The first test

date: 2004-08-14
pos: hamburg, germany
author: frank

We had to decide where we would place our new baby until we would leave. The difficulties to find out how much it would cost to register the car in Germany let us decide to better bring the car to Sweden. It's much easier there.

I picked Staffan up in Düsseldorf (currently I'm living in Munich). So far I just had seen pictures of the car so when he picked me up from the train station it was like christmas, easter and my birthday at the same time. Just amazing! It was a beauty - with all the equipment, ready to go and the flair of the last safari. It was a great vehicle.

The next morning we drove first towards Hamburg. We had an appointment at the Offroad-Manufaktur to change the timing belt. Just a routine check. On the way up our Landy was purring like a cat...

The day we had to give the car to the workshop didn't start as usual. The nice guy from the workshop was right when he told us it was a bit risky to plan the repair on our way up. Fortunately everything went fine with the timing belt. The bigger problem had caught us already in the morning when we wanted to start the car. Staffan told me before that there were two batteries in the car. With that information in mind we spent some time in it the evening before, listened to music and enjoyed our buy.

It's a classic one I would say, because even though Staffan was sure there were two batteries in the car, we only found one the next morning - and of course, this one was totally drained.

We had one hour left to the appointment and had planned to be out of Hamburg in the afternoon. I had quite some experience from my `75 mercedes in asking people for starting help, but at 8.30 in the morning when everybody is in a hurry to work, it's different. I stopped every car that passed. After one failed jump start we got a very nice but timid lady to help us. She pushed the throttle as much as possible but the Landy didn't start!

We called the Offroad Manufaktur and they sent someone over. Everything would turn out fine now. We were maybe waiting for 20 minutes when suddenly the jump-start lady was standing in front of us. She was totally hysterical and told us that her car died. She parked it around the corner but had to start it again in order to close the electrical windows. In a way I have to admit that we should have known that it's not a very good idea to ask a Fiat Seicento to jumpstart a 2.5 tons Land Rover with a battery double the size.

Ok, mission of priority was to make the woman happy again. We offered her to load her battery in the Manufaktur while our car gets checked hoping that it would be enough time for the battery to recover (a very optimistic plan).
Meanwhile we did the final shopping for our trip and bought a bottle of prosecco to apologize for the trouble caused.

Everything went perfect with our car. We met the woman later again at her car. Staffan got the Prosecco and I built in the battery. Nothing! There was not sufficient power to get the car started. The loading time was definetely too short. The only thing we could do now was to buy her a new battery. We felt both very sorry for her and bad because of the trouble we caused. I guess she will never help anyone anymore which is sad because she was really nice. Staffan came with the bottle, we put the jump-start cables together. Suddenly we all heard a big bang and the saw the Prosecco running on the side walk. Luck wasn't really on our side this day. I was standing with my back to the woman so I couldn't see her shocked face.

Finally we drove to the Fiat workshop, bought a new battery for her and said goodbye to the woman that had a really stressy day. From now on everything went fine. I mean it (just) could only get better.

The next day we arrived at Staffans' sisters' place in Gothenburg were we spent some relaxing days. The following weekend we drove up north a bit to their little summer house where we met up with Jerker Persson (Staffans brother in law and designer, too) and Niklas Johansson (who was in Kibera).

Driving in a Land Rover is really exciting. The trip to Sweden was the first time for me in such a lovely vehicle. And without doubt, you have to get used to it. It's loud, slow, spartanic but not uncomfortable. I have to say travelling with that car is quite relaxing (of course it will be different on african roads) and the good thing is: You don't notice congestion or heavy traffic. You just go with the flow and enjoy riding in such a nice car

During the weekend we also had the possibility to talk with Niklas about Kibera and our project. Jerker anf him both encouraged us for the project which gave us additional motivation. He said the students in Kibera were very motivated and had some knowledge about Graphic and Webdesign. More important, Niklas had been there and proved the possibility of such a project. We got a quite good picture of what we could expect there and which possibilities and chances we will have (which we hopefully will be able to use!).



The last highlight on our trip was in Getmossen where Staffans parents live. It was the perfect environment for the Landy: countryside, forest, and very little people living there. While offroad driving, the car took all obstacles perfectly smooth (well, it's a Landy!). We gave it a first ground wash and did a basic check on all the imprtant technical parts.
The area appeared to be the perfect place to leave the car for the following year. People have a lot of space here and so it came that Staffans dad offered us an area next to their house to build a hangar for the Landy.

We cut down an area of approximately 12 by 20 meters of bush. It felt like we were standing somewhere in the african bush. We cut down 10 birch trees and built a tent structure that will definetly outstand the swedish winter. It was two days of fantastic work and we passed the first bush test.

Africa we are coming :-)