In praise of my bakkie
Ihave a venerable old bakkie , which turns 20 this year . It ' s a diesel double cab , and I have driven it many hundreds of kilometres . In fact , had I headed up off Cape Canaveral in my bakkie towards the moon , I would have reached it , gone round the back and be half way home by now , so many kilometres have my venerable old bakkie and I travelled . It still has its original seats ( the upholstery is only slightly tattered ), and steering wheel , and tow bar and bullbar and it would be nice to report that it still has its original engine , but it doesn ' t . That ' s because I have , on occasion , neglected to fill or change the oil . The first time it happened I was on my way home from Bronkhorstspruit and barrelling along I suffered what one might euphemistically call a “ catastrophic loss of power .” Nonetheless , my trusty old workhorse brought me home , sputtering and wheezing , and when she ' d cooled down we discovered that the oil in her sump was the consistency of chewing gum , if not quite the same virulent pink colour . So , out came her original engine and in went a second-hand job from Taiwan . Unfortunately that wasn ' t quite the same size as the original , nor did it have the same power , so from having been driving a nippy little bus I was now reduced to wheezing around in a vehicle not much faster than a tortoise or a slug . Overtaking became a challenge . Trying to pass even something as slow as a tractor meant one needed to ensure that the road ahead was clear of oncoming traffic to about Komatipoort before one moved out into the right lane to overtake . And to get the engine to fit into the vehicle meant that the sump had to be modified . The result was that it never fitted properly and much of the car ' s prodigious oil consumption would leak , from about twelve places , onto the ground . When visiting friends I used to leap out on parking and position two flattened cardboard boxes under the engine to catch the dripping oil , as we all know how difficult it is to clean dirty black , sulphurous diesel oil off pristine driveway paving . Fortunately , that engine didn ' t last long , although its fate had nothing to do with old oil . Rather , it had to do with no water , having overheated one hot afternoon in a traffic jam in Pretoria . So , out came the engine and in went another second hand unit from Taiwan . This one didn ' t leak oil , but it could not be connected up to run the car ' s airconditioning unit , to which I had become mighty used . Fortunately , that engine , too , didn ' t last long , a lack of oil ( or oil the consistency of chewing gum again , I can ' t remember ) taking
THE BACK PAGE
its toll , and yet another secondhand unit from Taiwan was installed . Oh , bliss ! It doesn ' t leak oil , the aircon is reconnected , and it ' s as powerful as the original , meaning I can roar away from tractors and even trucks and skedonk cars ( if they ' re travelling slowly enough ) without having to ensure that the road ahead is clear for fifty kilometres . But there ' s one , slight , small problem . The vehicle is as noisy as hell . It doesn ' t worry me much ( being a little hard of hearing ) but it offends the sensibilities of my family who now resolutely refuse to travel with me in my bakkie . Which is a shame , because it is an ideal game-viewing vehicle , being higher than a sedan , being rugged enough to cope with corrugated gravel roads , having working aircon and even having a diff-lock ( though if I ' m honest I don ' t think that in the 20 years I ' ve owned the vehicle I ' ve ever used the diff-lock in earnest , despite having used the bakkie as a mini-plot tractor on occasion when desperate ). Well , and there ’ s another small issue . Neither her steering nor her brakes are that precise , so that driving is a bit like piloting a ship at sea . One sways around a bit , and must anticipate some time in advance when one needs to stop . And I am guaranteed to be stopped at every roadblock I encounter , not only because the cops see a 20-year-old vehicle as a sure-fire source of unroadworthiness in one or other respect , but because the vehicle itself is in less than concours d ' elegance condition . Not that it matters , really , because once we ' ve gone through the usual cheery greetings and enquiries about each others ' health , and they ' ve checked the vehicles ' and my licenses , the conversation usually turns quite quickly to an offer to purchase . And sometimes the money I ' m offered is tempting , even if it is a dodgy deal from a cop . But I ' m only ever tempted . A little . Because I ' ll never actually part with my bakkie . In fact it ' s already written into my will .
WRITTEN BY SMALLHOLDERS , FOR SMALLHOLDERS