Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Jack Stuhler on the Pursuit of Quality and New Journeys

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Jack Stuhler on the Pursuit of Quality and New Journeys · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
0:05
Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm joined today by Jack Stooler. Now,
0:10
Speaker 1: Jack is a luminary in the industry. He has been
0:13
Speaker 1: overlanding for over sixty years and he is the founder
0:17
Speaker 1: of easy On in South Africa. He's led an incredible
0:21
Speaker 1: life and he has been such a support to me
0:24
Speaker 1: and to Overland Journal. He was also a support to
0:27
Speaker 1: the Expedition seven where he allowed us to store vehicles
0:31
Speaker 1: in their facility. We even modified the land cruisers for
0:36
Speaker 1: Antarctica in his facility as well. So Jack and his
0:40
Speaker 1: son Jess have been such a support to us. And
0:43
Speaker 1: Jack has incredible lessons and stories about traveling around the world.
0:48
Speaker 1: He really has some great insights on his trip across
0:52
Speaker 1: South America, which called Tubby the Explorer, where he took
0:55
Speaker 1: a seventy series land cruiser across South America. Jess as
1:00
Speaker 1: an absolute joy and he's had an incredible life and
1:03
Speaker 1: I found it a real privilege to sit down and
1:06
Speaker 1: talk with him about his adventures. I also wanted to
1:09
Speaker 1: take a brief moment to thank all of you for
1:12
Speaker 1: listening to the Overland Journal podcast. By listening to this
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2:04
Speaker 1: and I'll give you twenty percent off. I sincerely appreciate your.
2:07
Speaker 2: Support, Jacket.
2:11
Speaker 1: It is such a pleasure to sit down with you today.
2:15
Speaker 1: I've known you for about twenty years now, it must be.
2:19
Speaker 1: And the early travels that you did, especially your trip
2:24
Speaker 1: up through South America and into North America, I was
2:28
Speaker 1: absolutely awe struck by it. It was so early in
2:31
Speaker 1: my overlanding travels that to see you and your partner
2:38
Speaker 1: driving through the Americas with this seventy series land cruiser
2:42
Speaker 1: and a roof tent on top. It really captured everything
2:45
Speaker 1: that I had hoped that my travels would become. Jack,
2:49
Speaker 1: thanks for inspiring me and so many others to travel
2:54
Speaker 1: and see the world.
2:57
Speaker 3: I think it is a pleasure, Jason. I never thought
3:00
Speaker 3: it would influence anybody. Anybody you would take notice of it.
3:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have taken notice.
3:06
Speaker 1: And there's so many people who look back on your
3:10
Speaker 1: travels and talk about those trips. I think about Paul
3:13
Speaker 1: may from Equipped. He was so excited to see you,
3:16
Speaker 1: and that ended up inspiring not only a multi decade friendship,
3:21
Speaker 1: but also a business relationship. And Jack, what I'm really
3:25
Speaker 1: curious of to start off with is tell me about
3:28
Speaker 1: your love of falconry, because that is something that is
3:32
Speaker 1: so fascinating to me. How did you get involved with
3:36
Speaker 1: falconry and where did you do that around the world.
3:39
Speaker 3: It was strange because I went to pick up a
3:41
Speaker 3: mealket that I had bought in Victoria from a bird
3:45
Speaker 3: were selling birds, and I was walking through the averies
3:49
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden I saw this Marshal eagle,
3:51
Speaker 3: immature Marshall eagle sitting on a log on the floor,
3:56
Speaker 3: and then went back to the fellow and if you
4:00
Speaker 3: would sell me the Marshall eagle because I was always
4:02
Speaker 3: interested in, which he duly did, and I've got the
4:05
Speaker 3: permit with it.
4:07
Speaker 2: So there's a permit that's now.
4:08
Speaker 3: You had to have permits a bird of prey, any
4:11
Speaker 3: bird in captivity permit. And when I brought bird back,
4:16
Speaker 3: because it had been in such a narrow cage, it
4:19
Speaker 3: didn't have any flat feathers, so it took a year
4:22
Speaker 3: for us to malt and then I started training the
4:25
Speaker 3: bird of prey. You fly to the gauntlet and everything
4:28
Speaker 3: else like that, but obviously it was for totally different.
4:32
Speaker 3: It was the wrong bird to have because a bird
4:36
Speaker 3: like that you've either got to fly from a horse
4:38
Speaker 3: like the Mongol's duel with a bearcut. And so I
4:42
Speaker 3: then went to sparrow oaks, the black sparrow oak and
4:44
Speaker 3: the red bridst of spar oak, which is not really
4:47
Speaker 3: falcon or stringing a different category altogether. Because of I
4:51
Speaker 3: can't find area of Johannesburg. You can't fly falcon here.
4:54
Speaker 3: You've got to live out in the country to fly falcons.
4:57
Speaker 3: So I did. My falconry was sure okay spawks, and
5:02
Speaker 3: that's how I got into it. And over the years
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Speaker 3: I did falconry and of course successfully with a black
5:07
Speaker 3: spurre hawk, taking guinea fowl and pheasants and partridge, and then.
5:11
Speaker 2: You would eat. You would use that to hunt and eat.
5:14
Speaker 3: No not necessary. Some fellers in Rhodesia zimbabwere they would
5:19
Speaker 3: go out and they get to guinea fowl or whatever
5:21
Speaker 3: it is. Whatever we caught, I would dissect and i'd
5:24
Speaker 3: feed it to the bird, or if I had more
5:27
Speaker 3: than one bird, i'd feed it to multiple birds. And
5:31
Speaker 3: of course that you could do during winter because during
5:33
Speaker 3: the summer the bird would molt, so then you would
5:35
Speaker 3: have to do something else. So I either played water polo,
5:38
Speaker 3: or I went to Plittanick Bay and spear fishing and
5:41
Speaker 3: sailing and things like that's something totally different. And in
5:44
Speaker 3: winter I spent my time either falconry or if I
5:48
Speaker 3: had a little bit more time, i'd go to the
5:50
Speaker 3: bush safaris.
5:52
Speaker 2: There's something to me.
5:53
Speaker 1: I've always loved dogs and the relationship that humans have
5:57
Speaker 1: with dogs, but it seems like that the relationship with
6:01
Speaker 1: a bird of prey, it's also a very ancient relationship.
6:05
Speaker 3: I know, it becomes a different thing altogether. Black sparrowk
6:08
Speaker 3: used to live in the lounge at night. Laura and
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Speaker 3: Jess were kids, are two three years old, and they
6:14
Speaker 3: used to run around the lounge and the black sparre
6:16
Speaker 3: oak would sit in the lounge at night. You become
6:19
Speaker 3: so habituated that you become one. But eventually I felt
6:22
Speaker 3: with my black sparrow oak, I always go out with
6:24
Speaker 3: a Marana and thea would do the pointing. The black
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Speaker 3: SPARRYWK didn't care a damn about me. I followed the dog.
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Speaker 2: They became buddies.
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Speaker 3: Where the dog went, the sparrowk went, and when the
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Speaker 3: dog flesh something, the sparrow oak took over.
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Speaker 2: Amazing.
6:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and those relationships with animals, I think are It's
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Speaker 1: so fascinating and it's just another part of the human
6:50
Speaker 1: experience that not a lot of people get to have.
6:53
Speaker 3: No, but none of that. You get to know. I
6:54
Speaker 3: held a lot about them. Yeah, the habits, their patterns.
6:58
Speaker 3: The same with Jesson his so I ad may kiss.
7:01
Speaker 3: You get to know what the idiosyncrasies are. Yeah, as
7:06
Speaker 3: much as India syncrasies we have.
7:09
Speaker 2: Sure.
7:09
Speaker 1: It was so funny. I was staying with Jess the
7:11
Speaker 1: other night and I was in the room. I had
7:13
Speaker 1: the window open, and about I don't know, maybe three
7:16
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, I hear this clanging on the
7:18
Speaker 1: bars of the window, and at first I didn't know
7:20
Speaker 1: what it was, and then I realized it was an animal.
7:22
Speaker 1: I could hear the nails and everything else. And Jess
7:25
Speaker 1: had warned me about these mirrorcat that they they love
7:27
Speaker 1: him and his kids and his wife, but they're really
7:31
Speaker 1: fiercely territorial and quite aggressive.
7:33
Speaker 3: Tweet printed.
7:35
Speaker 1: So I hear this animal coming through the window and
7:37
Speaker 1: I'm thinking it's the meerkat.
7:38
Speaker 2: It's kind of it's kind of come, It's gonna come
7:40
Speaker 2: get me. And it was one of their housecats.
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Speaker 1: But so I had a moment just frozen waiting for
7:45
Speaker 1: what was going to come through that window.
7:47
Speaker 3: Yeah. They're unbelievable for their size, the characters as they are.
7:50
Speaker 3: Each one's a different character.
7:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I heard that they're basically fearless.
7:57
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh, it's amazing. The e A they fight like
8:02
Speaker 3: a Bulterio day who runs in sideways. They will run sideways. Amazing.
8:07
Speaker 3: But for their side, they are formidable.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they punch away above their weight class.
8:14
Speaker 1: Tell me about your very first long distance overland trip
8:19
Speaker 1: that you did. What were you driving or riding and
8:22
Speaker 1: what inspired you to take such a long trip.
8:26
Speaker 3: After a moment passed away and my son in law
8:30
Speaker 3: and Jess told me one morning we were coming back
8:33
Speaker 3: from Hollybisk with dam and the bucket, and they said
8:35
Speaker 3: to me, Dad, we don't need you anymore an easy on.
