The English press record our adventurous trip!

I  thought that, before I start the story of my life in Rhodesia,  I would include this newspaper cutting which was printed in the Evening Chronicle, the daily paper circulated in the Bath area in Somerset, shortly after our arrival in Salisbury.

As it is difficult to read, this is a reprint.

BATH MAN TELLS OF 8,000 MILES BY CAR TO AFRICA.

Elephant Gave Them Their Most Anxious Moment.

After a road journey of nearly 8,000 miles from Bath, Mr and Mrs Donald Beak, formerly of Fiveways Garage, Batheaston, and their two children are now settling down in Southern Rhodesia.

They went there the hard way, driving in their own Land Rover through France, across the Sahara and on through Africa, to start a new life in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia's capital.

Now they are making their home in a caravan which they had sent on to Southern Rhodesia by sea.  In their hotel just after their arrival Mr Beak said " We decided to emigrate because of the high taxation in England.  We chose Southern Rhodesia because we thought it would be the most pleasant of the places in the Commonwealth, to which we could go.

WIFE'S IDEA

"Going by road was my wife's idea.  We spent six months planning the trip and another six months getting ready.  We started off from Bath on Jan 22 - my wife Dulcie, our son David, aged 16 and our daughter Diane aged nine, and myself."

After crossing France they sailed on Jan 29 to Algiers.  "On Feb 3, we started what we expected would be the worst patch of the journey, the crossing of the Sahara.  It is waste land of every description - mountains and flats, sand and rock, with no sign of life of any kind.

"Actually it was not as bad as we had expected.  The road is a rough track, but it was negotiable for a vehicle like ours.

"We stopped every so often for water, which was available at wells; there was also petrol at pick up points.

"There is a certain amount of traffic across the desert.  Transport trucks supplying the desert villages make a series of patrols and the Foreign Legion forts keep in touch by radio, so travellers are not completely lost."

THE TRUE DESERT

"The true desert is the section between Tamanrasset and In Guezzam - 250 miles of soft sand.  We got across it in 10 hours and had to dig ourselves out only twice.  I got across by simply driving flat out.  For long stretches there was no road at all and we had to drive by compass.

"We stayed four days at the hotel in Kano.  Here £70 was stolen from my brief case in a hotel wardrobe.

"On the way to Fort Archambault we went through Bongor, the most primitive town we saw on our journey,  The natives wore literally no clothes and were still using the disc ornaments which they carry in the lips and ears.  Some were carrying bows and arrows. They were though very friendly and brought us a bowl of milk.  The roads here were fair, but there were many hazards. We crossed the rivers on primitive native ferries and once we had to make a big detour because a bridge had collapsed.

"Once a bridge collapsed under us and we could not get the car free until 60 or 70 natives had come to our rescue.

"We crossed the equator at 6,000 feet and had never felt so cold in our lives.  We did not have a 'crossing the line ceremony' because we were not quite sure where the line was."

After crossing the equator, the party had an experience which they will remember for the rest of their days.

"Driving along a narrow road we suddenly saw the hind quarters of an elephant - 15 feet away"  Mr Beak said.  "He turned around, blocked the road, flapped his ears and raised his trunk; it was an anxious moment. "He started to walk towards us.  We just banged into reverse gear and drove back 150 yards - and believe me, no car ever reversed so fast!

WADDLED OFF

"For 15 minutes the elephant stood and watched us.  We thought of all the stories we had heard about elephants in that part of the country over-turning cars.  Then the elephant rubbed his back on a tree, turned and waddled off.  We decided to make a dash for it.  We drove towards the spot where he had left the road - only to find him touching distance away.  We just scraped past him racing by so as to give him no time to do anything.  It worked - we didn't see any more of him."

Later they heard lions, and saw a leopard crossing the road at night.

OVER THE BORDER

When they crossed the border into Northern Rhodesia they felt they "were getting somewhere".  By now the miles to Salisbury had come down to 3 figures - all the way so far it had been four.

"We crossed the Zambezi into Southern Rhodesia at Chirundu and drove to Salisbury.  When we started the mileage on our speedometer was 5,160; when we arrived  we had clocked up to 12,896 - we had done 7,736 miles" Mr Beak said.

" We didn't have a puncture throughout the journey. We broke three springs, which we replaced, and we replaced a water pump gland; that was all the mechanical trouble we had.  To drive to Southern Rhodesia is a good trip for an engineer, but it's no ride for a novice.

"And Southern Rhodesia, well here we are now, living in our caravan at Coronation park, Salisbury;.  It looks fine - we like it very much.  I am going to get a job and look around" he added.

My Life Before Charente to be continued :-) 

 

The section of my life story during our overland trip is published on Kindle if you should be interested:-

 

See

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-GREAT-1953-TREK-ebook/dp/B008KK0KHU/ref=pd_ys_iyr1

French Cameroons

February 21 (Saturday)1953 Land Mileage 3550

When we woke up, the birds were still in full song, with more joining in all the time.   We   finished breakfast to the 'Bird Chorus' and we were back on the road at 07h30.  Three quarters of an hour later, we were at the Frontier station between British Mandated Territory and French Cameroons, at the town of Gamboro.

A police permit was necessary to travel across French Cameroons between Gamboro and Kussere, but we had previously arranged this.    Out came the passports and permits yet again, and while we were there we had to go to the French customs as well! We managed to fill up with fuel and water, plus we also managed to do a bit of shopping to replenish the food.   Gamboro was where the ferry goes across the River Logone and this we managed to get on at 08h45, with our destination being Fort Lamy.   We were lucky enough to be on the move again right away, the ferry being "docked" on our side of the river, as you can see below! 

