Temporarily Immobilized
They say — and "they" are sometimes annoyingly correct about most things — that if you've never gotten stuck, you haven't tried hard enough.
A wise old Kalahari farmer once put it more simply: the heaviest thing you can take into the Kalahari is hard tyres.
He was, as we shall see repeatedly, absolutely right.
Ze French Family
Some time ago, we were travelling from South Camp in Nxai Pan towards Baine's Baobabs. The route passes through a long tree line where the track becomes a stretch of deep, soft, treacherous sand — the kind that seems to grin at you. Trapped in this “grin” was a small Land Rover heroically towing a trailer roughly the same size as itself.
On either side of the trap, other 4x4s sat parked, watching with the polite helplessness of people at a dinner party when someone drops a plate. The mother and son were outside, shovelling sand from the front of the tyres and sliding floor mats under the wheels. The Rover would lurch forward over the mats, stop, and sink again. The clutch was beginning to express its feelings about all of this. At this time, you could smell it. This had been going on for quite some time. A long time. Nobody closer to them moved to help. And the family is in a bit of a panic as they know everybody is watching them...
So I wandered over and offered my services, in the casual way one does when one is fairly sure one knows what the problem is.
The French family was by now hot, tired, embarrassed and thoroughly over it. Oui, please help.
First diagnosis: tyres at 2.9 bar. Second observation: Low gear, first. I deflated everything — Land Rover and trailer alike — and asked if I might drive it out.
Oui, please do. Which I did. And everyone went happily on their way.
Ze German Couple
On another tour, also in Nxai Pan, we came across a German couple who had managed to get their rental vehicle seriously stuck in the sand, just short of the Baine's Baobabs turn-off. They were not pleased. They were, in fact, loudly of the opinion that the Nissan was a piece of junk and that they had specifically wanted a Toyota.I deflated the tyres — sitting at 2.7 bar, since you ask — and asked if I could drive it out. My brother-in-law produced his sand tracks with the quiet pride of a man who has been waiting for exactly this moment.
We had the car free in no time. I advised the gentleman to unlock the diff lock, switch to 4x4 High and keep driving.
That evening we met them at camp. "How did it go?" we asked. His wife beamed. "Oh wow," she said, "he drove like a god."
The Nissan was not mentioned again.
Happy Getting Stuck
I once led a group of friends into the Moremi — I'd been before, so naturally I was in charge of things going wrong. Most of us were towing trailers or off-road caravans. We were heading from Xaxanaxa towards Third Bridge when an elephant, presumably bored, pushed a tree across the track right in the deepest sand. I stopped to assess the situation. Box, our vehicle, assessed it differently and decided this shady spot was as good a place as any to park. Permanently.
We got out to investigate. I looked down at the wheels. I looked up at my friends. And then I did a small, involuntary dance.
"Why," they asked, with some concern, "are you happy about this?"Because," I said, "I haven't been stuck in the sand in decades."
What had happened was straightforward enough: you deflate your tyres to 1 bar in the cool of the morning, but as the day heats up, so do the tyres. By afternoon they'd crept back up to 1.5 bar. Sand doesn't care for that arrangement.
Everyone immediately jumped out and began deflating. A bit of spadework, a bit of encouragement and Box, our Hilux, and trailer were free again, dignity mostly intact.
The Daring Couple
On the Bodumatau route in the Moremi, we came to a water crossing that everyone handled sensibly — which is to say, we drove through the shallow section without incident.
One couple, however, felt that sensible wasn't quite the vibe they were going for. They chose a more dramatic line through the crossing, and promptly beached their vehicle on its chassis, the high centre of the track sitting smugly underneath them.
Everyone leapt out to help, and everyone had an opinion. There were gestures. There was discussion. There was a certain amount of confident contradicting. Eventually my brother-in-law won the argument, produced his sand tracks — again — and we pushed them as deep under the rear tyres as they'd go.
Out she came.
Sand tracks: two. Sand: nil.
River Crossing Gone Wrong
I wanted to show my beloved the beautiful Gysmanshoek Pass near Heidelberg in South Africa. A quick day trip, I said. Nothing could go wrong, I implied.
The week before, it had rained rather a lot in that area….
We arrived at a low-water bridge to find the far bank had been washed away entirely. No matter — we'd cross through the river beside it. My wife, gallant as ever, waded across on foot to scout. Shallow enough, she confirmed, stepping onto the steep sandbank on the far side with the air of someone who has successfully completed a mission.
I drove in after her.The crossing was fine, right up until it wasn't. That last spot she had jumped over so lightly turned out to conceal a deep trough. Bridge on one side, large tree stump on the other — no room to manoeuvre. The only option was reverse, which sent the rear of the car firmly into the riverbank. We could go forward. We could go backward. What we could not do, was leave. ”Welcome to the Hotel California…
”By this point, a sizeable audience of local children had gathered on the riverbank. They had found excellent seats.
