Day One: Friday 17th July.
Left home 12 noon to Karoi, met up at Twin Rivers Inn at 14.45 hrs. 16.00 drove 45 kms north to Vuti. Left turn, through the village, to the farm of Denys and Tracy Cha[man. Offloaded Lloyds Jeep and Ellis trailer. A further 6 km to a camp site on edge of escarpment overlooking magnificent hills with hazy view of Kariba in far distance. Denys had placed a water tank for our use and a long drop loo. Mass Kirk's alternator, on the Cornil, fell to bits and was glued together with Prime Bond and hose clips.
A pleasant evening round a large log fire. Kelvin briefed us on the next day's drive.
A planned early start at sun-up.
GPS distance for the day: 275 kms
Day two: Saturday.
Left camp by 06.30. We were now in two groups. "Blue Leader – where are you?" "Green leader - we missed the turnoff and Gareth has a puncture." "Blue Leader – we are about 4 kms from camp and road is blocked by large tree; looking for bypass" We had to make a bush track around the hillside to re-join the main track further on. Toilet paper in the trees became the sign posts. Kelvin had briefed us that we needed to average more than 11 kph and after 8 hours we had done 60. Blue team had caught us up but we could see there was a long day ahead.
Somewhere "Grunta", the Ellis V8 half breed Range Rover/Jeep had munched its oil filter and lost all the oil. Towed by Greenway it got it to where "Prime Bond" glue and tape came out again, then a second hole appeared, more glue!
Wonderful views and interesting hairpin bends kept us all occupied until another large tree had to be chain sawed and winched off the road. By the time we arrived on the main bus route, at the power lines crossing, complete with a bus off edge of a bridge, we decided that camping at Gache Gache Lodge on the Kariba shore was a very sensible idea. Even the Lions gave us a singsong way into the night. It sounded like two prides serenading each other.
GPS distance for the day: 90 kms
Day three: Sunday
Left camp late, 0800, we were now going up the escarpment on a trail that had many people very nervous. 1000m vertical drops only a meter or two away. By hugging the hillside Paul Clark cut two tyres on a sharp rock and if it was not him then others would have suffered the same damage. A large hammer beat that rock into pulp. Shane Ellis had already torn one casing further down the hill. Three down – any more to go?
This was real "White Knuckle" driving and Mac Bailey, who has been in many places, said he had never driven anything like this before. The Gill's agreed. We reckon it is Zimbabwe's equivalent and 'better' than Namibia's famous Van Zyl's Pass. Not quickly but we eventually arrived at the view point over the Sanyati where we had originally planned to camp Saturday night. I am glad we stayed at Gache Gache, that track and views would have been wasted in the dark.
By about 2-00pm we found a washed out river crossing, stopped for lunch and much fun was had hearing the Limericks people had made and answers to the quiz. The best bonnet motive had to be Mike Brophy's caged Dachshund puppy "Bumi". By 4.00 pm most people pulled out for a long dark drive home, and left Brophy, Greenway, Ellis , Crook and Gill's to spend the night there under a large tree. We had done 55 km. The main group got back to Harare between 10.30 pm and midnight.
Water. A hole was dug in the riverbed, plenty of water for washing so the Gill's Patrol was Driven down to provide a shower for the bathers. As it stopped so it started sinking and finally stopped at the floor level. With Mike's B's winch working with a snatch block, on top of the 2 m. bank we managed to get it free and reversed flat out back to some drier sand. Phew - a close one!
GPS distance for the day: 55 kms
Day four: Monday
We left camp at 8.30 am and followed the tracks left by the other 10 cars, not forgetting the toilet paper signs, and regrouped at Twin Rivers, Karoi. We drove back the 90 km. to the farm collect the Ellis trailer while "Grunta" crew sourced a new oil filter and oil, the repairs with Prime Bond had done well but the filter was leaking again. We got home by about 6.30 pm and the total distance was 850 km. Worth doing again – definitely – but in 4 days so we can visit some of the interesting points that we did not have time for on this expedition. i.e. The site of the Viscount crash and the Hot springs.
GPS distance for the day: 418 kms.
Our limerick:
"The little Jeeps gasped
While the F'ing 350 just barfed
As down the hills
And over the Rocks
The Patrols took it easy and laughed"
Total distance:850 kms.
Fuel Used:124 ltrs.
A huge thank you to Kelvin Weare who put in a massive amount of work organizing and planning this trip. To Tim Thorburn and Grant Weare who plotted all the GPS points from Google Earth and marked out the whole distance. Kelvin produced 20+ pages of photocopy maps with all the GPS points marked. It was a fantastic event and well worth all the effort they put into it.
Michael and Pat Gill.
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