8:40
Speaker 3: Most fellows will have said to el it on here,
8:42
Speaker 3: and I'm not going to go anywhere. But I realized
8:45
Speaker 3: that I've got two guys who would carry on with
8:48
Speaker 3: a business and they didn't need me anymore. So I
8:51
Speaker 3: thought what else can I do? And I was in
8:53
Speaker 3: the factory one day and an Italian couple arrived with
8:55
Speaker 3: a five cylinder Yeah, sure, the I think it was
9:01
Speaker 3: a three point five non turbot yeah, And I thought
9:06
Speaker 3: to myself, that looks like the right car. And we
9:09
Speaker 3: searched and eventually we found one that was from Lusutu.
9:14
Speaker 3: And when I got it, it needed some work and
9:18
Speaker 3: just helped me clean it up and spray the inside
9:20
Speaker 3: and polish it up. And I decided that if the
9:26
Speaker 3: Africans in Africa can't break it, I couldn't break it sure,
9:31
Speaker 3: So I decided I'm going to do a trans Africa
9:34
Speaker 3: trip and I asked the lady to join me, and
9:38
Speaker 3: she joined me up to Compiler and then she found
9:41
Speaker 3: it just too much. She told me to go and
9:44
Speaker 3: dut schmuck and good luck and when.
9:46
Speaker 2: I then she flew back.
9:48
Speaker 3: No, she was also adventurous, but I think she expected
9:51
Speaker 3: more of the relationship and it just wasn't there. In
9:54
Speaker 3: any case, I kept on going from there and I
9:58
Speaker 3: went to Bewindy with a girl. Rulers are incredible spent.
10:01
Speaker 3: I had to wait three weeks there to get an
10:04
Speaker 3: opportunity because unless you book, you've just got to hang around.
10:08
Speaker 3: So I waited there for three weeks and eventually I've
10:10
Speaker 3: got a chance to go and spend an hour with
10:12
Speaker 3: the grullers up in the forest.
10:15
Speaker 2: How was that experience unbelievable?
10:17
Speaker 3: First of all, to get there, you're more on your
10:19
Speaker 3: backside than anything else because you're walking through the forest,
10:22
Speaker 3: which said, well, it's damp with a stick and you're
10:24
Speaker 3: going up you're them down hills, so you're sliding downhill
10:26
Speaker 3: in the mud and you're walking through thick vegetations. And
10:30
Speaker 3: eventually we found an excretion of a gorilla and most
10:34
Speaker 3: probably a half an hour later we found them, Wow,
10:36
Speaker 3: and they were sitting there and eating the vegetation all
10:40
Speaker 3: around them. And of course you don't eyesight them, you
10:45
Speaker 3: don't look in their eyes that you look at you.
10:47
Speaker 3: If he looks at you, you look away, because if
10:50
Speaker 3: you look at them, they think it's a challenge. And
10:53
Speaker 3: we watched them there for an hour, quietly, sitting there
10:57
Speaker 3: like a big family. And then of course the walk
11:00
Speaker 3: back there was I don't know how come. I've got
11:03
Speaker 3: a tremendous ability of direction, and so I read the
11:11
Speaker 3: way out. So when we got back to the car,
11:14
Speaker 3: the rangers wouldn't leave us until I had gone, because
11:19
Speaker 3: they thought i'd take there was a New Zealand couple
11:23
Speaker 3: and an Australian girl. I'd take them back into the forest.
11:26
Speaker 3: So they waited and they gave me a little track
11:28
Speaker 3: back to a compiler. So I went through the little
11:32
Speaker 3: track right through you. It was late afternoon, past the
11:35
Speaker 3: ruined Zuries. Could see the ruined Zurias in the late afternoon,
11:39
Speaker 3: and back to a little place called Kassimpe where we
11:42
Speaker 3: could go to a little hotel and have a good
11:44
Speaker 3: bloody wash because we were covered in mud and were
11:47
Speaker 3: covered in mud.
11:48
Speaker 2: Wow.
11:48
Speaker 3: And then from there I continued and I'd met a
11:52
Speaker 3: guy there. I'd met a guy there and he was
11:56
Speaker 3: a lewa owned by a British Englishman and he allowed
12:02
Speaker 3: the British Parabas to come and train there, do their
12:07
Speaker 3: night training and everything like that. And it's a beautiful
12:10
Speaker 3: game reserve. It was rhino, their elephant there, everything was there.
12:13
Speaker 3: Spent two three days there and from there I went
12:15
Speaker 3: to the tribal trust in the s Burla Tribal Trust. Yeah,
12:20
Speaker 3: night in the lodge there, and continued and we got
12:23
Speaker 3: to they had the floods, the tremendous floods is Yucunia,
12:29
Speaker 3: all the bridges who got washed away and everything like that.
12:32
Speaker 3: But also they had they called them terrorists. I don't
12:35
Speaker 3: know what the differences between a terrorist and a liberal
12:38
Speaker 3: fighter retrospective to our country. In any case, they gave
12:43
Speaker 3: me a game. God. But there was a fellow delivering
12:45
Speaker 3: a tructure at us a barber. So he had a
12:48
Speaker 3: girlfriend and there were five Israelis that needed a lift.
12:55
Speaker 3: So I said him, you better take them along, you
12:58
Speaker 3: better take them along. We got to is and from
13:01
Speaker 3: Isiola to our first st two hundred and fifty k's away.
13:05
Speaker 3: It was just sheer mud. It's just sher mud. We
13:07
Speaker 3: did that on a Saturday afternoon. But after that to
13:10
Speaker 3: Mars of burit was another two hundred and fifty k's.
13:13
Speaker 3: We we dug ourselves out of mud. I dug out,
13:16
Speaker 3: they dug the Australia's helped us, and I did two
13:19
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty k's in three days. Wow, it was
13:22
Speaker 3: just mud. And eventually I got onto the bridge, and
13:25
Speaker 3: of course then knew the the rivers were muddy and
13:28
Speaker 3: you had to wash. So you washed in this buddy,
13:30
Speaker 3: But you didn't dare washing clear water because after this mosquito, Oh,
13:33
Speaker 3: just mosquitoes next to the road. It was clear water.
13:37
Speaker 3: You didn't deer going there because it was all mosquito.
13:41
Speaker 3: So you just stuck in.
13:43
Speaker 2: Then we did the did did you ever have malaria?
13:46
Speaker 3: I never picked up malaria. And then from there we
13:49
Speaker 3: went to Solola. And when we got to Solo, it
13:52
Speaker 3: was a Friday afternoon and the Israelis decided to leave us.
13:58
Speaker 3: They said that's enough because it's Sabbath Saturday. They couldn't
14:03
Speaker 3: continue with us. They cause they went to their religion
14:05
Speaker 3: didn't allow them to drive in cars. But from there
14:09
Speaker 3: to the border, that wasn't an easy one because all
14:13
Speaker 3: the bridges had been washed away. So what to get done? Done?
14:15
Speaker 3: And taken trucks and dumped loads of sand. Excuse me,
14:20
Speaker 3: right along the across these rivers it had been but
14:27
Speaker 3: they tried to level the roof at the top. And
14:30
Speaker 3: before I got there, there were some Africans also on
14:32
Speaker 3: the land cruise of Bucky and they uh were woman
14:36
Speaker 3: and I I and I thought to myself, I got
14:38
Speaker 3: this far, I'm gonna go. Of course, I went across
14:42
Speaker 3: across the river, and then we had stripped the wheels
14:45
Speaker 3: off the the double wheels off the truck, so it
14:48
Speaker 3: was running on single wheels east side, and that came across,
14:51
Speaker 3: and then the Africans in the bucket hook, when they
14:54
Speaker 3: were all three of us. We went along amazing onto
14:56
Speaker 3: the border, to to Ethiopian border. Yeah, And on the
15:01
Speaker 3: way there we met Orlandrover, all speaking Spain. He had
15:05
Speaker 3: been coming back coming in from the north, and he
15:08
Speaker 3: asked me what the road was like. And then he
15:10
Speaker 3: was sitting with his dark glasses on white shirt and
15:13
Speaker 3: said to old boy, what's the roadlock? I said to
15:16
Speaker 3: him the no, no problem in case. When I left him,
15:20
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, you'll know what hell is like
15:22
Speaker 3: when you get to the other side.
15:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if that isn't almost an act of
15:28
Speaker 1: kindness because he's clearly heading south.
15:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, what else can I do? I couldn't say to him, Look,
15:34
Speaker 3: you'll know what it's all about when you get there,
15:36
Speaker 3: because you'll be covered in mud before you go one
15:38
Speaker 3: hundred k's. And then when we got to the border,
15:41
Speaker 3: there was nobody there that they never expected anybody to
15:43
Speaker 3: get through. We waited for about six hours on the
15:48
Speaker 3: Kenyan side, then they let us see them. When we
15:50
Speaker 3: got to the Ethiopian side, there just was nobody there.
15:53
Speaker 3: And ironically there was a car wash there, pressure car wash.
15:57
Speaker 3: I managed to wash the car the muddle because on
16:00
Speaker 3: top of the the springs and the axles was just
16:03
Speaker 3: piled up in black mud.
16:05
Speaker 2: And it adds so much weight to that.
16:06
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then from there we continued Ethiopia. Something else,
16:12
Speaker 3: the Siman Mountains and the and the baboons, the bleeding
16:15
Speaker 3: heart baboons just unbelievable because you lie there on your stomach,
16:19
Speaker 3: you try and creep half a meter forward so you
16:23
Speaker 3: can get a bit of photograph. And that baboon, although
16:26
Speaker 3: he's chewing grass all day, he just moves back that
16:28
Speaker 3: half of meter. So you go half a meter and
16:32
Speaker 3: we're talking about three hundred baboons all around you. Wow,
16:36
Speaker 3: and beautiful baboons, I mean long blonde hair and everything
16:39
Speaker 3: like that. But it's Siman mountains, the chest pieces of Africa,
16:44
Speaker 3: that's what they're called. Bless something to see.