Off came my jeans and shoes. The crowd's investment in proceedings increased noticeably.
A man in his mid-fifties, somewhat generously built, in his underpants, carrying rocks and wielding a shovel — working to make the far bank less vertical.
It took a while.
When we finally emerged, it was to genuine applause. I like to think I gave them something to talk about for years.
Stuck On a Little Rock
The Pella and Orange River region is magnificent country — beautiful tracks, old and new, winding through spectacular scenery. One of them, just North of the Lelik Pad between Klein Pella farm and the Pella mission, takes you through a riverbed via a steep bank that had, on this particular day, turned itself into a short cliff.
We found an alternative entry. As we dropped in, I spotted one small rock in the riverbed that needed to be avoided.
I did not avoid it. The right rear shock absorber attachment found the rock with the precision that had eluded me entirely, and we were beached.
Low gear, diff locks, spinning wheels — nothing. No one for miles in any direction. Out came the bottle jack.
Too large to fit. Used a smaller jack to make space for the larger one. Got the car up just enough, just barely, the big jack still holding up the Land Cruiser — and drove off the rock. Then we retrieved the jack from the sand, straightened and tidied ourselves up, and continued as if nothing had happened.
The Bogged Down Italians
On our last evening in the Moremi, we spotted two men on the far side of the Khwai River. Their rented Land Cruiser was parked nose-down on the bank, halfway into the water, going nowhere convincingly. Their wave was the specific kind of wave that means please, for the love of everything, help us.Getting to them meant wading across. Walking a river crossing is, in fact, excellent reconnaissance — you feel the bottom, judge the depth, find the line. I crossed, assessed the situation: properly stuck, and the rental's diff locks appeared to be completely shot. Of course they were.
Halfway back across to fetch my vehicle, a safari truck arrived with a load of tourists. The driver asked how he was supposed to get past. I showed him the line. He followed the first part of my instructions and then, in a moment of creative independence, turned too early. The rear wheel dropped back into the steep track, and the vehicle tilted to a dramatic angle. Alarmed noises from the tourists. The driver reversed calmly back to the track and tried again, correctly this time. Off they went.I retrieved my car, crossed, and parked behind the stricken Cruiser.
I delivered a thorough safety briefing to the two Italians about what we were going to do. They listened carefully. Then they turned to my wife."You drive."My wife blinked. "What? Me? It's your rental."Yes, but you drive. We don't know how."
So she got the safety briefing too. It took two attempts, but we pulled the Cruiser free — you could see the imprint of the rear diff in the mud, which told you everything about how stuck it had been. Then they don't want to drive their own vehicle back through the river; I must - which I did and left it here. Aaannd wade through the river again.
Then we watched as the two Italians walked through the river themselves — two elderly gentlemen, trouser legs hoisted, lily-white shins catching the last of the sun. If there had been an audience of children, they would have applauded too.
Too Lazy To Deflate
We were heading up the A35, west along the Kavango panhandle — a road with a certain reputation. It started promisingly as decent tar, and we began to wonder if the horror stories had been exaggerated. They had not been exaggerated. The tar gradually revealed that it was mostly there to hold the potholes together, and then it stopped pretending entirely. The potholes became craters. Vehicles — cars, buses, trucks — wove across the road like a particularly anxious ballet. In many stretches, the road beside the road was smoother than the road itself.
We eventually turned off for Guma Lagoon. Along the track, two separate signs politely requested that drivers must deflate their tyres. It was hot. And it wasn't that far....We nearly got stuck several times, soldiering on with the breezy confidence of someone making a decision he will shortly regret. At the gate, we were redirected around a cluster of trees. We went around the wrong cluster of trees, on the wrong track, and inserted ourselves firmly into deep soft sand against a treeline with no way out, not even backwards, towing a caravan.
First step: deflate all six tyres — the ones I had declined to deflate earlier — to 1 bar. Some shovelling. Sand tracks deployed. Engine revving with feeling. And with considerable grunting, we extracted our little pantechnicon from its sandpit and made it to camp. The next morning and afternoon, tyres properly managed, everything was fine. Obviously.
The Last Immobilised morning we hitched up and set off, following the wide tracks left by a large 4x4 truck ahead of us. The truck's wheelbase was, it turned out, substantially wider than ours. The sand got softer. We got stuck.
We could now see, clearly and with perfect visibility, exactly where the correct track was. It's just over there...
Six tyres deflated again. Shovelling. Sand tracks. Laughter — the slightly unhinged laughter of two people who have done this before and are doing it again anyway. We extricated ourselves three separate times before reaching the correct route.
There will, almost certainly, be more.