The Honey Badger Goes For An Annual Check-up

We’ve been far and wide in the Honey Badger, our Isuzu NP 300 4X4 Overlander or motorhome. Motorhome sounds like a retirement home, whereas Overlander sounds sexy and adventurous. Don’t you think?  We'll stick to Overlander Truck.

It’s been just over a year since we officially took possession of our truck from AC Motorhomes in Brackenfell. Thank you, Melissa, for never losing your composure with us and taking all the stress in your stride.  You are one cool cucumber!

We've taken our Honey Badger on exciting trips to Mana Pools in Zimbabwe, the Karoo, Cederberg,  and more, sharing our adventures to inspire fellow overlanders.

I shuddered as we negotiated terribly potholed roads, plain sailed through thick sand and vibrated along corrugations. I would tease Butch, saying I needed a kidney harness or Velcro on the ceiling as I hopped and bounced along.

My fear would always be that we’d reach our destination without cupboards and that I’d open the front door only to find pots and pans littering the floor. It never happened. What did greet me on occasion was all our refrigerated food sliding down the steps to greet me. The magnetized fridge door couldn’t withstand the African roads. With vehicle reliability in mind, we fixed that in a jiffy at Mana Pools by applying Velcro to the door and the adjoining wall, ensuring our food stayed put on future trips.

I started a snag list immediately to stop myself from nagging or stressing about small irritations. It helped immensely, as I’d stop worrying as soon as I had it on the list. That was the first step in fixing the problem, I figured.

Butch has uncanny bad luck with tyres, and on almost all our journeys we’ve had a flat tyre at some stage.  Sometimes it's a fast leak, and sometimes it takes a while to discover. Unfortunately, with good grace, he always gets on with it, but I know it must be worrying. Fortunately, as fortunate as it can be, the problem has always been with our custom-made rims. For some unknown reason, the very professional welding cracks, causing a loss of air. So it's not the tyres, but the rims!  Our faith in the rims is failing; imagine sitting in the middle of nowhere with faulty 17" rims.

The rims made the top contender on the to-do list. The manufacturer has been very obliging and has tested and assured us that the rims are sound. On one or two occasions, we even thought the tyre pressure monitors were acting up; fortunately, we’ve learned expensive lessons, and those thoughts are only momentary. We’ve not been spared. When that monitor buzzes, something is amiss. Poor Mossie, our tyre supplier, is at his wits' end, and I’m sure he wants to run away when he sees the Honey Badger rounding the corner to his shop!

Butch is negotiating with George from Advanced Wheel Corporation for a new rim, and we're hopeful this will fix our upcoming adventures.

To make our ride more comfortable, we had two extra blades installed on the rear suspension, which stiffened the suspension and helped tremendously reduce the bounce.

Other niggles have been a water leak and a burned-out diesel pump. To our consternation, we discovered that the 12-volt pump, which pumps fuel from the auxiliary tank to the main tank, was connected to 24-volt current! Crazy. We made this discovery in Botswana. The technicians who did the work mockingly said, “And we thought no one in South Africa makes stupid mistakes like this”! We didn’t either. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the new pump keeps going for a long time.

As we get older, we realize that we enjoy uncomplicated camping and traveling. Less is more. We’ve been thinking about our next destination and would love to hear your favorite simple camping spots or tips. Sharing these could inspire our upcoming adventures and help others keep their journeys straightforward and enjoyable.

We’ve installed another hatch for our extra Engel for freezing. The hatch door can serve as a table next to our outdoor shower, and we can load and unload from there too. 

In Africa (and the world, it seems), mosquitoes and other bugs are a nuisance, especially at night, so we’ve had a wonderful, pleated gauze sliding door installed to prevent potential attacks from insects.

We have found that guests have difficulty climbing in and out of the Badger without a handrail. We installed a handrail with a locking mechanism. This also provides extra security. Butch says it’s called a security handle!

When our tyres deflated or we weren’t parked on a level, we’d find ourselves sliding downward, with the mattress often going south. This also happened while driving on the bad roads. The mattress would vibrate itself off the bed. That's been sorted, and the locker beneath the bed now has struts installed. Never again will I have to carry the load of the bedding, mattress and lid on my back when I remove goodies from the grocery boxes beneath.

I must mention that we had all the work done at AC Motorhomes, which was really great, but getting an appointment was quite a feat, as they are so incredibly busy. Butch was convinced he could phone up and, Bob’s your uncle, he’d have an appointment. Nope. We had to wait a good few months to find a slot on the whiteboard.

When we pulled in with our truck, three other Isuzu trucks were being converted, and when we fetched ours after the work was done, at least four other vehicles were being converted. The economy might be shot, but overlanding has increased. Interesting.

All our tyre woes are dealt with by Mossie Mostert at Tyre King in Worcester. A saint, the man is. Never gets in the least ruffled, and he has had reason to be! Vissers Engineering has done the odd bit of engineering. Thank you for being so positive about anything that troubles us. Butch's path to these businesses is well trodden; I think he goes there feeling despondent but always comes back with a spring in his step.

All the other minor bits and bobs on my list were completed in no time, and now we’re ready. I can’t wait. Our dining room is currently housing all the Honey Badger's household items. It really is unimaginable that we’ve managed to accumulate so much “stuff”. I can’t wait to wade through it all when I repack. With discipline, I will sort through it and return only the things we’ve used. Light, practical and space-saving will be the criteria. Not - maybe, possibly, in case, you never know.

Butch and my brother (The Fab Four) are in the planning stages of another adventure, but that’s still a way to go. For now, I’ll have to cool my heels and chomp at the bit. We missed the Namaqualand flowers this year, which was a good year. Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose. Fortunately, the days are getting warmer and longer; we might break away soon. The long road North is calling us, and we’re finding it difficult to resist the pull.