The lock appeared late this morning! Hooray! I've got it modified and temporarily fitted while I "Rundu-proof" it - basically I'm adding a simple bracket that will allow a strong padlock to be locked in front of the key hole blocking any attempt to pick/break the main lock without spending time removing the padlock. As I've brought a small stock of strong Abloy padlocks, all I needed was some thick angle iron (kindly supplied by Vital the owner of Oppi-Koppi) and a bit of time to figure out how to fit it. This should be done tomorrow morning, then the main lock will be fitted and we're ready again..... It's REALLY nice to put the key in the new lock and just turn it - no fiddling, no struggling, no jamming, no chance of it sticking and not opening, we'd forgotten what it should have been like already!
Yesterday a couple of overland trucks arrived - a German couple who've been on the road for 7 years travelling the world along with their Dutch friends who travel for 6 months, store the truck, work for 6 months and so on. They've given us lots of encouragement and useful information - they're bravely heading off up the West coast. Tonight Sue came back from the shower saying "there's another truck just pulled in, it looks a lot like ours"..... another Mog! We'll have a chat with the owner tomorrow, a German who seems to store it in Namibia and come down to use it for holidays. Interesting.
We've started saying our goodbyes to some of the nice staff here who have been looking after us for the last 3 weeks as some of them will have their days off from tomorrow and we hope that we may be able to depart on Thursday.
We've been in contact with Felix and Sandra who were here 3 weeks ago and have been touring the north with their Toyota - they've managed to get some reservations in Moremi in Botswana (like hen's teeth) and have kindly asked if we would like to join them. We're planning to do just this, and hopefully we'll be able to travel together for a little while - they are keen on going to Zimbabwe to Vic Falls and Hwangwe and maybe then into Zambia?
Sue took me down to the ladies tonight - to see a scorpion that has been hanging about in there - a small pale job, but not at all aggressive (I tried provoking it, but all it would do was run and hide). With the recent rise in temperatures has come a significant increase in the numbers of lizards around the campsite - some with blue bodies and orange heads and tails, others brown with yellow heads, others just "plain". There has been a large gecko frequenting the ladies of late - not sure what it's waiting for. The hot weather has also brought out the mopane flies - a type of bee that is attracted to animals (including humans) to seek water from sweat and eye fluids etc. These are the flies you see crawling all over people whenever there's a drought/famine - you don't need either of these to get the flies - just mopane trees - and there are lots of them round here. They appear after about 2pm, flying around in front of your face trying to get in your eyes, ears, nose or anywhere else.... Not nice, particularly when the temperature in the shade is now reaching 35 degrees - the truck is staying cool until mid-afternoon when it's time to get out, get down the bar for a cool drink, some shade and a dip in the pool. Interestingly I've noticed that the truck seems to be heating up through the floor, talking to Ric tonight in the bar he suggested that it's probably heat re-radiated back up from the ground coming through the floor as it's quite likely that the ground temperature in full sun is in the 60s or even 70s (centigrade.).
Yesterday a couple of overland trucks arrived - a German couple who've been on the road for 7 years travelling the world along with their Dutch friends who travel for 6 months, store the truck, work for 6 months and so on. They've given us lots of encouragement and useful information - they're bravely heading off up the West coast. Tonight Sue came back from the shower saying "there's another truck just pulled in, it looks a lot like ours"..... another Mog! We'll have a chat with the owner tomorrow, a German who seems to store it in Namibia and come down to use it for holidays. Interesting.
We've started saying our goodbyes to some of the nice staff here who have been looking after us for the last 3 weeks as some of them will have their days off from tomorrow and we hope that we may be able to depart on Thursday.
We've been in contact with Felix and Sandra who were here 3 weeks ago and have been touring the north with their Toyota - they've managed to get some reservations in Moremi in Botswana (like hen's teeth) and have kindly asked if we would like to join them. We're planning to do just this, and hopefully we'll be able to travel together for a little while - they are keen on going to Zimbabwe to Vic Falls and Hwangwe and maybe then into Zambia?
Sue took me down to the ladies tonight - to see a scorpion that has been hanging about in there - a small pale job, but not at all aggressive (I tried provoking it, but all it would do was run and hide). With the recent rise in temperatures has come a significant increase in the numbers of lizards around the campsite - some with blue bodies and orange heads and tails, others brown with yellow heads, others just "plain". There has been a large gecko frequenting the ladies of late - not sure what it's waiting for. The hot weather has also brought out the mopane flies - a type of bee that is attracted to animals (including humans) to seek water from sweat and eye fluids etc. These are the flies you see crawling all over people whenever there's a drought/famine - you don't need either of these to get the flies - just mopane trees - and there are lots of them round here. They appear after about 2pm, flying around in front of your face trying to get in your eyes, ears, nose or anywhere else.... Not nice, particularly when the temperature in the shade is now reaching 35 degrees - the truck is staying cool until mid-afternoon when it's time to get out, get down the bar for a cool drink, some shade and a dip in the pool. Interestingly I've noticed that the truck seems to be heating up through the floor, talking to Ric tonight in the bar he suggested that it's probably heat re-radiated back up from the ground coming through the floor as it's quite likely that the ground temperature in full sun is in the 60s or even 70s (centigrade.).