Atlantis Dunes

You know we cannot resist the dunes at Atlantis! The sun was shining (strange for June) so off we set with Pepper-Anne and her friends.
Adam joined us in his Series 1 and Nick in ....dare I say it?..... a Toyota!

This is what Nick the sometimes snob thinks of series vehicles:



But we all had a lot of fun! Sarah braved Andrew's wild driving excellently but eventually opted out! She drove Adam's vehicle and mastered it in seconds!

Nick is looking a little scared in this one! Although it may have been a reaction to all the chatter on the radio!
Poor little vehicle felt a little naked as her windscreen had been removed so Adam could galvanise the new hooks he had attached to the top for the new canopy. I'm told she looks very cute now with her new canvas top.



And my last comment on this adventure is that Nick's cousin's Land Cruiser broke down half way though the day.
Need I say any more on the subject?

Glen Oaks 4 X 4 Trail

Last weekend we were invited to join a 4x4 outing to Glen Oakes farm just outside Caledon. Don't think they realised what they were getting themselves into inviting crazy strangers like us!

These are all the cars we went with, which was fun for Pepper, because she normally only plays with Space: The Final Frontier, and other Landy's.





We drove up to a mud hole which challenge vehicles had gotten stuck in the week before. Pepper sniffed at the hole but decided to turn around and drive back to the trail. There was a little mud hole on the track which Pepper couldn't resist jumping into, only problem is she couldn't jump out. Charl and his "Jeep" Kaas had to pull Pepper out, which provided a couple of exciting pictures:





Charl looking rather freaked out as his brother-in-law Thomas attempts the next obstacle looking far too relaxed! Pepper decided to follow (push) Kaas into all the obstacles, which presented one or two problems occasionally. Kaas has a brutal-sounding 3.0l Ford V6, front and rear lockers and some decent suspension and tyres. Which means that he is a far more capable vehicle than Pepper, but Pepper being the Landy she is couldn't resist following Kaas everywhere. Which meant that the snatch straps, tow rope and recovery points were well used by the end of the weekend.



Here are Molly (Kaas's mommy) and Andrew playing in the sand



There were a few tricky obstacles where ground clearange and a big engine (and crazy driver) helped!



The manne relaxing after a hard days driving:



As usual, there is a cost associated with playing and this time was no different. Pepper decided to attack an obstacle far too fast, due to the fact that her carb-tappet-crankrod is not working too well. The obstacle won, and Pepper limped off with a cracked chassis. Chassis! But all is well now, and Pepper (the still dirty little girl) is ready and waiting for Sunday's points event.

Go visit this website for more pictures form Glen Oakes - thanks everyone who was intelligent enough to take a camera with them!
Click here

Pulling Out Toyota's

Pepper has not been out much lately, and when she has, there were no cameras around to capture the fun.
Last weekend we went to Melkbos 4X4 track to play a little and Pepper had lots of fun pulling a Toyota out of the sand. It got stuck 5 times in about 200 metres, so she was smiling a great deal! Luckily Andrew had through carefully when packing, and had brought the tow rope for Toyota's specially.

Here is a picture of the friend we would want to buy Pepper if we had the money!
Any donations welcome!



There are also a few new pictures of Cape Town on Pepper's parent's blog -> click on the link to the right.

Well done Pepper-Anne!

Well the computer broke as is to be expected, but preliminary investigations reveal that Pepper might have won (or worst case squeezed for second) at the Cape Land Rover Club points event yesterday.
If you scroll down to a post from May called "The next day" you will see pictures from our previous trip to the sand farm in Phillipi.
The terrain was much the same, but the obstacles were nicely set out, quite long and windy, and lots of fun!
Of course it helped that the course marshal Patrick set out the course in a 90 Defender. Wonderful to see the long wheel bases struggling for a change!
Two very surprising points to note, much to Pepper's glee: Andrew didn't get her stuck, and didn't cover her tummy in mud!

The Lost City

Pepper decided that a visit to the Atlantis Dunes was in order, seeing as that she has not been out to play for a very long time. Andrew invited ALL Pepper's friends, but as usual Space! was the only one who came along. I don't know what everyone else was afraid of: this is the view one sees as one drives into the dunes:



Yes, that is what it looks like, white white white everywhere.

It is very pretty and if you get there early enough then there are no tracks and you get to drive over virgin sand. By the end of the day there are tracks everywhere, but the next day it is all back to pure whiteness again.




This the view from one of the big dunes, with Table Mountain and Koeberg in the distance, and a very cute car on the right. There is a little hole to the front right of Pepper, she kept falling in but fortunately never had to be pulled out. I don't know what that thing on the left is.



Here is a pretty picture of a pretty car and all the aforementioned tracks. You can almost see the pretty drivers whose birthday it is soon.



This is Space! struggling up a little hill climb, which necessitated a little diff-lock use, after some reminding that the car had a diff-lock. Pepper unfortunately never made it up the hill, she was too embarrassed to try again and again and again...





This is Pepper driving between some flowery dunes, things got a bit scary when Andrew decided to go bundu bashing, but that can be left for another post.



