Tough Stuff for a Car

I’m glad im not a car in Mozambique.  It’s seriously tough work. The drive we make to the lake for a bit of R&R is now a 2 3/4 hour trip to go 150km.  It’s a tough drive on dirt roads full of potholes, rocks and hidden washouts and leaves us all a bit seedy by the time we arrive at out destination. Poor Sydney and Jack can never quite make it and invariably they have to stop to offload whatever they had eaten that day.

Our Hilux has now clocked up 70,000 of these bouncy km and has developed many creaks and groans from the suspension system.  The roo-bar has been welded so many times that its looks a bit hodgepodge but continues to crack and shake loose so I keep re-welding it.  The last big injury was a combination of the roads and dodgy mechanics in Malawi – they replaced the front shocks but either forgot an internal rubber bush or didn’t check the old one and after 3 months of installation the new shock made a new hole for itself out through the shock mount and pulled itself down into resided the spring! (see pic below).

While it’s a bit groany and creaky we a super thankful for a car that is reliable and functions as it should. So many people are hamstrung up here with dodgy cars and the inability to do what they need to due to unreliable transport.  We are so thankful to our supporters who allow us to have a new car that can handle these roads and get us safely to where we need to be.