October...

Post by **DaveB** » 26 Feb 2007, 14:42

Yes mate.. 15-years by the looks of it. Big Bob Mugabe showed up again in 80 and that ended white rule and signalled the end of civilisation in that part of Africa :roll:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 26 Feb 2007, 14:46

Well the Red Herring was the reference to my logbook...I referred to it to ascertain that I did NOT fly in October 1960... That revealed that 1960 was the year that my first wife and I drove the first Mini in Africa from Nairobi to Durban and back...Our young son Neil (the lad in the cockpit of Echo in my Sig. Banner), rode with us and slept on the back seat for most of the time

The clue was the Murram and Tarmac Totals...Murram is the Red Dirt that a lot of African roads are made of

Post by **Garry Russell** » 26 Feb 2007, 14:53

So those were miles

Garry

Post by **DaveB** » 26 Feb 2007, 15:09

Don't tell me you only ever landed on tarmac Peter especially in Africa!! That wasn't such an obvious clue after all me thinks

Anyway.. over 6000miles in a Mini!! Did you get a 'gong' for that!!

ATB

DaveB :tab:

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 26 Feb 2007, 15:38

DaveB wrote:Don't tell me you only ever landed on tarmac Peter especially in Africa!! That wasn't such an obvious clue after all me thinks Anyway.. over 6000miles in a Mini!! Did you get a 'gong' for that!!

No gong, but the local papers wrote it all up

One interesting thing came out of it...Corrugation Speed...I don't know whether you are familiar with corrugations on dirt roads, but in Africa they stretch for hundreds of miles at a time in the poorer countries which can't afford regular grading of the roads by big machines...In Tanganyika the grading machines consisted of a bunch of Africans marching in line abreast with a long pole across their collective shoulders...Hanging from the pole were a line of twig brooms dragging behind them. Anyway, back to corrugations...My first experience of them was driving an open MG TF from Nairobi down to Salisbury with Roy Morris, the owner of the car. We were the advance party for a squadron detachment to Rhodesia. We found that the "Corrugation Speed" for the MG TF was about 45 MPH...Below that and the car shook violently up and down as it was driven across the corrugations...Above that speed the wheels just ran over the tops of the corrugations as smooth as silk. I actually made hot soup in a car kettle without the speed coming below 60 MPH and running over corrugations the whole time.

However, the Mini was a different story...Tiny wheels...The Corrugation Speed for the Mini was faster than it would actually go on those roads...Probably over 60 MPH. So we did experience hundreds of miles of being all shook up :roll: ...On our return, the local Mini Agent Garage replaced every rubber bit in the cars suspension system free of charge and of course they gave it all a free major service.

jab · Post by **jab** » 26 Feb 2007, 15:47

I am Confused about all this

What is Total Tarmac :think:

Sorry I am young

James

Post by **Garry Russell** » 26 Feb 2007, 15:48

Hi think that's miles on tarmac roads

Not all roads tarmac

Garry

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 26 Feb 2007, 16:29

Yes, those totals mean we drove 3,471 miles on Tarmac and 2,740 miles on Murrum (red dirt).

The totals against each date show the miles we drove for that day...So our longest day was 564 miles.

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 26 Feb 2007, 18:59

I also found a nice old Christmas Card from the same time:-

The crests are pretty readable.

This was the photo inside.

jonesey2k · Post by **jonesey2k** » 26 Feb 2007, 22:03

A Mini eh, I think I would have took something like a 109 inch series 2

You seem to have done quite a bit of stuff in your time, wish I could do similar stuff.