As usual you think you’ve got ages to sort a last few bits out…..

NO CHANCE! The last few days have been manic, and the next few days are going to be much the same.

We’ve been busy working on The Colonel, fitting some additional locks to the living accommodation, giving extra security for when we leave the Daf packed up, and also for when we are asleep in the living area at night. These are relatively simple locks, being bolted through the wall, but are quite robust, and probably more importantly act as a visual deterrent.

Today we fitted the military spec snorkel kit

This will enable us to ford deeper rivers, but also picks the air intake up much higher and so hopefully into cleaner, less dusty air, and so be less crap sucked into the air filter. Due to the size of the filter (about 10” across and 18” long), we are only carrying one spare on board, and so will rely on blowing the dust out of the filter with the on-board air line.

The mountain bikes are now loaded, and locked on, and the oiled tarp had been fitted over them and the spare wheel. It all seemed to fit well but will need to be checked after a few “high speed” miles to make sure its not filling with air and shifting about.

We are still waiting for our International Driving Permits from the RAC, and hoping they will be with us in the next couple of days. Once these are received we will book our ferry across the Channel, and start to make our way down through France and Spain.

As always we are looking at the security, and political situation on the African Continent, and the border between Nigeria and Cameroon still remains closed. Issues still remain about gaining a Visa for Angola, and there have been a few incidents in Mali. These are issues that have been around for at least a few months, but hopefully will improve/change before we get to these areas. Im sure that other areas will have issues before we get there.

Loaded into Colonel K’s belly (lockers) are some very clean (at the moment anyway) and snazzy recovery straps.

The purple one is a 85mm wide and 20m long winch extension strap, the green one is a 5m tree strap. We’ve also got a 12tonne “swing away” snatch block pulley for use with the main winches on the truck. The straps will also be useful for recovery of the Daf, or for us pulling other vehicles out that are stuck.

We are still saying lots of goodbyes, and today got treated to a fantastic lunch by Richard and Jocie, thanks guys, it was a lovely meal with great company. The food is always good in the 5 Bells at Brabourne, but today was top notch.

So as of Friday, we will be living in Colonel K, where depends on our IDP’s arriving. So we will be Pikies, but is it gonna be in Kent or France? Well that now depends on the RAC.

V