October...

speedbird591 · Post by **speedbird591** » 26 Feb 2007, 22:25

Damn! I'm too late to enter this competition but I think I might have got a consolation prize, Peter. I've driven part of this route myself but not in such historic fashion. I drove from Johannesburg to Tuli Block in Zim a few years back, crossing the Limpopo at Beitbridge border post and doing a few hours on the famous ungraded corrugated roads. The car was a Toyota Corolla :redface: which did the job but didn't quite have the cachet of "The First Mini" :roll:

Think I have a good colour photo of a dirt road somewhere...... I'll have a look in the next couple of days.

Ian

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 27 Feb 2007, 12:38

jonesey2k wrote: You seem to have done quite a bit of stuff in your time, wish I could do similar stuff.

Well here is one for you Jonesey, from my logbook:-

here I'm driving a Chariot on Sports Day...I'm the one wearing the German helmet.

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 27 Feb 2007, 12:42

Here is how the squadron cartoonist saw some of us:-

I'm the one with skinny legs and the camera

simtrac · Post by **simtrac** » 27 Feb 2007, 14:15

Peter, I'd just like to say one of the first things I look for when I come on this board are new posts by your good self.

Always really interesting stuff - you should put it all in a book.

jonesey2k · Post by **jonesey2k** » 27 Feb 2007, 14:55

speedbird591 · Post by **speedbird591** » 27 Feb 2007, 17:04

Peter- I hope you don't mind me illustrating the Murram?

This is a typical dirt road of South Africa's Northern Transvaal (now Northern Province). This one is somewhere between Warmbaths and Beitbridge, part of Peter's northerly route. The corrugations aren't obvious so it's probably been recently graded. In fact you can still see the ridge where the grader has pushed the dirt to the edge. This was about ten years ago, so the graders are a lot better than when Peter's mini travelled this way. This is cattle farming or game ranch country, sparsely populated and with very few settlements. Expect to see another vehicle about every half an hour and that may well be a donkey cart. These are not 'B' roads, they are main arteries in this region. No RAC or emergency phones, either

Ian

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 27 Feb 2007, 17:52

No problem Ian...yes that is a fine example of a murram road...The colour of that dirt is perfect. Jolly nice road that...Very like the ones in Northern Rhodesia (can't remember what that country is called now). You could easily maintain around 60 MPH on a road like that. Tanganyika (Tanzania now) is a bit different...All bends and gradients, escarpments with huge drops off the edge and corrugations everywhere :roll:

My photos of that trip are all transparencies and I have yet to scan them.

speedbird591 · Post by **speedbird591** » 27 Feb 2007, 18:18

petermcleland wrote:Northern Rhodesia (can't remember what that country is called now).

As you say, 60 mph is easy enough on a road like that. Stopping is another matter, of course! But as you can see anything coming from several miles away you have plenty of time to slow down without touching the brakes. The closest I came to losing it was when I'd seen a small rock in the road in the distance. It was well to the right so I didn't slow down. By the time I'd reached it it was dead ahead and I wrestled the car to a skidding halt with two wheels on the verge.

The tortoise continued it's crossing oblivious to it's own, and our, near demise.

Ian

Nigel H-J · Post by **Nigel H-J** » 27 Feb 2007, 18:43

Hopefully mine will make interesting reading to my grand kids in years to come

And wot may I ask is wrong with sharing your 'Historical Docs' with us kids then Tonks?

You could always post them anonymously you know!!

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 27 Feb 2007, 20:02

Tonks wrote:Nice to see the clip from the log book... these days everyone gets really uptight if you put anything other than the bare essentials in it. I have photos and mission details from interesting/op sorties and am always in the sh1t for it. They are historical docs as well as a record of flying and some people should remember that... all I get is the "they are official documents" argument... :roll: Hopefully mine will make interesting reading to my grand kids in years to come :think:

I had my five military ones bound together with leather spine and corners on boards (it is the one that scrolls in from right to left as you enter my website)...I also had 25 blank white pages bound into the back of it to receive photographs

I overflowed into two more volumes with civil flying :roll: