoo. I have never seen so much water in the Karoo(Ok ok I haven’t been there that much, but it was a lot of water)

As we went slip sliding past the occasional (very occasional) shocked local community member waiting on the side of the road,  a few things came to mind:

1.        It was stupid to travel off the beaten track alone…

2.        Conti Tracs don’t handle mud well.( I had to replace the Contis after a mere 30 000Km’s…)

3.        The ARB airlocker was well worth it(The history of my locker will be looked at on a later occasion)

4.        I wish I had a snorkel.

After filling up at De Aar we headed down another dirt road to Richmond via Dieput and Mynfontein.

Slipping, sliding and driving sideways at times…From Richmond we took the N1 towards Kruidfontein. The plan was to go through to Prince Albert via Kruidfontein on the R353. . We took the Prince Albert turn off ignoring the “road closed” signs. I explained to my wife that this is a Land Rover and that we can go anywhere we like. We came to this section in the road:

 “See,” I told my wife, “no problem. The government is just trying to get us to go the long route so we can use more fuel and pay more fuel levies!” I just couldn’t resist taking a picture a this sign:

But my conspiracy theory didn’t last for a long time…

I still struggle with this in my dreams. Could I have made it across? Doesn’t look bad at all on the photo. (Apologies for the quality) I am sure I should have tried. Anyway I will never know, because we turned back and didn’t attempt the crossing. We found another road, R328, that was also closed but managed to get through quite easily, despite it being washed away in places.

From Prince Albert we took the Swartberg Pass to Oudtshoorn. Swartberg pass was beautiful going up.

Scary coming down. It was really slippery and the mist didn’t help.

On the other side of the pass we saw rivers where there shouldn’t be any rivers.

For me t was really interesting way to travel to the coast. We saw some really lonely places and no other traffic. I doubt if it will ever be so muddy again, but we got lucky with the mud.

Towards the end of the holiday we went to Mont Eco nature reserve. Great place, but that is another story with more Pictures of Landys.