Blog 10: Unexpected Adventures

Life would be boring without unexpected adventures?! 

Adventure 1: Car Breakdown

What do we fear the most? That our car breaks down and we can't go on that easily. But let's start from the beginning. We wanted to do a hike close to a big and lovely lake and to get there we drove two hours on a gravel road during heavy rainfall. The weather was supposed to be better the next day and so we planned to sleep on a camp ground next to the lake to be able to start the day hike early the next day. After arriving at the camping site I wanted to change our parking position but the engine wasn't working anymore. We heard some noise and than all lights were off.maybe a camping ground sounds like a good spot to get stuck for you but it wasn't. There was nothing around beside a compost toilet and two black swan. It was raining without break and our phones had no service. I saw no other possibility than walking 2 km in the rain until I got a bit of service on my phone. I called the AA which is the equivalent to the German ADAC. They weren't sure when or if they could send somebody to us since the gravel road was in a bad condition. Luckily we had enough food with us. Completely wet I  came back to the car in which Marama was waiting for me. A few minutes later a rescue team showed up by incidence. They were looking for a missing hiker but instead they found us. They connected our battery with theirs over a jumper cable and after a few minutes the car was back to live. What a relief! None of them could tell us what was wrong with our car but hopefully it won't happen again. End of the story: we stayed there for the night but didn't do the long hike due to persistent bad weather conditions... 

Adventure 2: Okupata Caves

I wanted to see and walk through some caves during my stay here. So we picked a random cave that one can visit for free: the Okupata caves. The drive to the cave was already exciting. The road turned out to be a gravel road with big paddles full of water and big stones. Also the shrubbery along the road wasn't cut in a long time. It took us 1.5 h to get there, knowing that we would have to go back the same way. As we arrived we first saw a sign with warning. Nevertheless we walked down to the caves. A river flows through them and they were quite narrow. I went in with my headlights and found some interesting stone formations in there. Also it was a bit spooky.  In total I would say it was worth going! On the way back we listened to a CD with songs from the 80ties and 90ties that we bought along with the car from a lesbian couple. That way I managed the exhausting drive :P