Oooh I can feel another African tale coming on….
It’s a sad fact that despite leading a varied and interesting existence probably the single notable achievement of my life on a global scale has to do with driving. Specifically driving a Land Rover Discovery all the way around Africa, and without actually running anything over. If there were a Guinness Book of Records entry for the first person to drive a Land Rover Discovery around Africa my name would be up there in lights.

Now all this arduous driving meant that by the time I’d got to South Africa I pretty much knew what I was doing driving-wise (despite a shaky start in which I rolled my first Land Rover in Spain on Day 1 of the trip). So mum probably thought it was safe for her to pop over and join me for a trip to the mountainous country of Lesotho.

You know what mum’s are like about ‘advice’ – but she surprised me by not once criticising my driving as we drove up from Cape Town. As we got close to the border we stayed a night at a Tigerskloof farm near Kokstadt (sic) where Peter, the owner turned out to be a real Landy enthusiast – he loved my Disco which is of course an ex-Camel Trophy car because I just love to keep a low profile when I travel. He had also, as it turned out, worked as a missionary in Lesotho, and when I asked for route advice he gave me an appraising look and then started drawing a map…

So it was that a couple of days later we found ourselves on a road that was fast deteriorating into rocks as we began to climb the Matebeng pass. The trail wound its way up and down mountain sides, passing the remains of the winter snows still clinging to the verges. Lesotho is over 1000m above sea level at it's lowest point, and has the highest average altitude for any country in the world, and the fact that there were any roads at all struck me as amazing.

The smart locals were happily getting around on foot, or using the sturdy Basotho ponies favoured for their sure footedness and stamina. Some of them seemed to make better time across the mountains than the Camel...

After four hours and forty kilometres (mostly in low ratio) we finally descended to the level of the Orange River which we forded with ease, passing the washed away remains of a substantial concrete bridge. I had thought that we were over the worst, but the road now changed in character.

Ahead was a track that climbed straight up the cliff ahead of me. This was the mother of all ascents – not for this road the nice switch backs of the pass behind. Oh no – this was a single dangerously steep ledge cut into the towering cliff, rising hundreds of meters in a straight line with a sheer drop straight into the ravine below. I sized this up from the bottom, and decided that although it appeared impassable the fact that I had met two Landcruisers coming the other way meant that it had to be passable (I only later pondered the fact that they had only come down, not up the track). So I took a deep breath, trusted to fate and a new set of All-Terrain tyres, and began to force my way steadily up in high ratio second.

In truth this was probably the most dangerous part of my entire trip (including rolling the first Landy). If I’d been coming down the hill I could have accelerated into any skid to regain traction, but if I slipped back on the loose scree strewn in my path my only option would be to pop the clutch and try to steer into the cliff without bouncing back into the void. Obviously I didn’t want to scare my mum who was looking distinctly anxious, but to be honest I was concentrating totally on finding the best path for each of my 4 wheels as we scrabbled for traction. Ahead was large boulder that I would need to swing my front left tyre past with a couple of inches to spare. And bless me if mum didn’t finally crack… “Watch out for that rock!” I laugh now, but at the time all I could do was utter “Muuuum “ in my best impersonation of Kevin the teenager. Anyway we got to the top with only minor damage to my seat covers, but I’ve got to hand it to my mum – she really does pick her moments.

Length? 18 months and 70,000km
(strongp, Thu 11 Feb 2010, 19:53, Reply)