Here is Space! and Pepper all ready to go home. Bye now:

Porseleinberg Series Outing

We have to still post a story about Porseleinberg for you all to read, but since we are both too busy, here are some pictures in the mean time. These come from the Cape Land Rover Club's website, but we still have hundreds from Katherine and Lucy to upload. Andrew organised this outing - it was a Series outing, but they all cancelled, so we had to take the Rangies, Disco's and Defenders along with us.

This is Pepper driving merrily along.....



Then Andrew recklessly endangered her life...






Her feet are not even all on the ground, and BA Baraccas here is trying to pull her out! Silly Monkey!







This was very funny watching a Defender 110 get very stuck! 4 High-Lift jacks, 2 spades, several branches, metal mud ramps, an exhaust air bag and 5 helpers later, the 4X4 tractor arrived and saved the day. Pitty about the damage, although the driver seemed rather proud of the battle scars!








Meet Baasie our trail organiser and one of his red Jeep's attempting to winch the 110 out:



We will add some more, but Kat has some pretty ones too, so click on the link above - Mad Bad and crazy Kat - to see more.

Here is Katherine in the mud!

Poor Andrew's bank balance.

Andrew has been very busy in the last three weeks fixing Pepper up and making her look pretty. It all started with a little service, which include new oil for the diffs, gearbox, trnsfer box and swivel pins. About 13 litres at R20/l: not cheap. Then he decided to replace two front suspension bushes, which is possibly the worst job in the world on an old Landy, but the ride is much better now.

The hilift jack was also mounted in a new position and the sparewheel carrier was fixed after Pepper's fun in the clay stockpile where she broke it. New hinges were made for the tailgate so that it can flap down and Kate can make coffee after a long hard day driving. New seat belt thingies were also made after someone lost them and a new, raised bumper was also fitted. The old bumper was made as a water tank and weighed about 70kg's. Very very heavy. The new one is raised to give a better approach angle and weighs about 15kg.

Burnco Panelbeating also fixed her chassis for her, which was rotting away, probably after fatigue cracking from the heavy old bumper. That cost R1500. All the engineering work (Allbest Engineering) cost R1050, which Andrew has not yet paid for. The exhaust downpipe was also repaired and a new flange was fitted to the manifold, all by Powerfloe exhausts. Cost: R850. The old pipe was dinged which mde the manifold leak, Pepper is not sure where it happened but it won't happen again because they put in a nice shiny fexible section to absorb shocks.

All of this was done after Andrew replaced the alternator bearings only to find out that they were not the cause of a funny rumbling noise. He then replaced the waterpump, which was the cause of the funny rumbling noise. The waterpump job was a huge headache, some fool (previous owner) had replaced bolts that hold the pump to the cylinder head with a variety of metric, imperial and other assorted studs and bolts. The metric ones stripped and all the other bolts were also partially stripped. This lead Andrew to belive that the threads in he cylinder head were also stripped, which would involve taking the head off, which wold not be fun. Luckily the threads were fine, but when the radiator was flushed and refilled here seemed to be some gunk in the water, which would indicate a blown headgasket which would also require he head to be taken off. After a head gasket test at Shell Autoserv, it was found that this was not the case. The gunk was probably from the grease Andrew smeared on the new radator pipes to get them on more easily.


The rear of the chassis was also repaired. Andrew cut out a piece of 3mm steel to replace a rusted section, treated it so that it wouldn't rust and rivetted it into place. He then drove down the road to Tuffex exhausts who welded it into place. Cost: R30. Saving: about R1100, which is what Burnco quoted him to do it.

All in all a fun holiday was had, but Andrew needs another week to recover from the Porseleinberg trail where he spent the better half of an hour knee deep in cold muddy water. But that's another story althogether...

Poor Pepper!

We want to visit Sutherland in September - probably through the backroads to Ceres, and stay at Prince Alfred Hamlet - and then come back down through the Cederburg.
There are some lovely places to stay along the way and great 4x4 trails that Pepper wants to take her takkies over.
In order to do all of this, Pepper's dad wants to take her on this horrid road!

This is such a South African road sign - I just couldn't resist!

Poodles...

Last night we took Pepper-Anne on an expedition to find poodles. She wanted to drive over, under and into them blasted poodles. Her underside was still a bit muddy (even the high pressure hose could not get this out!) We found a few good ones, especially the on-ramp at Princess Anne Road near UCT, and her mom and dad soon found themselves very very wet! Pepper is back safely in her garage and her dad starts exams on Friday, so there will not be to many stories in the next few weeks. Pepper might also be famous soon as her dad has just written an article for the Cape Times, so maybe that will be our next post.

Pepper's complaints.

Pepper quietly whispered in my ear last night when I brought her her milo that this was her website, not ours. She is upset that we have hijacked it and told me in no uncertain terms. So from now on all posts about Kate and Andrew can be found on atekandy.blogspot.com and the life and tales of Pepper will remain here. I might even move a couple of posts over to atekandy, which Kate thinks is a silly name, but I rather like it.

So I hereby do apologise to Pepper and promise never to do it again.