I have no idea why the back is down on the Land Rover, but I see it is!

Soon we were back on the road again and then onto a second ferry over the River Chari at 10h30.  

You can see some quite large vehicles crossed on these wooden ferries.

We drove on through lots of thick bush country and very rough roads.  The countryside changed very little, but nevertheless it was very interesting, with many birds and large very colourful butterflies seen.    How I regret we did not have books with which we could have tried to identify some of the beautiful birds and butterflies that we saw on this particular part of the journey.

At 15h30, another back spring broke; proof of what the roads were like.     We managed to find a sort of clearing at the side of the road and David and Dad got started on replacing the spring.    They were getting plenty of practice at this particular job!   This stop in fact turned out to be a blessing in disguise; a bus pulled up while they were working on the spring and informed us that a bridge was down on our route and we would be unable to cross.   This meant we would have to retrace our steps and take the road through Bongor.  We were still quite some way from the bridge, so the bus had saved us a lot of wasted fuel and mileage!

While we were busy with the spring repair, one of the locals came over with fresh cow's milk for us.   We gave him some cigarettes and he went off obviously delighted, but then so were we with the milk.  What a pleasure it was not to have powdered milk that night.   By the time the spring had been changed and knowing that we had to retrace the route, we decided that we should make camp right where we were, so we could set off first thing again in the morning.

February 22 (Sunday) 1953 Land Mileage 3669

On waking, we discovered that we were being watched by a quite large crowd of the locals who suddenly appeared on the scene.    They appeared to be a 'gang' of men who were going out hunting; they carried spears and all they wore was a thong, presumably of animal skin, around their waists, with a small piece of skin down the back, which we guessed was to sit on.   We had not realised that this particular area was quite so primitive.   One of them put his finger into the jam we had been eating and from the look on his face, we gathered that it was not approved of!  Our 'farmer friend' of the night before, brought us some more milk and he went off with a few gifts that we gave him. We were soon on our way again, away from the broken bridge.

It was thirty six miles before we came to the cross roads that turned off to Bongor, this was on the Logone River further down from Fort Lamy.   We pulled into Bongor at about 09h15, so we had not really wasted that much time on our diversion.    We found a very immaculately dressed Frenchman, who took us in hand.   We explained the situation to him, and asked him what he thought would now be the best route for us to take.   He was very angry that the authorities in Fort Lamy had not informed us of the situation; he said that they must have known which route we were most likely to take and the bridge had been down for a while.   He took us to his house which was quite beautiful, situated on the edge of the River Logone.   It was incredibly cool inside and he offered us long iced orange drinks that were delicious.   The Frenchman gave Dad a Cognac, but he admitted afterwards that he would have much preferred the iced orange!   Dad then said he was afraid that we did not have enough petrol to make up for the detour.   He had not taken on a full load previously, as he was trying to keep the vehicle as light as possible to save the springs, but the extra seventy two miles would leave us short.   Being Sunday, of course everything was closed but with the help of the Frenchman, Dad managed to locate an Italian gentleman who had some 40 gallon drums of fuel and he allowed us to buy enough to get us to the next 'town'.    Bongor, on the border of French Cameroon and French Equatorial Africa, was the most primitive place that we had seen to date; luckily for us, the border post did not close down on Sundays!

Driving on, we saw many of the local residents, the men all dressed as we had seen them earlier, with "loincloths" being just a skin at the back.   The women wore nothing, but they had large discs in both the top and bottom lip.   We were told that the French had provided schools and hospitals in the effort to help them. They were quite lovely buildings, but the locals at that stage had refused to go near either.

We had asked if it was safe to swim in the rivers and the answer had been yes.    This was a huge benefit to us all, as the evening 'bath' was now laid on in most places.   We just had to pick the right camp spot.   When we left Bongor we drove along the side of the Logone River. After a short distance, David, Dad and I went for a swim while Mum kept watch over the Land Rover and all our belongings.   It was parked on a steep incline and was almost out of sight of the river, too far to leave it in safety without one of us around.  

Dad, myself and David just coming in from a swim.

 We then carried on along our new route which took us through Ham, a typical African village, and then on to Lai.   There was much wooded countryside around Lai, but there were also several cotton plantations that we presumed were being farmed by the French.  We were still following the River Logone and at 14h30, we decided that perhaps we should stop and have a swim as it was so hot.  It also meant that Mum could do some much needed washing of clothes at the same time.    The water was wonderful and very refreshing. It was a very reluctant family who finally went back to the vehicle to continue on our way along dusty roads.

Mum catching up with the washing again.

We travelled through some cotton plantations and  having passed the small village of Doba, we turned left, leaving the river behind us.   We passed several more villages before pulling up for the night at a piece of ground that had been burnt out.    We felt that this was a safe place to stop as there was quite thick bush everywhere else around us.   On stopping, there was not a soul in sight, but within minutes, we suddenly had many spectators!   Where they had all appeared from we will never know.  We were watched intently for the remainder of the evening as we cooked dinner and prepared for bed; it was a very strange feeling but we did not feel threatened in any way, it was purely curiosity.

To be continued :-) 

 

I have put this section of my life story on Kindle if you should be interested:-

 

See

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-GREAT-1953-TREK-ebook/dp/B008KK0KHU/ref=pd_ys_iyr1