16:46
Speaker 2: That's next for me is Ethop.
16:49
Speaker 3: Something to see. And then of course places like Oxom,
16:53
Speaker 3: very religious place, Lilli Bellow, which was supposed to be
16:57
Speaker 3: carved out by the angels. These Coptic churches carved a
17:03
Speaker 3: solid rock and when you look at them and you
17:06
Speaker 3: think they did the outside first and then they dug
17:09
Speaker 3: the inside out, and the thickness of the wall is
17:12
Speaker 3: exact right around, just unbelievable. Then from Lulli Bello I
17:17
Speaker 3: saw another few Coptic churches embedded in the rock that
17:20
Speaker 3: was hollowed out of the rock. We went to Debridama
17:23
Speaker 3: and that is you got a cli climb.
17:26
Speaker 2: A cliff face mm.
17:28
Speaker 3: Of a c quite a few meters. I can't remember
17:30
Speaker 3: what the height was, but there was a young sece
17:33
Speaker 3: in front of me, and he came back and I said,
17:35
Speaker 3: what's wrong. He says, no, it's too scary. In any case,
17:37
Speaker 3: I decided to go. But what they do is this
17:40
Speaker 3: they've got I think they can mistake it from camel
17:42
Speaker 3: Camel's or whatever it is. They've got a leather thongs.
17:44
Speaker 2: Okay, they put it under you, okay.
17:47
Speaker 3: And I started to climb with my sandals, and I realized, hell,
17:49
Speaker 3: this is the wrong thing to climb with. Climb with
17:52
Speaker 3: bare feet, and then climbed up and there was this
17:56
Speaker 3: beautiful coptic church built out of timber and whatever it,
18:00
Speaker 3: beautiful paintings inside of history and no women around, Big
18:07
Speaker 3: ponds carved of rock, filled with clear water with duckweed
18:12
Speaker 3: on top which kept the water clear. Who weren't allowed
18:15
Speaker 3: to washing it, They weren't allowed they could drink from it. Whatever.
18:17
Speaker 2: It was.
18:18
Speaker 3: No woman, it was only men. But the whole village
18:22
Speaker 3: was quiet, only men around. And that was also an experience.
18:28
Speaker 2: And so they were like the religious monks or whatever.
18:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the same as in in Lollibalo. You see
18:34
Speaker 3: these religious monks study all day long, sitting in half
18:38
Speaker 3: a cave, and that's really it's Bible. Matter of fact,
18:41
Speaker 3: I've got a little barbera.
18:43
Speaker 2: Wow, incredible. And then you went to Sudan next.
18:48
Speaker 3: Then I went to from there to Marsa to the border,
18:51
Speaker 3: spent a night there in old trucker's lodge. Got stank
18:55
Speaker 3: like l it was filthy. But you're on your escapade
19:00
Speaker 3: is something new. And I drove up to the Eritrean
19:05
Speaker 3: border and when I got there there was a rope
19:11
Speaker 3: the guy standing there with a rope across the road.
19:13
Speaker 3: So I showed him my papers. He dropped the rope
19:17
Speaker 3: and I drove through. And when I got to the
19:20
Speaker 3: Eritrean customs the fellow said to me, where did you
19:24
Speaker 3: just come from? Now? I said, like, I'm through Ethiopia.
19:26
Speaker 3: He says, but your papers haven't been stamped. And I
19:28
Speaker 3: didn't realize that I'd actually driven past the officers, the
19:33
Speaker 3: exit officers off Ethiopia. So he says, leave your car
19:38
Speaker 3: here and walk back four kilometers. And I looked at
19:42
Speaker 3: him and I thought, gee, him, what do you think
19:43
Speaker 3: I am? Any case, I went back to the car,
19:47
Speaker 3: and as I got back to the car, he came
19:50
Speaker 3: out of the office that the officer went to another officer.
19:53
Speaker 3: So I rushed in quickly and the other guy stamped
19:55
Speaker 3: it for me, stamp on passport and everything like that
19:57
Speaker 3: for me, and I carried on. That spent about three
20:02
Speaker 3: weeks in Rotrea before I could convince a Zudanese fairy
20:07
Speaker 3: to take me across to Jeddah because I was a
20:10
Speaker 3: Christian and non Muslim, okay. But then on a Friday afternoon,
20:15
Speaker 3: I managed to get him to take take my car. So, yeah,
20:19
Speaker 3: you give your car and your keys to this and
20:22
Speaker 3: he said bring it and stick it into the back
20:23
Speaker 3: of the ship. The fairy, huge fairy. So I drove
20:27
Speaker 3: it and stuck it right at the back, gave him
20:30
Speaker 3: the keys and left. Now my car's gone. I haven't
20:32
Speaker 3: got the keys. So I rushed back into to see
20:35
Speaker 3: the Saudi trade minister over there and asked him if
20:38
Speaker 3: I could fly. He says, yes, you can fly, So
20:40
Speaker 3: I'll go down to book my ticket and I say,
20:41
Speaker 3: with your possible your visa is not compatible to fly,
20:46
Speaker 3: so in any case, I'd set them a rook phone
20:48
Speaker 3: up and that he organized me a flight and they
20:50
Speaker 3: would only allow me to fly on Monday. They wouldn't
20:52
Speaker 3: allow me to into jedda for the weekend.
20:54
Speaker 2: Wow.
20:55
Speaker 3: So I flew in on Monday. When I got there,
21:00
Speaker 3: I uh sat there for quite some time, and then
21:02
Speaker 3: eventually I said to the fellow, do you think because
21:05
Speaker 3: I didn't, I had only seventy two hours to drive
21:07
Speaker 3: to Jordan. And I sat there, and eventually I went
21:11
Speaker 3: over to the desk over there, and I asked the
21:15
Speaker 3: fellow if I could have twelve hours extra and he
21:18
Speaker 3: said to me, I'll speak to the captain. I set
21:22
Speaker 3: it for another three hours and I just read my book.
21:24
Speaker 3: I didn't what's them And eventually the captain calls me,
21:28
Speaker 3: and he was half my size, but he stuck my
21:30
Speaker 3: passport under my nose and he said to me, next time,
21:32
Speaker 3: you come with a ship with a ferry. And I
21:35
Speaker 3: thought to myself, Hell, I've come right through Africa. You
21:37
Speaker 3: think that was gonna be a next time? But he
21:40
Speaker 3: allowed me to stay in a hotel. I went into
21:43
Speaker 3: this hotel and they walked me down a passage. Beautiful hotel.
21:48
Speaker 3: And then I got to the end and I realized
21:49
Speaker 3: that I was on the boundary of the airport. So
21:53
Speaker 3: I opened the curtain to look at the airport, but no,
21:57
Speaker 3: just the wall to allow you they stepped me in
22:01
Speaker 3: a room out of the way so I couldn't see anything.
22:04
Speaker 2: Wow.
22:05
Speaker 3: Next next day I went to the fellow who was
22:08
Speaker 3: handling the import of the car, and they wouldn't let
22:13
Speaker 3: me fetch the car. They brought it to me. Wow.
22:15
Speaker 3: And then they brought out brought sniffer dogs. But the
22:18
Speaker 3: sniffer dog is drugged. So the sniffer dog is starved
22:23
Speaker 3: off drugs for two three days. So now the sniffer
22:26
Speaker 3: dog is just insanely looking for drugs.
22:29
Speaker 2: Oh interesting.
22:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. And they run around the car and he threw
22:33
Speaker 3: my mattress on the ground, and I thought, why you
22:36
Speaker 3: throw my mattress? The dog went all over the place,
22:38
Speaker 3: and then the dog ran around the back and then
22:41
Speaker 3: there was an orange box at the back, and I
22:42
Speaker 3: had some very heavy duty fire crackers just to frighten
22:47
Speaker 3: somebody off. Sure, Montesa on a chair and blew the
22:50
Speaker 3: whole chair to pieces. I thought it'd be a nice
22:52
Speaker 3: but why to frighten somebody? Sure, and the dog ran
22:56
Speaker 3: past the outside of the car, sniffed from the outside
23:00
Speaker 3: and sniffed at these fire crackers from the box in
23:05
Speaker 3: a plastic box. So of course the guy immediately came
23:10
Speaker 3: over and said, what are you running in a box?
23:12
Speaker 3: I said, they flaze in case I got into trouble
23:14
Speaker 3: I needed and they took it as my word in
23:18
Speaker 3: that presit so at the same time, while I was
23:22
Speaker 3: waiting for the car and then to check the car,
23:24
Speaker 3: I messed an Egyptian and he was in his seventies,
23:28
Speaker 3: but he had a beautiful young woman. I could see
23:30
Speaker 3: in a full worker that was a beautiful girl. And
23:32
Speaker 3: he couldn't understand why I'm on this trip on my own,
23:35
Speaker 3: not married or anything like that. And he decided to
23:39
Speaker 3: show me the right way north. Don't take the coastal
23:43
Speaker 3: road because of the trucks, to go down to Tabook
23:46
Speaker 3: and further up. And the first of all to get
23:48
Speaker 3: diesel fuel. That was a mission because all the cars
23:51
Speaker 3: ran on gasoline.
23:52
Speaker 2: Oh sure, because it's so cheap.
