This couple discovered that there’s lots to be enjoyed around the country, even if you limp from one towcar disaster to another!
We had planned our trip to the Eastern Cape for many months, including stopovers at the national parks as well as visits to various unknown but interesting-looking spots. So, early in 2010, we set off from Randburg, towing our Jurgens Classique with our Pajero SWB 3.5 GLS. We stopped for a late breakfast and then continued to our fi rst overnight stop in Bloemfontein. (We like to travel only about 300 to 400 km per day so that we have time to look around our destination.)
About 11 km outside Winburg, we started smelling hot oil, and the Pajero began to lose power – then, suddenly, all power was gone. Tom glided over to the grassed verge near some trees, but there was a ditch hidden in the grass, and the car and caravan ended up at a frightening angle. There we sat, unable to move. The radiator was not hot, but the smell was still very evident.
In desperation we phoned the AA, who sent both a flatbed tow truck for the Pajero and a very helpful Winburg resident in his own vehicle to tow our caravan to the nearest caravan park. This happened to be the Danke Schön Caravan Park and Guest House in Winburg, where the owners specially opened up for us, as it was dark by now, and let us park in their very friendly, small caravan park (which takes only about six caravans). Their rates were very reasonable (R100 per night for a secure, grassed park with clean ablutions). We recommend Pieter and Brunhilde Rossouw’s establishment, because they really went out of their way to assist us.
In the morning we contacted our insurers, who very kindly organised another flatbed tow truck to take our Pajero the 300 km back to Johannesburg to await our return. Our sons Neil and Alwyn then collected our other car, a BMW 740i, and brought it to us in Winburg. We had originally decided not to use the BMW as it was in need of a service and also not very suitable for game viewing!
We set off again to take up our original booking at the River of Joy Caravan Park 25 km outside Bloemfontein, once they had confirmed that we could move our overnight stay up by one day.
We were very unhappy to find that the BMW was showing signs of a mystery gearbox problem, jumping in and out of ‘limp’ mode and obviously not fit for a long tow. We slowly made our way to the caravan park, left the caravan there and went into Bloemfontein to Sovereign BMW. They tried to diagnose the fault and decided to make a hole through the catalytic converters, check the airflow meter and replace the thermostat sensor – and took three full days to do this while we sat, carless, at the River of Joy. Luckily this is a lovely park, with plenty of green grass, trees and farm animals, not to mention clean ablutions, so we enjoyed our stay there. Their rates were excellent, at only R90 per night.
Eventually BMW collected us, we paid for the repairs and we could set off on our travels again, this time heading for Mountain Zebra National Park, having moved our dates up by three days. Well, approximately 20 km from Bloem the gearbox went into ‘limp’ mode again, exactly as before, holding second or third gear no matter what we did, which made towing extremely difficult over long distances. We were shattered!
After much thought, as it was an intermittent fault, we decided to travel slowly to Mountain Zebra and set up camp there for three nights. There was only one other caravan there! This park is very peaceful, the restaurant and the ablutions are good, and the staff are all very pleasant. We found that the car worked well when not towing, so we were able to drive around the park game viewing and visit nearby Cradock, where we managed to find a laundry and a Wimpy with a plug where our laptop could connect to the internet, as this wasn’t possible at the park.
We wanted to get to BMW in Port Elizabeth for their expert opinion on our car’s woes, so we decided to travel slowly to Addo Elephant National Park and from there to P.E., which had not been on our itinerary. We spent a lovely five days at Addo, where there are literally hundreds of elephants and many other animals. The campsites there are always well maintained and the ablutions clean, and they have a very nice restaurant with a view of the valley and waterhole near the rest camp.
Then we set off – very slowly – to Port Elizabeth. We can heartily recommend that you do not use the Addo-P.E. road, which is full of potholes and undulations for over 80 km. We managed to find a caravan park in P.E.’s Summerstrand area, courtesy of our GPS. This was the Pine Lodge Resort, which is very well run and maintained, and has very reasonable pensioner rates of R105 per night. We checked in for one night, left the caravan there and headed for Continental BMW. When we arrived with the car, the workshop advised us that we would have to leave it with them overnight so they could check it when the engine was cold. They organised a hire car from Avis, whose offices are conveniently right next door to BMW, and we set off in our little Ford Fiesta.
Further car woes
The following morning we were back at BMW bright and early, only to be told that they would need the car for about a week, as they had to fit various parts, remove the catalytic converters completely, check for power loss, investigate the gearbox and interrogate the car’s computer (their words!), and the software to control the sensors would have to come from Germany. We had already returned the Fiesta hire car (which had a consumption of 32 l/100 km – astronomical), so back we went to Avis and this time hired a Toyota Yaris, which turned out to be a very nice little car.
A week later (and having duly changed our next bookings at Cape St Francis for two nights, followed by Tsitsikamma National Park for five nights), we were told that the parts had not come from Germany and the workshop was now waiting for a different part from Midrand. We ended up spending 13 nights at Pine Lodge Resort: thank goodness it was a really nice caravan park, with a laundry, The Island restaurant overlooking the sea, great ablutions and excellent security – well worth a visit.
