Augrabies (nearly 4x4ing)

On Saturday morning we left Cape Town VERY EARLY (+/- 4:30) and drove to Augrabies Falls. With all the floods around it seemed a good time to check out some new gear! Drive about 800km to view and photograph water falls in flood, what gear are we checking?

a) The RTT plus modified ladder.

b) the 2up ammo boxes on the roof.

c) the changes to the interior layout.

The decision is made to follow the TAR road because the 'destination' is more important than the journey! Forget about the checking of new gear/lay outs etc.
The journey home is the best - gravel travel. Leaving Kakamas on Monday morning just, (at 11:00), we travel down the N14 as far as Poffadder. Turn left onto the R358 and head for Kliprand, about 190 kms down the road.
The road is straight, some places are corrugated other stony (no punctures!) but mostly in very good condition for SA gravel with minor patches of sand. The only vehicle we see travelling the other way is a truck full of sheep, later we see an "abandoned" trailer at a junction, also full of sheep, we only hope that the driver/owner/purchaser was able to recover them before they all expired.
Just after Kliprand we turned left off onto an unmarked road (I think it may be the P2230) that came out onto the N7 about 40km north of van Rynsdorp. From here it was TAR all the way home.
We did experience some minor problems, like the fridge alarm indicating no power on Saturday afternoon and a very erratic temperature gauge - went from Normal to Overheat and back to Normal in the space of 10 minutes, then went back to overheat. S.T.D. (an old thing from the days of diving) - Stop, Think, Decide. Well we stopped, checked the water levels and everything else, and decided to continue. No further problems!