N Forbes wrote:
> >month (Liuwa Plains, western Zambia - yell if you want to see photos),
> >my swb now carries 240l in the main tanks :-{)}
> YELL!!
They're in an embarrassingly crappy format, but you can view at
http://BraaiGrid.org.za/liuwanumber1.htm, and
http://BraaiGrid.org.za/liuwanumber2.htm
Mine is the green shorty that gets snatched off it's jerry cans to try
get out of a 7km marsh :-{>}
If that sounds cryptic, let me explain... The plains are very shallow
depressions, covered in long grass. The water is invisible until you are
already well into it, at which stage you can't risk stopping or you sink
into the mud which lies about a foot under the water's surface. Anyway,
so you pray that you don't hit a soft patch or a hole, or run out of
momentum before you reach the edge of the water.
On the 21st of June, on the way to the northern reaches of the park to
view the solar eclipse, I drove into one of these plains, and got bogged
after about 7kms - ironically just 25m before the dry ground. I had one
other vehicle with me (a Series 3s with Chev 4.1 engine for the
technos), and the rest of our 11 Land-Rover convoy was just at the edges
of radio contact (all we could hear was "On my mark now.
One...two...three, pull!", so we figured we were on our own). We tried
to pull the shorty from the front, but the other truck just got bogged
immediately. We tried pushing the shorty, but were immediately rewarded
with a "Snap!" sound as the rear long half-shaft said goodnight.
After much toing and froing we developed the technique of jacking and
pushing the S3s into fresh tracks so it could pull away, then jacking
the front of the shorty, putting jerry cans under the front wheels, then
jacking the back and placing jerrys there. Then we would attach the
towropes to the front shackle on the shorty, leave a loop on the ground
next to the vehicle, and have DJ (son of a friend) hold the loop of the
towrope waiting for the S3s to circle round, gather speed and come
sailing past so we could lassoo the towball and snatch the shorty off
it's 'starting blocks'. We would gain about 5m everytime we did this,
then start all over from scratch, rotating the shorty slightly to give
us new tracks every time.
Much fun was had by all, and the eclipse was viewed standing knee deep
in water and mud :-{)}
Regards
Paul Oxley
AfricanAdrenalin.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Jul 04 2001 - 15:22:34 EDT