The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round

The bus is parked along the side of the house and my mom is keeping a watchful eye on the state of each blade of grass underneath. I’m really glad that we settled on a smaller vehicle since this one is just about ready to go which makes things much easier. The bus is actually a converted D400 Ford truck. Still has the chassis and engine but aluminum caravan type body. Theo drove it down to the garage at the crack of dawn to get the tyres pumped and to get the hang of taking a corner before the rest of Monte Vista woke up. The seller had delivered it to us so it was Theo’s first time behind the wheel. The sweat poured off him since the bus doesn’t have power steering and maneuvering the thing was a new experience. I bounced up and down with excitement on my couch seat while he worked on his abs. We were both grinning from ear to ear by the time we stopped at the garage and everyone came over to inspect our “tortoise house” as they called it.

Our goal now is to get the necessary stuff finished to be able to roadworthy the bus but we fiddle around with other fiddly bits as well. I’ve had my head and shoulders wedged into a dark rusty storage box in the floor to hold the back of a nut in place for Theo to screw the bolts in place. I’ve had the vacuum cleaner hose inside the engine housing box (which is inside the bus nogal) to suck out cobwebs around the engine. We’ve bought a spare tyre – I’m talking truck tyres here which don’t come cheap and a deep cycle battery to give us power. Theo has almost finished with the lights and fixed the handbrake cable, bled the brakes and needs to replace a metal plate on the under carriage which is too rusty. He sorted the front wheel bearings out - the master cylinders had to be resleeved before it moved anywhere. Holding thumbs the back ones are ok. We are also pottering around inside fixing door handles etc and I’m making curtains. I’ve made a headboard and am having all the cushion seats recovered. Theo still needs to sort out the shower floor, the roof vent, build a small cupboard for more packing space, and he’s had a look underneath and is pleased that we have water tanks, sewage tanks and there’s space for our vegetable oil tank. Remember, our idea of running on cooking oil? Well that part must still be sorted but will come later. And then of course there’s the trailer or possibly some kind of hydraulic ledge for the bikes and the storage box.

We are working at a leisurely pace but hope to get going the beginning of April. We both resign end February - thats like in 3 weeks - ooh scary - no turning back now. I work to end of March but luckily Theo is able to take leave after his resignation date so he will have time in March to pick up the pace a bit. He writes his code 10 learners on 1st April - ominous date I know, and then we are both doing a 3 day first aid course at St Johns before hitting the road.
Yeehaa - cant wait for end of March to come.

Stop The Bus

Talk about dragging something out. Jeez. Well the good news is we’ve eventually bought our bus – turns out it’s more of a camper bus than the moerse big bus we originally dreamed about but nonetheless we are chaffed. Actually buzzing, doing flick flacks cos things are finally coming together.

December was a bit of a bummer month. I’m not referring to the 6 kg’s I picked up while on leave or the withdrawal symptoms I suffered from missing free internet access at work and being able to make a phone call without thinking twice. The bus saga brought me down cos we had a stunning party bus lined up and then if all fell through. Theo and Keith (my brother in law who knows about diesel engines) caught a greyhound up to Bloemfontein to buy a party bus for sale up there. The guy said the engine was great and we had visions of doing a few party trips and making some moela from the bus while tackling the outside renovations. I’d started phoning to make enquiries about public liability and visions of us taking party groups on trips to the beach and Theo whipping up a seafood braai all fell by the wayside when the bus turned out a dud. The puddle of oil under the engine was a give away and the bus barely made it round the block. 1 month of waiting for the guy to sort out the paper work all for nothing. I was starting to get despondent but we still had the option of a smaller school bus up in Struuisbaai to fall back on. We just had to wait for the guy to be available after new year before we could move on that. More time ho hum and I was starting to loose my pluck.

In the meantime I focused on Xmas, stuffed my face, tanned my cellulite and got horribly drunk on new years. Then we discovered that the Struuisbaai bus had a problem with the diff, wrong ratio and complicated to sort out. Mid January back at work and on the phone to dealers who could put a Nissan centre diff into an Isuzu engine in a Bedford bus. Not going well and we hadn’t even started on actual work yet. About to give up we considered buying a camper just to get going. Then we went back for a second looked at the very first camper bus we looked at in October, which at the time seemed crummy but suddenly seemed perfect. It’s smaller and lighter than a big bus yet bigger than a standard camper and it’s already kitted out. Just a few changes needed. It’s absolutely perfect. We will have to hook up a trailer for the bikes as apposed to hoisting then onto the back. No problem, in fact less work.

