Travelling around the Drakensberg in an Isuzu bakkie

Cows have a lot of respect for Isuzu bakkies. Well, at least they do on the back roads of the Eastern Cape, where I drove a KB 240 LE for two weeks this month.
I collected the gleaming petrol-driven 4×4 from General Motors in Port Elizabeth and it came with EC number plates, so I was able to blend with the locals. Lots of the farmers out in the sticks drive Isuzu bakkies and driving a similar vehicle was a real icebreaker.
It sure fooled the cows that love to linger on gravel roads chewing the cud: they thought I was a farmer and stepped out of the way quite smartly when I approached in my double cab, no longer gleaming but with a suitable coating of glorious mud, made possible by the weeklong rains that had broken the grip of the drought and turned the province a tender green.
On the twisting gravel routes of some of the country’s highest mountain passes between Lady Gray and Mount Fletcher, I seldom got out of 2nd and 3rd gears, but the Isuzu was in its element. Give it mud, gravel and grit, throw in a few rocks for excitement and it growls with pleasure. Two-wheel drive was all I needed until I went off-road; for the rest, high clearance and an engine with a bit of grunt (torque of 207 Nm at 3200 r/min) was quite adequate. Of course, the KB has fancier big brothers in both diesel and petrol that pack more punch, but you’ll also pay more for the extra voomah. Like my new farmer friends, I was quite happy with the 240 LE on the back roads.
On the open road, I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the Eastern Cape’s main roads, such as the N6 from East London to Aliwal North and the Sunshine Coast’s R72, are in splendid condition. However, this is where the KB proved a bit of a guzzler. But then, open-road fuel economy is not what farmers buy it for – it’s built for toughness crossing the countryside and on the high mountain passes of the Eastern Cape, it certainly proved its worth.
The Isuzu KB 240 double cab 4×4 LE petrol model costs R323 500. www.gmsa.co.za