We organised a quick trip to Kruger when our daughter came home on her first break from varsity in Stellenbosch over the easter weekend. After some TLC and general checkups by Graham, we were good to go. We left before sparrows on Sat 4th April and headed straight up to the Punda Maria gate. The Patrol went like a dream - (even my EGT's are waaaaay down after Graham replaced the probe, so now 450 deg was the highest I got to!)
Anyway, we spent 2 nights at Punda, then worked our way down to Shimuwini, and then down to Orpen with the last two nights at Pretoriuskop. Well, when we arrived at Orpen and unpacked, we decided to do a quick drive at 17h00 down to Rabelais dam - about 7km away, and it was here with no-one around that I stalled the car while trying to get a better look at a kudu! Well the engine battled to turn over and just would not start. The battery is good so it made no sense! After a good 20 min or so a Toyota double cab(of all things) came along and towed us back to camp.
To cut a long story short, we discovered, with continuous instructions from Graham, that the alternator shaft had siezed (yep, the very one that I replaced in Bloem exactly 2 years ago) So we decided to have the vehicle towed to Nelspruit Nissan while Graham made enquiries regarding spares.
With time running out, and new (ridiculousley priced parts) only available 2 working days later, I got a whatsapp from Graham at 22h17 on Wednesday night 8th April which went like this:
"Vanessa is going to leave tomorrow morning at 4h00 to get to the dealer at 9h00, it's the only way I can see it been ready for you on Friday"..... Graham had two alternators in the workshop in working order and between him and his wife, they made the decision to drive out to Nelspruit and back just to help a fellow Patroller - IS THAT AWESOME OR WHAT!!!
Mr Cumming (That's Pathmaker on the forum) on behalf of myself and my family I want to express our most sincere thanks for your and Vanessa's sefless and genuine kindness and readiness to rush off to our assistance at the drop of a hat - thank you Graham, buddy I owe you big time!
