We recently rebuilt the water pump but it’s still leaking a few drops a day and the thermostat needle comes goes into red after about 10kms. Took her back to Roy to replace the water pump again, this time with a complete original Honda pump. I also went down to ‘rent a wreck’ to hire a hatchback at R110 /day. I’ll put together a separate post about the decidedly old-world experience of renting a vehicle from said business. Ain’t no Avis :-), but pretty amazing.

Commuting in a cage between Joburg and Pretoria is no fun at all :-(

Perhaps expecting a 26year old machine to travel 80 kms every day at 140 (I consider any slower a safety risk) is asking a bit much – so I’m thinking perhaps its time to downscale and upgrade to something new.

I’ve fallen in love with the BMW F 800ST which is only being released here officially on the 12th of Feb. Going to have to talk nicely to some financing people and get some other administrative and legal matters in order. Thus the willingness to sacrifice dignity and confort to save a few bucks on the hire car while my wing is in the shop and Je’anna & Béo uses the car.
(The truck got stolen last year, life in Jozi :-( )

If anyone has any advice/pointers on financing and finance providers I’d very much appreciate it. It is one field I’m pretty clueless in. Usually I’d rather mud wrestle parallel recursive bi-lateral quadratic equations than fill in a form – especially if it contains currency symbols :-)