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Official website: www.londoncapetownrally.com |
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Day 19:
Nairobi (Kenya) to Arusha (Tanzania)
There was
a long transport preceding the 3rdsection so the slower cars (and 4WD)
all started in front of us again. Things started to go amiss
when driving in dus, we hit a hole and launched the car off
the road bending something in the front end. We continued
with dust getting thicker and eventually got close enough to
the girls in the MG to attempt a pass. This went haywire
when they, not knowing we were there, were intent on passing
a 4WD which was holding them up. Anyway the result was we
ran into the back of them.
We then
came across a 4WD passing another 4WD (no wonder it was
dusty) and we went between the 2 4WDs. All pretty hairy. |
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We
tried to source one Arusha where we are tonight, but
couldn't get the right one. Another competitor has lent us
one of his spares. Getting all this done has taken a long
time but we are now ready for tomorrow. Mark's
back has been playing up a bit (especially after the rough
of Marsabit), and I don't think laying under cars fixing
ball joints will improve it. Just looked at results and start list, and notice we are being seeded tomorrow. So (in theory) tomorrow might be a bit safer. |
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 left: View from our hotel in Arusha. |
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Day 20 - Tanzania - Arusha to Dodoma 20-01-2012 A bogged bus on the main road form Arush to Dodoma, which delayed the start of the rally today. (Photo from official rally website) |
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A day of
big drama. Writing this morning of the 21st. We didn't get in until 1am this
morning. Yesterday
was an important day with 4 timed sections. We did well on
the first,
but the fan belt broke on the sescond. We
replaced it with a spare in a few minutes, but this one
jumped off within a few kilometres, leaving us with a
boiling engine. We
struggled to get the fan belt back on but simply could not
get it back on a second time. Made a
temporary one from insulation tape to drive the water pump,
but eventually the battery went flat. A local
hunter and policeman towed us the 160km into Dodoma. All
dirt, max speed about 30 kph, stopping at every village on
the way to try and find a fan belt. |
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| End result, we will have lost probably 2 hours which will be near impossible to recover. We will take it easy from here to get to Cape Town. | |||||||||
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Day 21
Arusha to Dodoma to Mbeya (Tanzania) The last few days have been a bit hectic, rally-wise. Yesterday was disaster day, and I think we are in 13th place now [official results say 12th]. There is no way of catching up any of this up, except to wait for others to have problems Today,
after 20 days of putting us in order of results they decided
to seed us based on speed. They have put Joost in the
Porsche at the front (they did this in Nairobi when they hit
him with the 1 hr penalty for his canister shocks) and we
have been given 2nd on the road as we are usually 2ndquickest
even with the dust and slower cars in front. We did run into
a car in the dust the other day and this probably influenced
the decision. However, today we didn't feel like going that
quick after yesterday's events, so we annoyed the guys
behind us who have had it so good for the last 20 days. We are on
the way to Mbeya as I write this. Tomorrow morning is into
Zambia. Tanzania
is interesting. Definitely a better living standard than
Ethiopia but still with lots of villages built of mud
bricks, crops of corn, sunflower, beans and things I didn't
recognise. I got to
walk thru one yesterday in search of fan belts. The locals
were prepared to take belts off the little machinery they
had, if they had fitted. The men who towed us 160 km didn't want any payment for it. We insisted on giving them $10 each. More on yesterday's drama.... Did I
mention that they were village policeman and one told us
proudly he was a sharp shooter? They had a carcass in the
back of the ute and stopped at various control point to hack
off pieces of carcass for the people on the checkpoint.
It was a
very long hard drive. The road was pretty rough, we had no
lights and it was a short rope (see photo). All we
could do was try and keep the slack out of the rope and try
to stay behind the ute. About 2km
out of Dodoma, they handed us over to another police ute
that towed us to the motel. Another
competitor arrived not long after us and he had a collection
of fan belts. We have borrowed one that's still a bit short
but stretched it on and it has stayed on today. We have put
new bolts in the alternator brackets. We were
incredibly filthy when we arrived last night. There was no
food available and the shower wasn't hot. The water also
very hard. My hair felt dirtier after a shower than it was
before. |
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left: Our Mbeya hotel. Looks OK Not taking
as many pics now. All villages, border crossings and shots
of rally cars are beginning to look the same. Next: Onto Zambia |
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was
trying to pass slower cars who are ahead of us in the
results. The first section had an average of 120 kph on it.
We passed 4 cars in the dust and felt reasonably good with
the result. The 2
After
a quick and rough wheel alignment we headed for the
Kenya/Tanzania border (left) and it was here that we met the
guys who serviced the car yesterday and they told us we
needed a new ball joint.
At
Mbeya tonight, will be interesting to see what the
accommodation is like. The organisers have done a pretty
good job with the standard of hotels. There are some parts
where there are no 5* hotels.