Distance: 433km (Cumulative: 26 560km)
Moving time: 6:57
Average speed: 62km/h
Road surface: 99% Tar
Accommodation: Guest House
Union View Guesthouse - R150 p.p
Amazing hospitality and good location.
After leaving the campsite at 09:30 we made a quick stop at a Three Rondawel viewpoint.
From there we went to Burke’s Luck Potholes which was completely overrun by tourists. It felt like how we would imagine Disney Land. At this stage, the weather was still holding up, but as we left for God’s Window the clouds started gathering and after seeing, even more, buses there we decided to just drive past it.
We did go to the pinnacle viewpoint where someone thought we were foreigners. Probably half due to driving with Jerry cans on the roof and half due to Hugo’s long hair.
Our next stop was Graskop where Caro wanted to browse through some of the curio shops.
Later we went to Pilgrim’s Rest where we visited each of the museums. The wind started to pick up and it got really cold.
We made one more quick stop at the Golf Course where the clubhouse used to be a school that was first built in Lindleyspoort and then moved to Pilgrim’s Rest. The reason we stopped there was that Caro’s grandmother used to attend this school in Lindleyspoort.
As soon as we got back in the car it started to rain. We had initially planned to camp another night in the area but decided to rather just push through to Pretoria. In Malelane, we also decided that given Caro’s upcoming exams, we should probably save the KZN and Lesotho leg of our trip for another time and just head to Cape Town as straight as possible.
As we drove through Dullstroom, which we really wanted to see, the rain was at its heaviest and we could barely see the road.
On the N4 Caro noticed that we are swaying across the road and checked out the window to see that the rear wheel tyre on her side was dangerously flat. We pulled off next to the busy highway as it was starting to get dark. We could clearly hear the tyre deflating, but we still inflated it a bit with the compressor and decided to drive to the nearest Fuel Station which was 20kms away in Middelburg.
It quickly became really dark with some drops starting to fall again. Middelburg had a really dangerous feel to it at this time of the day and the total where we stopped was right next to a bar with lots of drunk people. We managed to put on the spare wheel in 20 minutes. The cause of the flat tyre was another side-wall puncture.
After some more heavy rains and thunder on the N4 we finally made it to the Unionview Guesthouse in Muckleneuk, Pretoria at 20:45. The room and bathroom were amazing and after one of the best showers in months we got into the warm comfortable bed.
On Sunday we mainly just relaxed and sorted out some things in the Hilux. On Monday we fitted new rear tyres for the Hilux at Tyremart Hatfield. We got the Goodyear Wranglers again for R3780 including balancing and alignment.
While the fitment was done Caro went to UNISA’s headquarters to sort out some wrongful charges. As one might expect their systems were offline and they couldn’t help her, despite the fact that we especially drove there all the way from Cape Town via Uganda.
That evening our friend Charl (Hugo’s old roommate from high school) who booked us into the guest house came to say hi.
Leave A Comment