Day 1 of the Put Foot Rally: 22 June
The Put Foot Rally start line
The inaugural Put Foot Rally 2011 set off from The Toad in Noordhoek Village and Inanda Polo Club in Johannesburg. Seven Countries, seven checkpoint, seven parties, 7000km in 17 days. That’s the challenge: any vehicle, any route.
Getaway jumped on board as the official media partner of the rally, recognizing Put Foot Rally as a way for people to explore Africa affordably and proving that one doesn’t need a 4×4 to have an African adventure.
‘Team Getaway’ comprises of three members: Krusty (aka Stu Cooper), Stavro (aka Evan Haussmann) and Frisky (aka Christie Fynn). We met at The Toad in Noordhoek at 6am on the morning of 22 June – the first time we’d set eyes on our team vehicle. Slightly nerve wracking but it all worked out in the end. “˜The Beast’ is a brand new, fancypants VW Amarok – fully kitted with a fridge, winch, spot lights, roof top tent and a couple of handy drawers that make for the perfect pantry and bar – the most pimped out 4×4 on the rally … but we rough it otherwise. Promise. The team we do feel sorry for are The Ranting Antelopes – five boys squashed into a tiny VW citi golf – looking forward to the stories after 17 very long driving days!
We said we’d be the last to arrive at checkpoints, the last to leave them and the team to most likely get lost. And after heading off from The Toad along Chapman’s Peak, that’s exactly what Team Getaway did.
We were first to arrive at the start line at 6am. We were the last to leave the start line (except for the rally organizer who overtook us in Klawer). We were the last to arrive at the Namibian border (Vioolsdrift) and we managed to get lost in our home city (that N7 off ramp is any easy one to miss).
Once we were back on the N7 we “˜put foot’ and ended up in Springbok at what Evan called “˜the springbok migration’ – which is the Springbok rush hour traffic. We stocked up on all our camping essentials like wood, TP, beer, tinned muscles and salticrax, braaibroodtjies, and pap and chakalaka.
We finally crossed the border at 7:46pm with another two hour journey to Canon Lodge. What should have been a relatively easy two-hour drive took our team just over four hours. Yip, we got lost. Again.
So, where our team slogan was ‘Getaway – leading the way since 1989’, we’ve now changed that to: “˜bringing up the rear since 1989′.
The Getaway team would like to thank:
4×4 Mega World for their fully kitted out VW Amarok
K-Way – the official gear partner to the Getaway team on the Put Foot challenge
MapStudio for their Southern and East Africa map