So now we are the very proud owners of a camper bus and are busy getting it ready for roadworthy. Yeehaa!

Window Shopping

We’ve moved into my old bedroom, which seemed more spacious during my budding teenage years. Squeezing 2 very full grown adults and meters of computer cabling into the same area is a tight fit. There’s not even space for my vibrator.

After trying over and over to kickstart Theo’s XT which didn’t happen since I didn’t have the “knack” and after viewing a few other bikes, I finally settled on a Suzuki DR 200. It’s a kickstart but you don’t need thunder thighs to get it going. (Bugger the knee, I’ll wear a knee brace or something.) I took it for a spin and it sure is different to my old bike. It’s old and it rattles and shakes and I have to just about sit on top of the tank and there’s no cockpit effort in the front which my old bike had. Theo told me to sit up and lift myself off the seat but I’m too poep scared to stand up on the footpegs. I’m sure I’ll get it after a few more tries.

Theo’s roadbike is also sold now so we have the deposit for a bus. We’ve looked at a few, even viewed a camper but haven’t found the perfect bus yet. It seems a 62 seater bus is the right size or else we’re gonna have to store the Webber (for smoking meat) and Theo’s sausage maker in the shower and his Still and boxes of bottles will have to be stored in the loo. Sounds a bit cramped. Or we could go true African style and load up on the roof. Going under bridges would pose a problem and anyway not our style.

Oh well, the right one will eventually come along, it’s just a matter of time. I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when we do find one and in the meantime there’s enough other things to keep us busy.

Journey Into The Unknown

I’m finally ready. Mentally that is. Theo and I have wanted to change our lifestyles for some time now and that’s how we ended up deciding to sell everything, and buy an old diesel bus, hook up 2 on/off road bikes and travel South Africa. Indefinitely that is. Wow - scary and exciting. It’s taken me a while to get my mind, which I almost lost in the process, around the idea but that’s pretty par for course since I’m prone to getting lost. I mean you don’t just wake up one morning and say “gee let’s buy a bus and disappear into the sunset”. Mind you Theo did and at first I thought it was just another one of his schemes. Eventually my earthy side won the battle going on in my head and I thought what the heck, lets go for it.

We’ll be selling our car and our 2 road bikes in exchange for the bus and 2 old, cheapo on/off road bikes. We don’t have property to sell and we haven’t won the lotto and anyway if we did we’d still definitely go ahead with our idea. Our small work pensions will be our backup for new tyres or gear boxes etc so we plan to work at different things as we go along.

So you probably think our idea sounds a bit far fetched, ha, well picture this. We plan to convert the diesel bus to run on used fish ‘n chip oil. That got your attention I bet. It’s the latest rage overseas you know. The plan is, as we pass through towns, we’ll collect the old oil from fish and chip shops and the occasional restaurant. The oil gets strained and stored in a container under the bus but needs to be heated before it can run through the engine. If you don’t see us coming you might smell us.

We plan to buy a wind generator kit which we’ll attach to the roof of the bus as and when we need to generate more power. The electricity will be stored in a bunch of batteries and we should be able to run our laptop, a fridge, a sound system and 1 or 2 smaller items. Who needs more? Our TV will not be missed! I hope.

Besides a bed, a kitchen area and packing space, we plan to install a caravan type toilet, water tanks for running water which we could heat with gas. Luckily I’m not a finicky person and don’t have a problem peeing behind a bush. We will also be stopping at caravan parks occasionally, and not forgetting all the one stops so look out for us next time you all meet at one for a breakfast run. I suspect we’ll be very visible. Mind you I’ll probably be catching a shower while Theo sorts out the dump.

We plan to explore some out of the way places on our on/off road bikes. In fact I think that’s how the plan materialized. We got gatvol of riding the same roads around Cape Town and missed out on the dirt roads cos as you know road bikes don’t do well on gravel. We were ready to exchange the speed thing for getting back into nature. Well it was that combined with the fact that Theo was gatvol of his job and I was starting to feel like part of the furniture at mine. I got a fright when I realized I was getting sucked into the system shared with work colleges who thought it was a great achievement to retire after giving 40 years of service to the same company. My 20 year old son doesn’t need me around anymore to wipe his nose and I think his youthful ideas about quantum physics and thinking out the box has inspired me.

Every now and then my stomach churns when the scary thoughts enter my spacious mind but then I remind myself that it is what I want to do and it is possible. Getting off the grid is gonna be a challenge but it sure is gonna be an adventure and I can’t wait.