23:54
Speaker 3: And three o'clock in the afternoon, he manages to find
23:57
Speaker 3: me a garage. It's got diesel. But as we pull
23:59
Speaker 3: in the pump Dockey walks away. He's going to prayers. Sure,
24:06
Speaker 3: so there I had to wait another two hours, and
24:08
Speaker 3: in case after prayers we I got my diesel, and
24:11
Speaker 3: then I got on the road and I got to
24:18
Speaker 3: a big off ramp where it said non Muslims around
24:22
Speaker 3: the circle out that way. And I don't know how
24:25
Speaker 3: I got lost, because first solo, I wasn't driving on
24:28
Speaker 3: the right hand side anymore. I was driving on left inside,
24:31
Speaker 3: and I'm wound up in the middle of Medina. The
24:34
Speaker 3: second earlier course, I found a an on ramp back
24:40
Speaker 3: to Tabook, and then I went to tab Book, and
24:42
Speaker 3: then I went from Tobook, I went to the watery
24:45
Speaker 3: room and I met to bid you in there. That
24:49
Speaker 3: took me around with Lawrence of Arabia around and we spent
24:52
Speaker 3: two days in the wardy room with said Lawrence used
24:55
Speaker 3: to run around. And then after the second day late Lask,
25:00
Speaker 3: I drove up a rampa. Yeah, I was on the
25:02
Speaker 3: Akaba oh wow, on the city of Akaba right there. Wow.
25:06
Speaker 3: And of course I stayed two or three days in Akaba,
25:09
Speaker 3: and then from Akaba I left Akkaba and the next
25:13
Speaker 3: the next place I drove to was Petra, oh wow. Yeah.
25:18
Speaker 2: And what year was that, do you think?
25:20
Speaker 3: Ninety seven? Nineteen ninety seven, Yeah, yeah, there I was. Today.
25:25
Speaker 3: I believe it's totally over populated, yeah, too much, too
25:29
Speaker 3: many tourists and things like that, so I could walk
25:32
Speaker 3: around there and I could photograph and I used to
25:35
Speaker 3: run a hustle blood in those days, so everything is
25:37
Speaker 3: on ussele blood. But uh, that was something to see Petra.
25:41
Speaker 3: And from Petra I left and I don't know, climbed
25:44
Speaker 3: up a mountain or something like that, and it was
25:46
Speaker 3: a little bit of snow. So the next stop was
25:49
Speaker 3: sure Rock, which was another set of ruins, and eventually
25:53
Speaker 3: I got to the Syrian border, having spitted a night
25:57
Speaker 3: in I think about a week in Jordan, but I
26:00
Speaker 3: had to keep going because the winter was sitting in Europe.
26:05
Speaker 3: And I got to the Syrian border and there they
26:09
Speaker 3: checked you through c for your visa and everything through
26:11
Speaker 3: customs and through everything else. Oh yes, I've got my
26:14
Speaker 3: visa in Jordan, ironically, and I had to replace my passport,
26:18
Speaker 3: so they gave me a new passport South African Embassy.
26:21
Speaker 3: And when I got to Syria, I got chicked over
26:25
Speaker 3: and a fella asked me if from customers, if I
26:29
Speaker 3: had any whiskey. I had a box of Silver's Regal. Yeah,
26:32
Speaker 3: in the back of the car, but between the seats
26:34
Speaker 3: I had a bottle of Drumbowi, which I have a
26:37
Speaker 3: top of Tambouie every night with my coffee, right through
26:39
Speaker 3: the whole trip of Africa. Sure, and I thought, I'll
26:43
Speaker 3: just give you the drum bows. I gave him the
26:45
Speaker 3: bottle of drum Bowie. I've never seen a guy so
26:48
Speaker 3: happy when I was quarter a bottle of dram Bowie.
26:51
Speaker 3: Because of course they're not the He grabbed it in
26:54
Speaker 3: a paper bag and he kept on running and all
26:57
Speaker 3: his mace turned around and said whatever you got and
26:59
Speaker 3: kept on run. I said, listen, you can't just shlug
27:01
Speaker 3: it up. You just take a tot. And then a
27:04
Speaker 3: fellow comes out and he asked me what I do
27:07
Speaker 3: for a living, and I said, no, I'm retired. What
27:10
Speaker 3: did you do for a living? A real analysis? I said,
27:13
Speaker 3: we built a roof rack, we.
27:15
Speaker 2: On this car.
27:16
Speaker 3: And only then when he signed those documents could I leave. Wow.
27:19
Speaker 3: He was the an africaancer called Frutman here, the big guy,
27:23
Speaker 3: the big boss, big Boss. He was the boss. When
27:26
Speaker 3: he had signed that, I was on the way.
27:29
Speaker 1: And what did you think of Syria? Because it's so
27:31
Speaker 1: sad what's happened there? I went to I've heard it's incredible.
27:34
Speaker 3: Yeah. I went to crockt the Chevalier cocked. The Chevalier
27:38
Speaker 3: is one of the I think it's first of all,
27:40
Speaker 3: I went to Damascus and when you walk in the
27:43
Speaker 3: souk over there, and Damascus is the oldest, longest inhabited
27:48
Speaker 3: city in the world. Oh wow, I didn't know that. Yeah,
27:51
Speaker 3: that's what I was told at the time. Sure, or
27:54
Speaker 3: but you're way back in history walking down the suit
27:57
Speaker 3: this market, things hanging in the ceiling were there. You
28:00
Speaker 3: were in a different world. Different world.
28:03
Speaker 2: I love that.
28:04
Speaker 3: I love that, totally different world. And then when I
28:07
Speaker 3: got to Crux the Chevalier the next day. He has
28:10
Speaker 3: this beautiful castle which the Crusaders invaded. Then Saladin would
28:20
Speaker 3: come back and he would knock their hell out of
28:21
Speaker 3: them and chase them out of there. But even the
28:23
Speaker 3: staircase had been worn away where the horses used to
28:27
Speaker 3: go up there. And in the I suppose you call
28:30
Speaker 3: it the church or whatever they call it, you'd find
28:33
Speaker 3: the pulpit when the when the Christians were there, the
28:35
Speaker 3: pulpit was on the side. When the Muslim where the
28:38
Speaker 3: pulpit was removed there was put on the other side.
28:41
Speaker 3: But it had one door there which was eight hundred
28:43
Speaker 3: years old.
28:44
Speaker 2: Incredible.
28:45
Speaker 3: A magnificent citadel. It's just unbelievable.
28:49
Speaker 1: Those places are so humbling because our life is sadly.
28:55
Speaker 3: Short, minuscule, minuscule, it's minuscule.
28:58
Speaker 1: Comperied to that door. That door represents twelve generations.
29:03
Speaker 3: And if it could talk, the battles that had sat in,
29:06
Speaker 3: the battles that I saw, and these Religion is a
29:10
Speaker 3: funny thing. You had it with Cromwell, between the protestpants
29:12
Speaker 3: and the even religion. Today you got the Sunnies and
29:16
Speaker 3: you've got the Shiah. Yeah, two families that were family
29:19
Speaker 3: when they broke up, and the cousin took one and
29:21
Speaker 3: the other one also sad religion. So then I went
29:25
Speaker 3: from there, I went to Palmyra, which brought my heart
29:33
Speaker 3: when I saw it, I says, did to Palmyra, they
29:36
Speaker 3: destroyed it, Yeah, watchful Goodness only knows it was both
29:40
Speaker 3: by the Muslims for the Muslims.
29:43
Speaker 2: What why destroy it?
29:45
Speaker 3: Why destroy it? The Muslims, they're radical Muslims. Boy, I
29:48
Speaker 3: destroyed And I spent the night this and the Christmas
29:52
Speaker 3: day in Latakia, the birthplace of the Saddat family. And
29:59
Speaker 3: but for the out of town, it was the hotel,
30:01
Speaker 3: a beautiful hotel, overlooking the ocean towards Cyprus, the Sun City,
30:08
Speaker 3: and I got a lovely room over there, and then
30:10
Speaker 3: I went for dinner, and there with these youngsters all
30:12
Speaker 3: smoking their habbybubbly butts and things like that, the girls
30:16
Speaker 3: with a long black hair and handsome youngsters and things
30:19
Speaker 3: like that. And the next day I left. It's been
30:23
Speaker 3: Christmas daily. And I thought to myself, if anybody shows
30:27
Speaker 3: me a souk, a market, or a museum, or another
30:35
Speaker 3: citadel or another set of ruins, I'll shoot the But
30:41
Speaker 3: I've seen so much.
30:44
Speaker 2: Sometimes you do get to the point.
30:45
Speaker 3: Where, yeah, you're can't comprehend it anymore. You just can't
30:47
Speaker 3: comprehend anymore. You remember the name Sharrack and this and that.
30:51
Speaker 3: And then I got I drove along and then I
30:55
Speaker 3: had to have a piddle, so I stopped next to
30:57
Speaker 3: the road and I found that where he had the
31:01
Speaker 3: barriers along the road, garbage bags, one off to the other,
31:04
Speaker 3: and then they were dumping all their rubbish next to
31:06
Speaker 3: the road. Mm. And you were amazed. You think it
31:11
Speaker 3: was a clean place, but it's forty next to the roads.
31:13
Speaker 3: But up on the hill, I drove into Turkey and
31:18
Speaker 3: there were the military of course, right on the border.
31:21
Speaker 3: And I had to go to the office first. But
31:23
Speaker 3: there you go through the police first, and one of
31:27
Speaker 3: them see my passports. I showed him my South African passport. Now,
31:29
Speaker 3: if you fly into Turkey, you don't need a visa.
31:32
Speaker 3: When I showed him my South African passport, you didn't
31:34
Speaker 3: know where I came from. So yeah, I sit and
31:37
Speaker 3: give me your handbook. Let me check. You won't believe it.
31:40
Speaker 3: There was no Africa to suit. There was no South Africa.
