We had fun driving in South Africa. Here’s a few little things which stick in my mind including a reminder about why I wouldn’t buy an ex-hire car.
You take one person, plonk him into a hire car in a foreign country and suddenly he has all these questions….
- Every time I turn left the windscreen wipers come on – why?
- What’s the speed limit?
- How do cross roads work, what’s the rule here?
- Heck, how do you put petrol in and what kind of petrol is it?
- What’s the etiquette for overtaking those scary trucks pulling two trailers full of coal?
Suffice to say, I was on a steep learning curve.
I soon discovered we had a woefully underpowered car, compared to the others. They would leave me behind, especially on the hills. It turned out our 7 seater car was a Renault Triber 1.0 litre which I had never heard of before. It was actually a mini people carrier with three rows of seats, perfectly fine, I thought, for taking the kids to school and other short urban journeys but for longer distance driving????? Nah.
Filling it with people and their bags weighed it down and had me slamming into lower gears in an effort to keep up with the others. The rev counter would hit the redline section while the engine would be screaming its head off (one reason why I wouldn’t buy an ex-hire car). Turns out, the little three cylinder engine was pushed to the absolute limit. Nevertheless, it did us proud. It was a nicely designed little car with plenty of room inside considering the smallness of the overall car. It did have air-conditioning (yay!) which we had on permanently, thankfully. I did wonder if that sapped much power from the engine…. it might have.
Those crossroads!
The cross roads baffled me at first. There was no obvious sign of who had right of way and they could be in the middle of nowhere or in towns. If you pull up at one of these crossroads, who has right of way? It simply isn’t clear, all the road markings are identical.
Turns out nobody does have right of way over another but in practice it is whoever got there first. It was very confusing at times as not everyone followed the unspoken rule.
Over taking
This was, perhaps, the most nerve wracking part of all, especially if we were going uphill. It was always a challenge trying to keep a decent speed up. Often I would see our cars in front go further and further into the distance; once on the flat we could gradually catch them up. Just as well really, our Satnav packed up on Day One.
In some parts, there were lots of heavy trucks, each pulling two trailers loaded with coal. They had huge wheels which were just there, no mudguards, no body work around them. They looked very dangerous to me.
When it came to over taking them, these trucks would generally move over to the left, straddling the road and a kind of metre-wide hard shoulder. We could just get passed and if there was another of these monster trucks coming towards us, there were inches to spare on either side. Many a time I whispered “keep us safe, Lord” on those roads, regardless of who was driving.
The game game
We could be happily driving along out in the bush and making good progress. Occasionally there was a parked car stopped on the side of the road this necessitated a stop to ask the driver what they’d seen.
“I thought I saw something move as I was driving this point, it might be a leopard in this undergrowth” they would say, somewhat hopefully. We would all stare for ages. Other cars would join in and telephoto lenses would start poking out of windows. Sometimes, yes sometimes, there was an animal there and the cameras would start clicking. Other times a false alarm, or perhaps the animal in question was feeling a bit camera shy and so we’d all drive off.
As for animals on the road, we had quite a few giraffe and one kindly wandered out in the photogenic late afternoon sunlight for me (see above). Other times elephants would amble their way across, making sure their youngsters didn’t get distracted and go off in a different direction. Once we encountered a group of monkeys.
Another time saw my first high speed swerve where I avoided some cattle. I was going quite fast and the road was quite wide as we approached a small herd of cattle who were clearly feeling ready for the burger factory. This might be the reason the cattle decided to suddenly wander out into the road. Clearly one bull hadn’t mastered the South African Highway Code (or perhaps he had) and didn’t bat an eyelid as I blared the horn and swerved around him. Phew, I thought, that was close.
Fellow road users of the human form seemed well behaved on the whole. People were generally polite and most kept to the speed limits. We didn’t encounter any slow traffic or queues anywhere. However there was one time when David was driving, at night, and someone stepped out in front of him on a quiet dark road. They missed by a few inches.
Driving over rutted roads and why I’d never buy an ex-hire car
Occasionally we would find ourselves on dirt roads. These were mostly in great condition but some were rutted. This means that if you drive along at “normal” speeds of 50kph the entire car is rattled and shaken to pieces, along with the occupants. It feels as if either the car’s wheels will fall off or every nut and bolt holding the car together will become loose.
The solution is either to slow right down, to cycling pace or even slower, or, to speed up! Speeding up meant the car just wizzed over the tops of the rutted road but left a huge dust cloud behind us – it was quite dramatic and could probably have been seen from miles around. We felt as if we were in the East Africa Safari Rally.
So this all adds up to the reason why I’d never buy an ex-hire car. Need I say any more?