Friday 13th October 2017

Sossusvlei to Swakopmund

A tragic day for the rally today. Jan and Dana from the Czech Republic were in an accident this afternoon. They were attempting to pass a camper van with dust making visibility difficult and lost control. The Mercedes convertible rolled and tragically Jan was killed. We were on the Inca rally with them so knew them quite well. Dana is in a private clinic in Walvis Bay and is OK. 

As we arrived at the hotel this afternoon the officials called a meeting to advise of the tragedy.

The roads were so dreadful today that we had electrical problems, with fuses blowing frequently. Eventually we ran a new cable to the fuel pump and that seemed to fix the problem. Then the central exhaust came adrift so we took that off and latched it to the back. We have also broken the spring main leaf on the driver's side which has allowed the back axle to move backwards. Although we have some spare springs with us they are not as strong as those broken today.

All in all, after the day's events, we've decided to ship the car home from Walvis (lucky our shipper has contacts here) and we'll continue in a hire car.