31:42
Speaker 3: There was nothing about South Africa. You had Swaziland, you
31:45
Speaker 3: had to sit to you. You had all these tiny
31:47
Speaker 3: little places around it, but not South Africa. And then
31:52
Speaker 3: just then a fellow came in. He closed the door
31:54
Speaker 3: and there was this world map behind you, and I showed
31:56
Speaker 3: the guy where I come from South Africa. Now he
31:59
Speaker 3: had to phone around. But I happened to have my
32:01
Speaker 3: German passport with me because I've got dual citizenship. So
32:04
Speaker 3: I pulled out the German passport and he says, ah, man,
32:07
Speaker 3: he says, put that on and went away and I
32:09
Speaker 3: was on my way. Yeah, and they just signed everything through.
32:12
Speaker 2: Incredible.
32:13
Speaker 1: That's incredible, and Jack from that first big journey when
32:18
Speaker 1: you look back, what do you think changed about you
32:22
Speaker 1: at the end of it compared to when you left.
32:24
Speaker 2: What were some of the things that.
32:25
Speaker 3: Well, I think I didn't even have a bucket list.
32:29
Speaker 3: It was an experience second to know. And there's something
32:31
Speaker 3: you'll never forget, you can't eraise from your memory, whatever
32:35
Speaker 3: it is. My brother lives in Germany. So eventually I
32:39
Speaker 3: wound up through Austria, through Romania, Kouzawa after I left,
32:43
Speaker 3: but Windy six months after I left, the terrorists came
32:46
Speaker 3: in there and destroyed the camp where my car was parked,
32:49
Speaker 3: and others says Yuki was parked there. They burnt that down. Wow,
32:52
Speaker 3: and the hat that I was in burnt that down.
32:54
Speaker 3: Then I got through Kauzova and that broke into war,
32:58
Speaker 3: and I was just lucky. Six months behind me the
33:00
Speaker 3: wars were breaking out. But when I got to Germany.
33:03
Speaker 1: So interestingly, Jack, I was there at the same time
33:07
Speaker 1: you were. But I was there with the US military
33:10
Speaker 1: right because.
33:11
Speaker 3: Of and then through Hungry into into into Austria, and
33:18
Speaker 3: then I drove on the Auto borne all the way
33:20
Speaker 3: to Germany and remembered I had to keep right from
33:22
Speaker 3: Munich right. Eventually I wound up at my brother's place
33:26
Speaker 3: and then ad meaning about a week, and I decided,
33:29
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go to town. I'm gonna get my map
33:32
Speaker 3: maps for the next trip South America to North America.
33:36
Speaker 3: And I got the maps well in Germany though, m
33:40
Speaker 3: and I still got those maps today. But yeah, I think, well,
33:45
Speaker 3: they say once you get bitten by the bug, and yeah,
33:50
Speaker 3: that's when I decided I got to do another trip. Yeah,
33:54
Speaker 3: you playing it in your mind, but now you've got
33:56
Speaker 3: a bucket list all together. What you learned through Africa
34:01
Speaker 3: you didn't know existed. You just didn't know exist You
34:05
Speaker 3: didn't know. I think on the trip, although I visited
34:11
Speaker 3: Mars in gonna Uzoo, I had a puncture in the crater.
34:16
Speaker 3: I had a puncture and I had to change the
34:19
Speaker 3: wheel and there was a lying line, yeah, thirty meters away.
34:23
Speaker 3: But I had to change the wheel going down to
34:26
Speaker 3: the Grilla Is because I got Continental tubes in the
34:30
Speaker 3: and they gave me normal road tubes instead of trucktubes.
34:34
Speaker 3: So changed those two michelon tubes and they gave me
34:37
Speaker 3: the same thing. So on the way to Bewindy, they
34:41
Speaker 3: had on the Friday afternoon that bullet ruled bus. And
34:46
Speaker 3: my argument was always as if they were terrorists around
34:49
Speaker 3: on that day, the next day they wouldn't be there.
34:51
Speaker 3: So I went on the next day down to Bewindy
34:54
Speaker 3: and on Saturday afternoon was overcast and rainy, and I
34:56
Speaker 3: got a puncture, so I decided I'm going to change
35:00
Speaker 3: the wheel. But as I looked at a corner of
35:02
Speaker 3: my eye, there were some Africans coming down, farmers coming
35:06
Speaker 3: down the road. There plow chares and there's things all
35:09
Speaker 3: over their spades and picks and everything over their shoulders.
35:12
Speaker 3: And I was a little weary about the soul lot.
35:15
Speaker 3: So I went to the front of the car and
35:17
Speaker 3: I got my baseball bat, which I carried with me,
35:20
Speaker 3: and I put the wheel next to the other one
35:22
Speaker 3: right next to it, so I've got to change the wheel.
35:24
Speaker 3: And then I got back in the car, and I
35:26
Speaker 3: felt like stillone like Rocky. I felt like Rocky. I
35:30
Speaker 3: felt tough. I felt so tough with my baseball.
35:35
Speaker 2: Bat, because that's that was all you could do.
35:41
Speaker 3: Nothing else.
35:43
Speaker 2: I've got little one of those little Massi clubs.
35:46
Speaker 1: I keep stuck between the chair and the center console
35:49
Speaker 1: on the form.
35:50
Speaker 3: I've got some spirits send three three pieces, but I didn't.
35:57
Speaker 1: Let's talk a minute about working with your family. Your
36:01
Speaker 1: daughter works for you, your son works for you, your
36:05
Speaker 1: grandson now works for you.
36:07
Speaker 3: I'm blessed.
36:08
Speaker 2: Tell me what you're most proud of your kids.
36:13
Speaker 3: I think each one's got his virtue. Laura in erit
36:17
Speaker 3: my character, which is the fuse is shorter than short.
36:22
Speaker 3: Both of them got incredible brains. Jess I started the
36:27
Speaker 3: business because I knew Jess didn't like school or university
36:30
Speaker 3: or anything like that. At the age of fifteen, we
36:33
Speaker 3: was took his father in law, his future father in
36:37
Speaker 3: law's five cylinder Mercedes Diesel, a plot and replace the
36:41
Speaker 3: rings in an engine block. And he's just been handy.
36:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really is.
36:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, even now, even today, as I'm sitting here, tetty,
36:51
Speaker 3: he comes in gives me an idea and I've got
36:55
Speaker 3: a drawn over there, or he gives me another idea,
36:58
Speaker 3: and he keeps me busy during the drawings. But I'm
37:00
Speaker 3: not computer literate. I don't ever watch, I don't ever
37:04
Speaker 3: cell phone, I don't have a GPS. But I get
37:06
Speaker 3: around as long as the sun is on the right side.
37:11
Speaker 3: If the sun is on the wrong side. If I
37:13
Speaker 3: know I'm driving north and the sun's coming up, it's
37:15
Speaker 3: got to be on the right hand side of me.
37:17
Speaker 3: I'll go by the sun, and God for isn't the sun.
37:23
Speaker 3: But the thing is just took to it like a
37:26
Speaker 3: duck to water. Because when he did his BMX, I
37:32
Speaker 3: never helped him with his I gave him advice with
37:34
Speaker 3: his bike, but I never helped him work on his bike,
37:39
Speaker 3: change his change, change his pockets, change everything. Friend of ours.
37:42
Speaker 3: He did everything for his sons. You don't learn that way,
37:45
Speaker 3: You've got to do it yourself. Yeah, when my father
37:49
Speaker 3: was alive and we had chickens, I always spend the
37:52
Speaker 3: satur afternoon with him building chicken runs and duck ponds
37:55
Speaker 3: and god knows what. And that's the only way you learn.
37:58
Speaker 3: You can't you. And that's how just did it. He
38:02
Speaker 3: learned it, and he learned the business and eventually learned
38:06
Speaker 3: the finances of the business. Lara has always been one
38:08
Speaker 3: for figures, so she was a natural to take over
38:12
Speaker 3: the finances missus money bags. And it is now coming
38:16
Speaker 3: into it and he's now on a course to do
38:19
Speaker 3: catcam drawing and things like that, which I think will
38:22
Speaker 3: fit into the business because I've been doing the drawings
38:25
Speaker 3: now for forty years and then sending it to the
38:28
Speaker 3: manufacturers and they do their drawings to go on the
38:31
Speaker 3: computer and things like that and double check it before
38:33
Speaker 3: he's coming back and just needs that. He needs that.
38:37
Speaker 3: Now I'm not around forever, hopefully.
38:43
Speaker 1: You know, you've had such an incredible life and what
38:47
Speaker 1: it must be such a joy for you to have
38:50
Speaker 1: experienced all of that, but also have had your family
38:53
Speaker 1: so much involved.
38:54
Speaker 3: Oh yes, No. The thing is that even my dad
38:56
Speaker 3: at one time, my dad was after Mom passed away,
39:00
Speaker 3: he was lost and he would come into easy own
39:03
Speaker 3: and he would help just make awnings and they would
39:06
Speaker 3: be sitting together. And I've been fortunate that I've always
39:10
Speaker 3: had a close family. Even when I was my first marriage,
39:14
Speaker 3: my parents in law were just phenomenal. My mom and
39:18
Speaker 3: dad met my future parents in law at that time
39:21
Speaker 3: and we were told to come back from the movies
39:23
Speaker 3: at ten o'clock at night, and we came back and
39:26
Speaker 3: then my father future father in law and my dad
39:28
Speaker 3: were swinging on the gate. There had so many drinks together,
39:35
Speaker 3: and there an holiday together. So I've always had a
39:39
Speaker 3: close relationship.
39:40
Speaker 2: What a joy.
39:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been blessed in life. I've had experience. It's
39:44
Speaker 3: just unbelievable, you know.
39:47
Speaker 2: So you are a land cruiser man through and through.
