G
Guest
Guest
hi
can i add me own plea to people to trim their replies and to send in plain
text format. as a digest reader i often skim 20 or 30 emails in my inbox and
often miss some good content due to repetition and html mark-up clouding my
concentration.
and if you're stuck behind your desk:
we didn't go to tsavo etc as we couldn't get accom. in watamu, that and i
had a catastrophic break failure that meant i had to have my fuel tank
dropped and pipes repaired shortly before we were about to leave. so we went
down to amboseli national park to see mt. kilimanjaro and the ele's instead.
amboseli nat park is easy to get to - after you cross the namanga border
from tz, hang a right. then you encounter some of the worst corrugations i
have ever driven over: at 10-20 km you honestly think your car will fall
apart at any moment! about 50 kms of this gets you to the park gate and then
the road gets worse! going straight across amboseli is about another 60 km
of muram road but we arrived at the gate in the evening and had to put foot
to get to our lodge (before supper was served!).
glad i got the brakes done as the road to the park is atrocious (once again)
and i had to keep coming off the muram road to try and avoid all the
corrugations. problem is that every so often some "helpfull" individual will
place a f@cking big rock in the middle of your path and you have to hit the
brakes before you swerve to avoid it (otherwise you will roll!). we finally
got fed up of creating our own bush track after i didn't swerve fast enough
and a bigg'un hit my aluminium bash plate. bent it into a nearly perfect
semicircle and snapped both bolts holding it to the cross member.
so back on the murram we upped our speed and finally reached about 70-80 kmh
before the jolting became bearable. at this speed we were no longer hitting
each corrugation individually, and were actually just skipping across the
tops. not great for safety and a bit hairy when cornering, as either end can
start to drift, but 4wd-hi helped alot.
got to camp with the bash plate rattling away like a b@stard and the next
morning i got a local jua kali mechanic to weld a couple of bolts onto the
cross member so that we could bolt the bash plate back in place, so that we
could go on a game drive back into the park.
stayed at a place called sopa lodge 20k's outside the eastern gate and we
had breakfast outside where we looked at the clouds masking some mountains
about 15/20km away. then the clouds parted and we could see the snow covered
peak of kilimanjaro and we sat just there and looked at it with awe. bloody
magnificent!
we only had one puncture - which we changed at the park gates - but another
guy, in a range rover, had a serious tyre failure: he slamned into a pot
hole at speed and one of the tubeless cooper st's he was running on the
front axle actually split both side walls! from the rim to tread in the same
place on both sides!
anyway, will be looking to replace the michelin xzl's i've got soon - the
long rainy season is coming and we want to travel to the coast - so we are
thinking about some firestone trans-lugs - not pretty but bloody tough!
one other thing: the corrugations were so bad at one point (before i put
foot) that the battery i was using popped one of it's lids and acid got all
over the air filter housing and engine bay. i've washed it out of course but
is there anything i should look out for?
jeremy "--" --
"safari? sogoody!"
nairobi: cell: +254 (0)723 152 787
nairobi: home: +254 (0)20 434 8889
can i add me own plea to people to trim their replies and to send in plain
text format. as a digest reader i often skim 20 or 30 emails in my inbox and
often miss some good content due to repetition and html mark-up clouding my
concentration.
and if you're stuck behind your desk:
we didn't go to tsavo etc as we couldn't get accom. in watamu, that and i
had a catastrophic break failure that meant i had to have my fuel tank
dropped and pipes repaired shortly before we were about to leave. so we went
down to amboseli national park to see mt. kilimanjaro and the ele's instead.
amboseli nat park is easy to get to - after you cross the namanga border
from tz, hang a right. then you encounter some of the worst corrugations i
have ever driven over: at 10-20 km you honestly think your car will fall
apart at any moment! about 50 kms of this gets you to the park gate and then
the road gets worse! going straight across amboseli is about another 60 km
of muram road but we arrived at the gate in the evening and had to put foot
to get to our lodge (before supper was served!).
glad i got the brakes done as the road to the park is atrocious (once again)
and i had to keep coming off the muram road to try and avoid all the
corrugations. problem is that every so often some "helpfull" individual will
place a f@cking big rock in the middle of your path and you have to hit the
brakes before you swerve to avoid it (otherwise you will roll!). we finally
got fed up of creating our own bush track after i didn't swerve fast enough
and a bigg'un hit my aluminium bash plate. bent it into a nearly perfect
semicircle and snapped both bolts holding it to the cross member.
so back on the murram we upped our speed and finally reached about 70-80 kmh
before the jolting became bearable. at this speed we were no longer hitting
each corrugation individually, and were actually just skipping across the
tops. not great for safety and a bit hairy when cornering, as either end can
start to drift, but 4wd-hi helped alot.
got to camp with the bash plate rattling away like a b@stard and the next
morning i got a local jua kali mechanic to weld a couple of bolts onto the
cross member so that we could bolt the bash plate back in place, so that we
could go on a game drive back into the park.
stayed at a place called sopa lodge 20k's outside the eastern gate and we
had breakfast outside where we looked at the clouds masking some mountains
about 15/20km away. then the clouds parted and we could see the snow covered
peak of kilimanjaro and we sat just there and looked at it with awe. bloody
magnificent!
we only had one puncture - which we changed at the park gates - but another
guy, in a range rover, had a serious tyre failure: he slamned into a pot
hole at speed and one of the tubeless cooper st's he was running on the
front axle actually split both side walls! from the rim to tread in the same
place on both sides!
anyway, will be looking to replace the michelin xzl's i've got soon - the
long rainy season is coming and we want to travel to the coast - so we are
thinking about some firestone trans-lugs - not pretty but bloody tough!
one other thing: the corrugations were so bad at one point (before i put
foot) that the battery i was using popped one of it's lids and acid got all
over the air filter housing and engine bay. i've washed it out of course but
is there anything i should look out for?
jeremy "--" --
"safari? sogoody!"
nairobi: cell: +254 (0)723 152 787
nairobi: home: +254 (0)20 434 8889
