Day 191- Johannesburg- A quick one before the finale.

Howzit,

My route over the last 191 days. Red is original planned route and the blue route is actual.

Some stats:

KM: 37861km
Air/Boat/Bus/Train: 5547km

Fuel Used: 1984L

Photos Taken: 6141

Flat Tyres: 0

Expenses:
West Africa- 64 US$/Day
East Africa- 40 US$/Day

Accommodation-
Hotel:103
Camp: 52
Coach: 36

So as you can guess I am back home. I have been for over a week now. The only reason I am only blogging now is purely because I only have the courage to do it now. This is one of the hardest things to do, you have to do the final blog. Final blog of my trip and live changing experience.

Lets start back in Vilanculos. We packed up and left for “home”. To me, home was only in 3 days. But this was the push to get home.

First we had a problem. Nellie’s rear diff was leaking oil from somewhere. We decided to strip as much as we could and see what we could find. We found a small O-Ring on the speed sensor to be the problem, with some Mozam luck we found a new o-ring and changed the diff oil and headed off.

40km down the road we had a small celebration.

We pushed on towards Xai Xai our overnight stop. The road was, well, whats the word… Heartbreaking. I was trying to take in as much of my last bit of foreign soil as possible. I looked around much more than I usually would while riding and doubled up my effort to wave to the friendly local folk. I shouted “hello” more and louder than before, while thinking how I was going to miss this in 3 months time.

We stopped in Maxixe for lunch and as always had a 1/2 peri peri chicken and chips. The road was great, very little trucks and almost no other traffic. We took it easy and made it late that afternoon and checked into Chongoene Lodge. We had Chicken and Chips again for dinner and sipped on what seemed to be the best brandy and coke ever and savouring the last of the Indian Ocean as the next day we will head inland towards the SA border.

Xai Xai

We were off and headed down the last section and final foreign section of my trip. My heart was heavy and I kept asking myself “how is it possible that it went so fast?”

The turnoff.

We took the gravel road and skipped Maputo. We joined the N4 Maputo highway that joins Maputo and Pretoria in SA. The road was great, that was the only thing that I could find great at that moment.

We crossed the border with a small handshake but Nellie could see that I was heart broken.

Things changed quickly though. As soon as we headed down the N4 I smelled the lovely farms in SA, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. Farms all neatly cultivated, trucks driving slowly. It was bliss.

We found a Total down the road, I filled up and took a walk inside. Bought some decent cigarettes and a garage pie. It was a pepper steak. It was like I remembered it to be.

We were meeting the girls tonight. They were already in Sabie. We drove through the mountain passes and the km’s just seemed to fly by.

Down the road from Sabie

It was a great and final reunion between Deidre and myself. I was staying for good this time.

We had a great weekend and watched some Rugby and had a few braai’s. Paul Nel also joined us. He is a follower of Vansafrica and asked if he could join for the ride in.

Paul

The Sunday morning I left for Joburg and Home. The trip was over…

That’s that I guess… So I guess I have to write what the trip meant to me, what I will remember and which experiences I will keep close to my heart. That post will take some time and I will send that one out next week. It will be the blog not to miss!

Have a good one
Riaan
Africa, The World