39:50
Speaker 3: So oh look, I had land rovers at first. When
39:53
Speaker 3: I saw when I saw the first land cruiser, I
39:56
Speaker 3: thought to myself, how's piece of turn't gain to loss?
39:59
Speaker 3: Look at the landrover, sh see four times the size?
40:03
Speaker 3: And then I saw my first seventy five series. And
40:06
Speaker 3: from then on I've added turbo charge BUCkies although it
40:10
Speaker 3: was locally turbo charged, and when you loaded anything on it,
40:14
Speaker 3: we're going up, it would started to beat very hot.
40:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
40:17
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then I added the four five hundred YAR five.
40:20
Speaker 3: That was a marvelous piece of machinery. Yeah. And we
40:24
Speaker 3: when we decided to trip through South America. Now we
40:28
Speaker 3: went to find a vehicle. A fellow arrived from America
40:34
Speaker 3: Australia with a new troopy and he couldn't pay for customs.
40:40
Speaker 3: So I made an offer and I got it for
40:42
Speaker 3: a very good place because I just sold my other
40:45
Speaker 3: trooper in England to a trance English who was ex
40:49
Speaker 3: South Africa did the first house transplant in England. Oh wow,
40:53
Speaker 3: And he bought it and with my corne. He came
40:56
Speaker 3: back through Africa and I had got a max money
40:59
Speaker 3: for it. It was like dreamland. The rand was at
41:02
Speaker 3: seventeen oh wow, and I got twenty thousand pounds wow.
41:06
Speaker 3: And I could come back and buy a cock cash.
41:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure.
41:09
Speaker 3: Any case, now we decided to do this trip, but
41:12
Speaker 3: we needed it so we needed a left hand drive.
41:15
Speaker 3: So we found a body in a scrap yard that
41:17
Speaker 3: had come from Angola and Steward Bailey. If it wasn't
41:22
Speaker 3: for Steward Bailey, he is a fundy in zulu Zulu
41:25
Speaker 3: for expert of experts. M if you're a fundy where
41:29
Speaker 3: you're an expert.
41:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he really is, yeah, Adam.
41:32
Speaker 3: Yeah. And Stewart took the right and roid body off
41:37
Speaker 3: and put the left and drove body on and uh
41:42
Speaker 3: then I took it back to the factory and a
41:44
Speaker 3: to the inside. Amazing. From there built it up.
41:47
Speaker 2: I remember that. And that was the green one, right yeah.
41:50
Speaker 3: But the th and the thing is this people, when
41:53
Speaker 3: I did start to write for the Land Cruise, the
41:58
Speaker 3: Club of the u US, there book that went out
42:02
Speaker 3: every month, or magazine that went out every month.
42:05
Speaker 2: You obviously was it Twitter Trails is thatthing something like that.
42:09
Speaker 3: You you start to write on what the accessories are
42:13
Speaker 3: on your vehicle. It's like any insurance policy. Sudan's got
42:18
Speaker 3: metal apples. If you leave one thing off, that thing
42:22
Speaker 3: will go wrong. So you're over the extreme. A friend
42:27
Speaker 3: of mine had come from Holland and he had twop
42:30
Speaker 3: and he said to me, he's choopy weight four point
42:32
Speaker 3: five tons or two point five tons, big problem. And
42:37
Speaker 3: I said, the mine's not gone away anywhere near that
42:39
Speaker 3: near that because all aluminum inside. There's not no way
42:43
Speaker 3: any any case. When they loaded it into the container
42:46
Speaker 3: it was four point two point four. There's actually two
42:49
Speaker 3: point four, so it was very little difference aluminum or not.
42:53
Speaker 3: Extra accessories accessories.
42:56
Speaker 1: And I remember you had a very unique roof tent
42:59
Speaker 1: on that. It was a clamshell style but you had
43:04
Speaker 1: built it where it had its own hardshell integrated.
43:07
Speaker 2: That was such a clever design.
43:09
Speaker 3: It was again Jess's design where he gets the ideas
43:14
Speaker 3: from God. In these it comes up with some brilliant ideas.
43:19
Speaker 3: Brilliant ideas. And the thing is it did leak a
43:22
Speaker 3: little bit during huge storms. We had some huge storms
43:25
Speaker 3: at Equal sou he had a huge storm. The whole
43:29
Speaker 3: campsite was blown away. We were still there, and the
43:32
Speaker 3: rain was coming so hard from the side that it
43:33
Speaker 3: actually folted through the material. You could see the drops
43:37
Speaker 3: and the material. But and then when I got to Alaska,
43:42
Speaker 3: we had to come home after a year to renew
43:44
Speaker 3: our driver's licenses, international driver's licenses and everything else. So
43:48
Speaker 3: we come home for three weeks and we're in back
43:49
Speaker 3: of the game. But during that period, I'd built a
43:51
Speaker 3: poncho oka that went over the top of this whole lot.
43:55
Speaker 3: So when I got to Alaska, I put this over
43:58
Speaker 3: the top of the tent and we had no problem
44:00
Speaker 3: with whether whatever nor the summer light and everything was
44:06
Speaker 3: lighter around you.
44:08
Speaker 2: Make it a little bit more quiet.
44:09
Speaker 1: From your America's trip, what were some of the things
44:12
Speaker 1: that you found to be a highlight?
44:14
Speaker 3: He had a bucket list, Now, yeah, I had a
44:16
Speaker 3: bucket list, and of course your glaciers down south, and
44:21
Speaker 3: when I first saw that andys is something different. Yeah,
44:25
Speaker 3: wild mountains, widow wild mountains, andyes, was just unbelievable. Right
44:30
Speaker 3: down south was when I got down south, we were
44:34
Speaker 3: in Lapataire. We kept in Lapatire, the nature reserved there,
44:39
Speaker 3: and I discovered going down from Buenos Iris leaving Gunice
44:45
Speaker 3: Iris Festival for the first thirty kay's. I said to Margaret,
44:48
Speaker 3: we are driving in their own direction, and she said
44:51
Speaker 3: to me why, I said, you've got the sun behind us.
44:53
Speaker 3: It shouldn't behind us. It should be on the left
44:56
Speaker 3: hand side if you're going south. So we drive back
44:58
Speaker 3: thirty k's. We found a little sound bruce of Thress,
45:01
Speaker 3: and that put us on the right ruth Patagonia, and
45:05
Speaker 3: I thought Stuve Bailey had put in new breck breck paths,
45:09
Speaker 3: but he didn't. He thought I'd put in new brake pads.
45:13
Speaker 3: So when I got down to I was middle to middle. Wow,
45:17
Speaker 3: So I had to change put new brake pads in
45:19
Speaker 3: the front.
45:20
Speaker 2: But what an interesting city that is.
45:23
Speaker 1: I remember when I drove into, which we had your
45:28
Speaker 1: racks on our land cruisers for Expedition seven. But I
45:31
Speaker 1: remember when I drove into I was shocked with how
45:34
Speaker 1: big it was. Yeah it's a proper city.
45:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, my southern city in the world.
45:39
Speaker 2: But it's huge given how remote it is.
45:42
Speaker 3: And we were camping at Lapataia, which was just outside
45:46
Speaker 3: it most probably five or ten k's out, so you
45:48
Speaker 3: could go in and then once I had Margaret had
45:51
Speaker 3: gone to some schooling for Spanish, but I'd never asked it,
45:58
Speaker 3: to ask a couple of mechanical things. Now we had
46:02
Speaker 3: to to bleed the breaks. Margaret sitting inside you to
46:06
Speaker 3: pump it and then you close it or pump it,
46:08
Speaker 3: and so they worked. So we decided we were going
46:13
Speaker 3: into Swire and find somebody that could bleed my breaks,
46:18
Speaker 3: and of course to then find out what to do
46:21
Speaker 3: about frenos. And we got two guys and they did
46:24
Speaker 3: exactly what I did.
46:27
Speaker 1: Couldn't you be Yeah, sure they didn't have They only
46:30
Speaker 1: had so many options, so many options. So then when
46:34
Speaker 1: you did your route, you stayed pretty much through Chile
46:38
Speaker 1: and Argentina, and then you stayed more on the west side.
46:42
Speaker 3: We stayed on the Panamericana and stayed between the first half.
46:47
Speaker 3: It's between. If I at the time was maybe five
46:52
Speaker 3: years younger, I would have lived between South Africa and Argentina.
46:56
Speaker 3: I just loved Argentina. And we traveled from from Chili
47:01
Speaker 3: into Argentina and Argentina back into Chili, criss cross the
47:04
Speaker 3: Andandes a number of times.
47:06
Speaker 2: And Mendoza is a beautiful little city.
47:08
Speaker 3: Men, but But what amazed me about Mondoza was the
47:16
Speaker 3: oil field or pumps or whatever you call those damn things,
47:21
Speaker 3: right in the middle of a vineyard, a square piece
47:25
Speaker 3: of soil, and there was this oil rig pumping away
47:30
Speaker 3: and the vineyards all around and because.
47:33
Speaker 2: Through cash crops, wine and oil.