We travelled all over the Port Elizabeth area in our little hire car, checking out the airport, the new soccer stadium, the harbour (as far as we could get into it), down the coast to Seaview to have a look at Cape St Francis, Humansdorp, Patensie, the nearly empty Loerie Dam in the Gamtoos area (typical of the Eastern Cape at the time), Hankey and the Cape Recife Nature Reserve, which adjoins the Pine Lodge Resort.
While we were at Pine Lodge Resort, our large caravan window fell out of its supports because of the heat. The local caravan repair shop was unable to assist us, and eventually Tom managed to realign the window with the help of the breadboard, a brick, a stick and the jack. Then we purchased a pop-riveter and anchored the window to the rail. ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan!
Eventually we collected the BMW and headed for Tsitsikamma National Park. Not even 20 km out of P.E. the gearbox did it again – went into ‘limp’ mode. We were devastated, as you can imagine. It was also frightening not to have control of our tow vehicle, especially going over mountain passes. After much consideration, we decided to persevere slowly to Tsitsikamma and just stay there for a few days instead of continuing on our planned itinerary to Wilderness, Oudtshoorn and the Karoo National Park.
We contacted SANParks yet again – they knew us well by now – and managed to cancel the rest of our bookings and just stayed at Storms River Camp in Tsitsikamma for ten days. This is a lovely camp: the rates included the usual fantastic SANParks 40% discount for pensioners, which worked out at R150 for the sea-view sites and R132 for those slightly further back – also in sight of the sea, however! The camp extends a very long way, with most sites overlooking the sea, and chalets slightly higher up the mountainside. The ablutions are cunningly hidden in the rocks, near a well-maintained tidal pool, and there were many very cute rock dassies around, and even a few bushbuck feeding nearby. The views are spectacular from just about everywhere.
During this period we visited Plettenberg Bay and found a delightful wine estate called Bramon Wines, where they make really excellent wines (the Crags Sauvignon Blanc especially) and serve them in the farm restaurant right in the middle of the vineyard, with an assortment of cold meats, olives, home-made breads etc.
While at Storms River Camp we climbed the wooden stairway to the suspended bridge and back to camp again, a distance of 2.2 km up and down stairs: quite an achievement for us! We experienced incredible sunsets, wild seas and an awesome storm while at this caravan park, where we were camped right on the edge of the sea. We will definitely go back there again!
To get back to our saga, we crawled back to P.E. eventually, the car still misbehaving when towing. We decided to try another caravan park and ended up at The Willows on Marine Drive, just 15 km out of Port Elizabeth. Their rates were R180 per night. We found their ablutions cramped, and there was a frightening incident when a troop of very aggressive monkeys attacked a couple cooking outside their tent, just opposite our caravan, and stole the food off their braai and out of their hands.
We realised we would never make it back to Johannesburg this way and decided to hire a Toyota Hilux 3.0-litre double-cab bakkie for five days – a very expensive outlay at over R1000 per day for the hire costs, plus diesel for the bakkie and petrol for the BMW! This was an excellent towcar with good consumption, but the suspension was very hard, especially for anyone with back problems. With Tom driving this vehicle with the caravan in tow and Brenda driving the BMW in convoy behind him, we started our trip home.
We spent another two nights at Mountain Zebra National Park, as it was on the way, then a night at Gariep Dam and the final night back at Danke Schön Caravan Park, just to show them that we were still trying to have our holiday! We finally got back home with both vehicles.
Our 24-day break had turned into a 37-day extended holiday. Fortunately we are pensioners and are able to keep in touch with everyone via email with our laptop and cellphone. We made the best of our problems and, thanks to our having been caravaners for 40 years (and subscribers to our terrific Caravan & Outdoor Life magazine for the same period) our holiday home is always with us. But the saga did not end there.
We found that the Pajero’s cylinder head gaskets had blown, and eventually managed to get it back on the road. Then, to add insult to injury, while we were travelling out to Eastco in Magaliesburg to the recent North Rand caravan rally, our caravan ran a bearing on the right-hand wheel, and this on the Krugersdorp-Pretoria freeway in rush-hour traffic – a nightmare! The traffic just kept coming, huge trucks and fast cars, and we could not get the caravan completely off the road because of a railing right next to the emergency lane.
Martin from Loftus Caravans was sent out to rescue us, in the dark, by Neil Loftus. He did an absolutely sterling job and got us on the road again. We are very grateful to Neil and Martin for their assistance – always offering a professional and caring service to caravaners no matter what the problem. They deserve all our support.
We keep hoping that one day soon the drama will stop and we can get back to enjoying the rallies and our caravan holidays as before!
TRAVEL PLANNER
Danke Schön Caravan Park & Guest House, Winburg - 051 881 0292
River of Joy Caravan Park, outside Bloemfontein - 051 861 2039, 083 462 7522
Mountain Zebra National Park, outside Cradock - 048 881 2427
Addo Elephant National Park, Addo - 042 233 8600
Pine Lodge Resort, Port Elizabeth - 041 583 4004
Storms River Camp, Tsitsikamma National Park - 042 281 1607
Bramon Wines - 073 833 8183
The Willows Resort, Port Elizabeth - 0861 177 177
Loftus Caravan City - 011 792 1456
(This article was published in the Dec/Jan 2010/11 issue of Caravan & Outdoor Life)
