Tuesday 10th October 2017
Port Elizabeth to Prieska
Raining steadily this morning. We booked a taxi and Blundens Shuttle Service turned up...now we know what Phil B gets up to on all his overseas trips!
Arrived at the container depot at 8.45am ready for the 9am inspection. We sat in the waiting room until 9.30am. Once the Customs inspector arrived there was a flurry of activity to find the container. Fortunately we had a note of the container number, the container was located and the inspection concluded. The carnet then had to go back to the agent's office to get the official stamp. By 11am we had the carnet stamped and ready to go. The container depot official then decided that he had to manually prepare a hand-written release - why couldn't he have done it whilst we were waiting?
At last we were on our way and hoping to reach Upington before dark. We had searched out a few accommodation possibilities in case we didn't get that far. In the rain we went out on the N2 then turned northwards on the N10. We had torrential rain through the mountains north of Port Elizabeth which was very unpleasant as trucks here do not have mud flaps on their wheels so large sprays of water descended on us with each passing truck. Not a very interesting route with dry scrub on both sides of the very good road.
The most interesting thing to see were the large birds' nests built over the electricity poles. Some were extremely large and looked like draped skirts or capes. We only saw quite small birds so have no idea what type of birds build these nests.
As it would soon be dark we decided to spend the night at Prieska, having driven 709 kms today.
The lodge proprietor had an arrangement where he ordered dinner for guests and has it delivered from local restaurants. Handy service since we'd been on the road all day.
Port Elizabeth to Prieska
Raining steadily this morning. We booked a taxi and Blundens Shuttle Service turned up...now we know what Phil B gets up to on all his overseas trips!
Arrived at the container depot at 8.45am ready for the 9am inspection. We sat in the waiting room until 9.30am. Once the Customs inspector arrived there was a flurry of activity to find the container. Fortunately we had a note of the container number, the container was located and the inspection concluded. The carnet then had to go back to the agent's office to get the official stamp. By 11am we had the carnet stamped and ready to go. The container depot official then decided that he had to manually prepare a hand-written release - why couldn't he have done it whilst we were waiting?
At last we were on our way and hoping to reach Upington before dark. We had searched out a few accommodation possibilities in case we didn't get that far. In the rain we went out on the N2 then turned northwards on the N10. We had torrential rain through the mountains north of Port Elizabeth which was very unpleasant as trucks here do not have mud flaps on their wheels so large sprays of water descended on us with each passing truck. Not a very interesting route with dry scrub on both sides of the very good road.
The most interesting thing to see were the large birds' nests built over the electricity poles. Some were extremely large and looked like draped skirts or capes. We only saw quite small birds so have no idea what type of birds build these nests.
As it would soon be dark we decided to spend the night at Prieska, having driven 709 kms today.
The lodge proprietor had an arrangement where he ordered dinner for guests and has it delivered from local restaurants. Handy service since we'd been on the road all day.
No comments:
Post a Comment