47:36
Speaker 3: But when we were now in the winter going through
47:40
Speaker 3: through Argentina, and of course when you out in the
47:45
Speaker 3: country and you see these orange yellow poplars in the distance,
47:51
Speaker 3: you knew there was a little village there, or there
47:53
Speaker 3: was a church there, or wherever it is. And driving
47:56
Speaker 3: through Argentina, if I had a choice, Bargentina first, I
48:03
Speaker 3: went fishing there. Stayed on the Parana River, Yeah, on
48:07
Speaker 3: the Parana River with a confluence that went into Paraguay. Yeah,
48:12
Speaker 3: And you could see these ships come sixteen hundred kilometers
48:15
Speaker 3: from Buenos Aires up the Parana River and then vera
48:19
Speaker 3: off into Paraguay and then coming up the Parana River,
48:24
Speaker 3: huge the size of football fields. Barges, huge barges, and
48:31
Speaker 3: they would come up the to go and get the
48:33
Speaker 3: grain at the top right from Paraguay, huge barges. We
48:37
Speaker 3: were in a campsite there a a municipal campsite, and
48:40
Speaker 3: we stayed there for two or three weeks because it
48:42
Speaker 3: was just so comfortable. But the beaches there are as
48:45
Speaker 3: big as your beach in Pitttenburg Bay on the side
48:47
Speaker 3: of the river. It's just huge and ever so off.
48:50
Speaker 3: And you had to have the Navy come up there
48:54
Speaker 3: in their patrol gunboats, sure traveling, and then they'd look
48:57
Speaker 3: through the glasses and see this two oldly city, the rooftop.
49:03
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
49:04
Speaker 3: But you have your bucket list, you have your bucket list.
49:07
Speaker 2: Much your picture, Yeah, that was very special.
49:10
Speaker 3: The glaces. Yeah, the Cushko was very special. Let Chicoco
49:17
Speaker 3: was special. But when you look back, if you're lucky,
49:23
Speaker 3: you've done eighty percent of your bucket list right up
49:27
Speaker 3: to Dead Horse in Alaska, and your blessed that you've
49:31
Speaker 3: been able to do that. Yeah, and you had the
49:33
Speaker 3: time to do that, and you had a family at
49:35
Speaker 3: home looking after the business, spoiling it. I suppose ever since,
49:38
Speaker 3: Yes and Laura being in a business have been spoilt.
49:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing wrong with that. Now, that's right.
49:45
Speaker 1: You're driving a three hundred series Language which thank you,
49:48
Speaker 1: by the way for letting me drive your.
49:49
Speaker 3: No, I said to him, if whenever in nes it,
49:52
Speaker 3: he can drive it than anything.
49:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a beautiful vehicle. I'm so impressed by the
49:56
Speaker 1: three hundred. It just seems amazing to me Jack that
50:00
Speaker 1: they just keep getting better somehow now.
50:01
Speaker 3: But the thing is to wind down from a four
50:03
Speaker 3: point five V eight down to a three point three
50:07
Speaker 3: V six. The V eight was killer Wat's five hundred
50:12
Speaker 3: newton meters. This is to twenty killer Wats six hundred
50:15
Speaker 3: newton no. Seven hundred newton meters. It's just phenomenal. And
50:19
Speaker 3: the ten speed box against the six speed box. But
50:25
Speaker 3: there's a lot of South Africans they like the old
50:28
Speaker 3: V eight shower and they don't know and I didn't
50:32
Speaker 3: know it neither, what the difference is between the two vehicles.
50:37
Speaker 3: It's like the land cruisers get you there and back,
50:42
Speaker 3: and of course the story goes landrovers will get you there,
50:44
Speaker 3: but may they may not take you back, And Jess
50:46
Speaker 3: will say that they don't know you do better. That's
50:50
Speaker 3: the view from a land cruiser owner, and I think
50:53
Speaker 3: from a four point five V eight owner, he doesn't
50:55
Speaker 3: know any better.
50:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, yeah, no, the three I mean I was
50:59
Speaker 1: so impressed by how smooth it was. On the highway.
51:02
Speaker 1: Stable on the highway, comfortable to drive. But then when
51:06
Speaker 1: we took it off road, we were in proper off
51:09
Speaker 1: road conditions on rock and everything else, water crossings and
51:12
Speaker 1: it was just so surefooted. Yeah, really impressive.
51:16
Speaker 3: That's an amazing vehicle.
51:17
Speaker 1: What when you look back on all of your different
51:19
Speaker 1: land Cruisers, what do you what would you recommend? Is
51:23
Speaker 1: the most important modifications to make to the car?
51:27
Speaker 2: If any at all?
51:28
Speaker 3: I think the thing is, if you've got to, you
51:30
Speaker 3: are to build good cause it's like the Vight Bucky.
51:35
Speaker 3: Why the guy wants to chip it goodness on your nose?
51:39
Speaker 3: You know, mexicanum speeders under treaty ks. Now, what are
51:41
Speaker 3: you gonna do? You're gonna put a big pipe out
51:44
Speaker 3: the back to relate all the hearty out and then
51:48
Speaker 3: make an held a lot of noise. Keep it standard, Yeah,
51:50
Speaker 3: you have to keep it standard. It's just I don't know.
51:54
Speaker 3: That's just got to the rock way.
51:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, they really do.
51:56
Speaker 3: No, you don't have to modify the thing. It's reliable forever.
52:00
Speaker 3: Both the African land Cruiser, I took head over three
52:05
Speaker 3: hundred CA's when I bought it. I drove it all
52:07
Speaker 3: the way to England. He drove it all the way back.
52:13
Speaker 3: I had sixteen punches going up. He had one puncher
52:16
Speaker 3: coming down. I had the thing with the land cruiser.
52:21
Speaker 3: Through the Americas. I be of good Rich tires on
52:24
Speaker 3: and because of the whole continent is built of pebbles,
52:29
Speaker 3: the route of footy is just pebbles. And of course
52:32
Speaker 3: I had to pump the tires sixty pounds. Now that's
52:37
Speaker 3: heavy as well, it's almost four ball. And I developed
52:42
Speaker 3: the tires. The rear tires developed cracks in all the joints.
52:50
Speaker 3: It was cracks. So when I did get a punch,
52:53
Speaker 3: I thought that's coming through a crack. But it wasn't.
52:57
Speaker 3: The back back wheels that the actually steel because it
53:00
Speaker 3: took steel, took one hundred series steel wheels. They actually fixed.
53:05
Speaker 2: Interesting.
53:06
Speaker 3: And where the two sections of the room joined small cracks,
53:11
Speaker 3: I see. And the small cracks I met a fella
53:15
Speaker 3: in Alaska and he had welded them, but they were
53:18
Speaker 3: little pins sperles.
53:20
Speaker 2: Interesting.
53:20
Speaker 3: And when I got to Montana, I got overslass tubes
53:23
Speaker 3: from your vehicles in America. Yeah, and that was perfect.
53:27
Speaker 3: And when I brought back the fella, yeah, still drove
53:30
Speaker 3: around with those tubes in them. But where they fella
53:33
Speaker 3: had welded it in Alaska, it recracked once the car
53:37
Speaker 3: was too heavy at the back. Sure it never happened
53:39
Speaker 3: to the front wheels, only the back wheels.
53:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can really load them up in the back.
53:43
Speaker 3: Can.
53:44
Speaker 1: It looks like you do pay a lot of attention
53:46
Speaker 1: to how you organize the interior, Like on your three
53:48
Speaker 1: hundred series, you've got these wonderful drawers. It just seems
53:53
Speaker 1: like it'd be a perfect product for easy on but
53:55
Speaker 1: the very easy to open them, even with gloved hands.
53:58
Speaker 1: You just lift up this little and they slide out.
54:01
Speaker 1: And the way that you size them so that they
54:04
Speaker 1: have basically South African military AMMO boxes in there. How
54:09
Speaker 1: do you like to lay out the interior of the vehicle?
54:13
Speaker 3: First of all, it's only two of us. Yeah, And
54:16
Speaker 3: in order to accommodate Margaret's a petit person. And on
54:23
Speaker 3: this on the white on the four to five hundred,
54:26
Speaker 3: I didn't have to move the seat forward. The fridge,
54:29
Speaker 3: the main fridge, the National Lunar fridge fitted in perfectly
54:33
Speaker 3: with this one. I to move Margaret's seat forward because
54:37
Speaker 3: the whole car is smaller inside and therefore when you
54:40
Speaker 3: fell as did the trip up to the water berg.
54:43
Speaker 3: I have removed that fridge. It's in the office.
54:46
Speaker 2: Put in a smaller fridge.
54:47
Speaker 3: Yeah no, no, the little fridge was there. That's my
54:50
Speaker 3: deferen No, it's in the office. I'll put it in
54:52
Speaker 3: on Friday, I see. But the thing is that it
54:54
Speaker 3: was in the old days when I had ranged over
55:00
Speaker 3: and because there was a time up to nineteen seventy
55:03
Speaker 3: six where I could use the land rovers and we
55:05
Speaker 3: could go to safarags. We could go to Botswana and Botsa,
55:08
Speaker 3: and then of course the all hell broke loose that
55:12
Speaker 3: we weren't allowed to go to certain areas. We couldn't
55:14
Speaker 3: go to Chapindo pools in Zimbabwe or Rhodesia. We were
55:18
Speaker 3: only allowed to go to go on a resume. And
55:21
Speaker 3: that's when we stopped our safariags because Botswana wasn't happy
55:25
Speaker 3: having South Africans there. The Rhodesians or Zimbobwians weren't happy,
55:31
Speaker 3: so that's when we stopped. So I got ahold of
55:33
Speaker 3: an old panel land from Holland left hand draft, the
55:36
Speaker 3: City's panel land Putty Chevy V eight in. It was
55:39
Speaker 3: a two or four hundred bucks and bolt it into
55:42
Speaker 3: a motown, a big bed in the back and bunk
55:47
Speaker 3: actually hammocks across the front front for the kids. Yeah,
55:51
Speaker 3: for the kids across the steering wheel in the front.
55:53
Speaker 3: Because they're so wide, the kids could sleep in the
55:55
Speaker 3: hammocks upfront. The only thing with that was having the
55:59
Speaker 3: old Mercedes diff the power of so much. It was
56:02
Speaker 3: just round off the dift original started to find you.
