There is a time when regardless of what still has to be done and what could be done, you have to go. This time has come for us today. We were hoping to leave early in the day and have a few hours of driving before setting up camp for the first night. Naturally we got caught up doing a few last minute things and did not end up leaving until 9:00pm! The water tanks are full, the gas tank and two jerry cans are filled up, we have fresh food for a few days and supplies to last us a while. There was still so much to do on the truck, but the main incentive was that our friends were waiting for us to pick them up in Namibia.
We had spoken with our friends several times and asked them to come down to Cape Town and give us some much needed help with the final preparations of the vehicle. They kindly declined and rather waited for us in Namibia. Unfortunately this also meant that we had to rush up through South Africa at a much faster pace than we had planned.
We read in all the travel books that it is not recommended to drive through Africa at night and here we are, first day of driving, we are driving at night! Today's journey is not going to be long, we just want to put Cape Town behind us and be able to say that we are finally on the road!
We headed north on the N7 and turned left at Malmesbury to head to the coast. The road became narrow and stretched off into the dark distance in an almost straight line. I was feeling exhausted. I started to drive slightly slouching over the steering wheel to prop myself up. At one point Ingrid taped me on the shoulder which startled me. I must have dozed off. Immediatly after Ingrid woke me up the road took a sharp turn to the left. There had not been a vehicle since the turn off from the N7 but as we rounded this sharp left hand corner and ambulance came the other way! Spooky.
We made it to the coast and camped overlooking the ocean.