What a start to my weekend.
But let me start at the beginning. I was looking for someone who could get the bus to JHB at a reasonable price, and still take good care of her. Fortunately for me, a fellow forum member Chris had the right contacts, so things were set.
Unfortunately Heiko was out of town, so the bus could not be collected last week. Chris arranged for collection this week.
Of course I pm'ed everyday, has the bus left CT yet ? I was assured (With the appropriate amount of patience
), that this week would be the week. Most probably wednesday. Music to my ears.
I then got so buried in work, I clean forgot about the bus!
Thursday night we left for CT to visit some family in Hermanus, but we decided to stay in CT on thursday night, didn't feel like driving there in the middle of the night after a late flight.
Arrive at the hotel, and the rental car doors don't lock. Can't use the keys, remote NADA. The previous driver must have broken the drivers door.
Too late to go back to the airport to change it, so everything out the car, will phone in the morning.
Phone them just after eight, no problem, will swop for another vehicle, there is actually a branch not too far from where we are staying in Buitengracht str. Off we go, to swop the car before heading to hermanus.
I missed the turnoff (wrong lane) for buitengracht, and suddenly find myself in BREE street. I turn to the seatcover and say, hey, this is the street where my bus was parked, that reminds me, I wonder if it has left for PE yet?
Let me phone Chris quick! I dial his number, and as I am busy, my wife says.
Isn't that your bus?! This is what I saw in the road, literally 200m in front of us!!
The guys were hard at work loading.
Tyres and rims look pretty good (even if a bit flat from standing)
Bus needs a bit of rust repair, but probably one of the best examples you'll see at the coast.
We had some interested onlookers:
and off she went! What a totally unexpected, but nice surprise
I checked the interior, original seats are there, heiko also threw a couple of extra wheels in the back.
Engine is all in one piece and looks ready to go, sans battery.
We then went on our merry way, met Hitlers Revenge at the waterfront - good to meet you HR
Bored the seatcover with some ACVW talk, dropped of his Hotwheels buggy, remember the one he won on auction , oh what was it, 2 months ago
, but delivered by hand
finally, we set off to Hermanus.
Traffic on the N2 was HORRENDOUS, don't know how the capetonians can complain about JHB traffic. At least our drivers are sane SOME of the time.
Just after the houtbay engen, I see the Jetta 4 - 2 cars ahead of me drift to the right (on the highway, doing 120km/h) and I remember thinking to myself, sheesh dude, you better go left soon, or you will be off onto the grass! But he keeps coming, and the right wheels go onto the grass verge, he pulls it back left (this is where I started applying some , shall we say, MILD , pressure to the middle pedal)!!
He manages to get it under control, but then I see the reason for his antics, a lady in a NEW chevy aveo (with a BIG RED L in the rear window, coincidence? !) has hit him on the side, now she suddenly swerves HARD to the left, across both lanes, hits the barrier on the left of the road, bounds off into the grass next to the road!!! I KID YOU NOT, never seen a car bounce that high on grass!!!, but somehow the car stays straight and does not roll, she then pulls on the wheel hard right and does not apply the brakes, back onto the highway, across both lanes, and clips the bakkie ahead of us (he saw her coming and braked hard and swerved right so she just brushed him). Finally she goes back LEFT across the lanes and stops on the left in the yellow line. My wife was sleeping and woke up when I braked. All I can say is, if you don't believe in miracles, you would after seeing this. I am only thankful that No-one was injured, all three cars parked safely out of the way on the verge of the highway. No-one else hit them. UNBELIEVABLE. We get very irate at rubberneckers, so didn't stick around, practise what you preach and all that. There were enough witnesses and no-one was hurt, so off we went.
You must be thinking, at this rate we'll never get there!
Into the traffic at the start of Somerset West and the roadworks....
turn off and go via strand, past the VOLKSIESHOP, up towards gordons bay, and then we turned left to head back to the N2, neatly bypassing all the traffic and most of the roadworks.
What happens to pass right in front of us after all this, no, can't be!
You guessed it:
We both stopped at the garage, bought some "padkos" for the last strectch, and saw the truck pulling out:
Those are such a cool pics don't you think ?
(From an ACVW point of view, not photographic )
Whats that spec in the distance?
We better go and investigate:
Have a safe trip!
Sorry for the poor quality, zoom, movement and cellphone cameras DO NOT MIX!
Got safely and uneventfully to Hermanus after that
How did your weekend start?
would be very cool. you should also mount automatic bait ball guns on ether side. that way if some one tries to pass you on the road you can (for lack of a better frays) "let them have it" and by it i don't mean the bus 
) 4ORK that road is still not finished after 30 yrs. 