i own an old 300 TDI Land Rover that is still kicking over the kilos one at a time! currently “The Lady Alice” is standing proud on just over 335 000 km on her clock and she is still purring like a kitten, starting on a dime as soon as i touch the key, ever finding her way to the closest mud pit…even though it cost me a broken winch cable not too lang ago…funny story…
i went fishing and took some of my indian mates from work along with me for an over night Landy bush experience at Zaaihoek Dam close to wakkerstroom in Mpumalanga just on the KZN border. Now a bit of background on the dam…its as rural as you can get in modern day Southern Africa. Theres only…well a beautiful dam with loads of good fishing in the bass as well as carp and monster barbel sections and then theres veld…and lots of it, the dam is situated in a mountainous valley thats very very scenic in the summer raining season. As it was we went there and had a good overnight fishing session and the following morning as we finished loading up the old legend 110 CSW with the engel fridge freezer, all our fishing equipment and tents, 25liters of water, my fluid bamba fishing kayak, portable braai and the gas braai along with 4 people in the landy, i seemed to think i packked pretty well to fit all the stuff in.
Anyway as we drove away from our spot i took a drive all along the edge of the water as i usually do to pick up all the trash from other people, now at that stage i was borrowing a set of MT Goodyear wrangler tyres from a good landy buddy in town as my super slicks were almost on the wire so he said i could use his series wheels till i can afford some new rubber. As we drove i slacked down from 2nd gear cruize to 1st gear cruize just to take it all in and enjoy the last bit of nature at its best then all of the sudden i hear The Lady Alice growling like a monster, the revvs seemed to be picking up but we are not going any faster…at that point i realized…oooooh S#!£ we are gonna be in for a fun afternoon as its now just after 1pm. Like fate would have it, with the new MT tyres i got stuck, the crust of clay just gave way and hanged the lady with her legs in a sticky twist…
out of the van i jump to make an assessment of the situation. i looks recoverable i recon at that time.
i jump back in the driver seat, hooked the short gear and went to 2nd gear slowly inching the fully loaded now very heavy 110 forward…alas my attempts were unsuccessful as i tried rocking forward and back, with every move i make its as if im putting myself in check mate. Now the left back wheel has dissapeared beneath the ground in the water, the other back wheel is not touching anything beneath it as i’m now hanging on the axles with the right hand front wheel also dug away and the 110 at a very awkward angle…by now the passenger’s eyes look like they have seen a ghost and its as if panic came over them like a thief in the darkest night…i managed to calm them to a certain extent and started giving them orders as i was busy removing the shovel from the side of my roof rack, i didn’t even need to stretch to reach it as the roof rack was level with my head. By then i knew we are in for a hard work recovery with no cellphone reception and no other people in sight, the closest farm house would be a 4km walk up the mountain and time is against us on a lovely Saturday afternoon.
i pitched the idea to them that we make camp for the night as i walk back to the farm to see if anyone’s home but no one liked the idea of staying another night as they all have other plans and we only took enough food for one night so that plan didn’t last.
Then…by some miracle the one guy managed to squeeze in one last phone call from his phone before the battery ended we reached a farmer in the district, and as Murphy would have it he is at a braai out of the area but he will try and see if he can find someone to come help was the last words we heared as the phone died.
now we are alone and unsure if help is coming.
i send the one guy to pick up rocks as i start digging trenches to free the wheels and diff, with every sweep i scoop out mud and it just fills the hole with more mud and water so i decided to make another plan.
my plan was to dig a deep hole in some more stable ground to use my one spare wheel as an anchor point for my 4 ton warn winch. So i started digging and digging and digging then we heared it the beautiful noise of another diesel engine approaching and to my luck it was an old single cab Toyota SFA 4×4 bakkie with two blokes coming our way…darn i thought, now i have to listen to all the cracks towards a landy from a Toyota man. they arrived there just as i was about to take off my spare wheel and by now its just after 3pm and the sun is going down fast…the toyota owner reverses up to the landy and i hook up my 16T kinetic strap and he’s off…behind the cloud of diesel smoke i hear the bakkie screech and crack…wondering whats breaking now…then all of a sudden i see the bakkie coming back at me in the same tracks but the engine is still groaning…i cannot believe it…not even that momentum moved the 110…not even 2cm forward…nothing…instead i was like an anchor to the toyota and my kinetic strap pulled them back towards me…this is it i think, today i have met my match with a recovery…
we try and try again, even hooking the winch to them, the only result was that im pulling their bakkie towards the landy without me moving…
then they say no they have a family braai after chuckling another landy joke towards me…not bothered as they couldnt even get me out with their “awesome” toyota…so they left and said they will send help…now its just after 4pm, i cannot believe how the time is eating away at us…
16:34pm a white land cruiser bakkie comes driving down to the dam, i recognize the car, its the farmer and land owner we are fishing on. i thought this would be it, the cruiser has some weight and my kinetic would get me out now.
same story he reversed up to me as we hooked everything on and floored it…this time at least we are moving my landy…a full foot forward, a short lived victory as thats all we gained then we tried backwards again only moving me that same foot back…as the guy was carrying rocks to me i chucked them into the tracks wedging them beneath the wheels then i decided to stand on a rock to wedge it in place but as i stood on it the rock along with more than half of my leg just dissapeared into the ground….theres no hard bottom i realize…now panic sets in again with my passengers as i get them all out of my landy…im full of mud and wet trying to free the van and they are all sitting high and dry. the farmer then said he will dig in his cruiser then i hook the winch again…we hooked up, took out the slack and he dug in his cruiser, i now start winching, yay we are going forward one foot…two foot…this is it we are gonna win the battle! then i come to a halt as my winch moans under tension then BANG…the winch cable snapped off right on my winch, it jamed in the corners of my rollers…the farmers face could write books alone…
He calls me and said lets go fetch the tractor…so we drove up to the farm house and there it was an 8 ton 4×4 big wheel bad boy but oh no, some more bad luck the diesel is very low but we will go for it and try our luck…drove down to the dam with no prob as he then pulled out a 25 ton flat web sling and hooked it up to the tractor and i went on the landy side hooked it…then i hear him yelling from that side get in lets go…by now the sun has gone and its getting dark real quick…he revved up the tractor as i was getting in my landy…then i feel wow im moving but wait i havnt even had a chance to start the engine yet and whoops im out as if i wasn’t even stuck at all…we took off all the ropes and i put my shovel back on top and fired up the lady alice to take the guys home…we drove back to Newcastle 55km with mud flinging all over all the way back home.
the smile on my face so big and proud to be a landy owner and enthusiast. the TDI took us there and back and now we all have a story to tell about a good fishing trip!