56:06
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think we had more times out of
56:08
Speaker 3: Gym c at Aganza for a while because mistake of
56:11
Speaker 3: my life, because it got two puny little windows up front,
56:15
Speaker 3: so you can't really photograph through there. And this old
56:19
Speaker 3: tink of mine was far a bit off road and
56:20
Speaker 3: things like that. And then once all the political stuff settled,
56:26
Speaker 3: we could go back to these places and that's when
56:28
Speaker 3: we started to go with that increasing.
56:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's incredible.
56:32
Speaker 1: So if you if you were to give some advice
56:35
Speaker 1: to a young person that was about to go travel
56:39
Speaker 1: around the world, what were some what would be some
56:41
Speaker 1: things that you would tell them?
56:44
Speaker 3: If you I don't know. The thing is, just when
56:49
Speaker 3: I started the business, you could get a roof wreck
56:56
Speaker 3: a fridge, an ingle fridge in those days, and you
57:00
Speaker 3: get your rooftop tent fitted out, kitted out and odds,
57:05
Speaker 3: and it is for ten thousand rand mm today that
57:09
Speaker 3: could cost you closer to a hundred thousand rand. So
57:13
Speaker 3: for a person to kit out a cock today, it
57:16
Speaker 3: is you've got to have megabucks. Yeah, you gotta have
57:18
Speaker 3: a lot of money. I wouldn't like to advise anybody
57:22
Speaker 3: because you got tents and tents. There are so many
57:25
Speaker 3: tenths o our tents have been copied. I don't know
57:28
Speaker 3: how many times. Even the rail underneath has been copied
57:31
Speaker 3: in China. But I think if you shop around you
57:35
Speaker 3: can get the bits and pieces, because there's a lot
57:37
Speaker 3: of guys who get your stage, like myself, but you
57:40
Speaker 3: don't need it anymore, and you consider as the price
57:44
Speaker 3: you paid for it. If you get some of the
57:45
Speaker 3: price you paid for it, then of course you're lucky
57:48
Speaker 3: because you're getting your money back if your money is
57:50
Speaker 3: devalued by ten, twenty thirty times. But you're getting read
57:53
Speaker 3: of old equipment, sir. And for the young people they
57:57
Speaker 3: to go around and buy new equipment. It's first of all,
58:02
Speaker 3: I don't believe you need a bullbar sextual way up front,
58:07
Speaker 3: it looks fancy a huge wind huge winch up front
58:13
Speaker 3: on my Trans Africa trip, I used the winch once.
58:16
Speaker 3: The first tree I hooked it around through laziness, not
58:19
Speaker 3: using a broken tackle. I'll pulled the tree out. The
58:23
Speaker 3: second one, I hooked it around another tree and the
58:26
Speaker 3: cable snapped right at the door at the car and
58:29
Speaker 3: frang away to the wast towards me. Think, couldn't it
58:31
Speaker 3: because you stand inside the door and on the trans
58:36
Speaker 3: on the Trans America's I never used the winch. Do
58:40
Speaker 3: you need a winch because your fortune? I think a
58:44
Speaker 3: big long rope somebody will come along. You may have
58:46
Speaker 3: to spend week. See that's true.
58:48
Speaker 2: Sure you have plenty of.
58:49
Speaker 3: Food, a bag warning if you want to go cheap.
58:52
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why the little chimneys are so popular now
58:55
Speaker 1: they're so affordable.
58:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is today. And now that they brought out
58:59
Speaker 3: the so cool. Yeah that's for a young family is perfect.
59:03
Speaker 2: I think so well. They just make me smile. They're
59:06
Speaker 2: just such a neat little cart vehicle.
59:08
Speaker 3: It is it is, it's it's it's a winner. Yeah,
59:11
Speaker 3: it's the winner. And that map and Guru met an
59:14
Speaker 3: elderly couple who had a couple who had the old chimney,
59:17
Speaker 3: and they've been up to the sea and get you
59:19
Speaker 3: with it all the way there and back. They had
59:22
Speaker 3: no rooftop tent, no warning, no fridge, just a spare wheel.
59:27
Speaker 3: And I see every day or whatever the world you
59:31
Speaker 3: have with the old couple.
59:32
Speaker 2: They made it work. They made it work, made it work,
59:35
Speaker 2: and they got to see a lot of luxurious.
59:37
Speaker 3: You want to go. You can add everything into it.
59:40
Speaker 3: When I go into the factory and I see some
59:42
Speaker 3: of these cars there, and I think to myself, the
59:46
Speaker 3: car has cost you X amount, and now you've got
59:50
Speaker 3: all those accessories which costs you a third of their amount,
59:53
Speaker 3: and you'll never get your money back.
59:56
Speaker 1: And a lot of times they spend so much money
59:57
Speaker 1: on this on the kit that they never get to anywhere.
1:00:01
Speaker 3: We call them sat and cruisers. You should open the
1:00:04
Speaker 3: garage over there, splays mud over your cough.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: You can come back and impress your your mates.
1:00:11
Speaker 3: Mates on Monday morning, cover your mud. Jack.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: I know that you are a prolific reader, and you
1:00:19
Speaker 1: have read so many incredible books.
1:00:21
Speaker 2: What are some of your favorite books?
1:00:24
Speaker 3: Sure, Dan Silva is one of them. I've got all
1:00:27
Speaker 3: these books. Keep them for some reason. I just love
1:00:31
Speaker 3: his books. What's going on in the Middle East now
1:00:34
Speaker 3: I find extremely sad, and I find it extremely sad,
1:00:41
Speaker 3: with all the respects to the Americans, but I think
1:00:46
Speaker 3: your President, the British by Minister, a few others made
1:00:51
Speaker 3: a huge mistake going into a rock when there was
1:00:54
Speaker 3: nothing there and doing that, they just stabilize the whole
1:00:58
Speaker 3: Middle East. We would never have had Isis, I don't
1:01:02
Speaker 3: think so Syria and look what's been destroyed. Look what
1:01:07
Speaker 3: they Afghanis did to the Buddhist monuments in the mountains,
1:01:12
Speaker 3: taking their faces off and things like that. It's just
1:01:15
Speaker 3: to stabilize the whole Middle East. And what's going on now,
1:01:21
Speaker 3: and I know South Africa's made some issue about it.
1:01:25
Speaker 3: I can't blame them. What's happened on the seventh of
1:01:27
Speaker 3: October that was leutful. But if you've been under siege
1:01:32
Speaker 3: like there are Africans where for three hundred years, you
1:01:37
Speaker 3: do get militants. Young people have got to a stage
1:01:41
Speaker 3: where they can't take us animosity towards them anymore. And
1:01:44
Speaker 3: it happened during South Africa when they formed count vcs.
1:01:47
Speaker 3: We're in the nineteen seventies and Hamas only came into
1:01:52
Speaker 3: being twenty years of them being trodden on. They've been
1:01:59
Speaker 3: trodden on for s s years. So the Israelis, in
1:02:05
Speaker 3: one mean or another, the Israelis are to blame themselves
1:02:10
Speaker 3: for dehumanizing these people like that that eventually okay, they're
1:02:16
Speaker 3: extreme radicals and they've got weaponry of note, whereas country,
1:02:22
Speaker 3: we see we never had the weaponry, and we had
1:02:24
Speaker 3: the strongest military force in the Ale of Africa. We
1:02:27
Speaker 3: developed the Tomic bomb. We had six of them, and
1:02:30
Speaker 3: the Americans made us take it apart. We had one
1:02:33
Speaker 3: of the finest helicopters, the Royal Folk, and because the
1:02:37
Speaker 3: Americans wouldn't supply US weaponry for them, we could only
1:02:41
Speaker 3: use them locally. But they were as good as they
1:02:43
Speaker 3: are patchy of that time, and we with Israel. Funny enough, ironically,
1:02:49
Speaker 3: was the EXO set that's saying the British ship battleship
1:02:53
Speaker 3: in the Falklands War, things like that.
1:02:56
Speaker 1: We're in a history repeats itself, doesn't it it around?
1:03:02
Speaker 2: As humans don't learn.
1:03:03
Speaker 3: Much to know, we go around in bloody circles. Yeah,
1:03:06
Speaker 3: I've had an incredible life, adventureless life. Not people, not
1:03:10
Speaker 3: many people have been as lucky as I've been but
1:03:13
Speaker 3: I've been given up pair of hands. I can build
1:03:16
Speaker 3: a house, I can build a bloody Miraco, and fortunately
1:03:20
Speaker 3: I've got the brains to do it. But I've been
1:03:21
Speaker 3: given that gift and I've taken it with two hands
1:03:23
Speaker 3: and used it. And Jess as doing exactly the same
1:03:27
Speaker 3: Laura in our own way of doing that. And Degan
1:03:30
Speaker 3: is still young, he's still got a lot to learn.
1:03:31
Speaker 2: And what a neat kid.
1:03:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is really super kid. I'm super kid. Look
1:03:37
Speaker 3: very again. I've got a loving grands grandson's granddaughter and
1:03:42
Speaker 3: everything else.
1:03:43
Speaker 2: Look at.
1:03:45
Speaker 3: I'm blessed. I really am lucky and blessed.
1:03:49
Speaker 1: And Jack, I'm so blessed in my own way to
1:03:51
Speaker 1: be able to sit here with you. Thank you for
1:03:54
Speaker 1: inspiring me. Thank you for inspiring so many Thank you
1:03:58
Speaker 1: for trusting in your son and your daughter to run
1:04:01
Speaker 1: your business and make easy On into one of the
1:04:04
Speaker 1: most respected companies that we have in our industry.
1:04:08
Speaker 3: But it's a lot. I'm just sitting in this interview
1:04:10
Speaker 3: because first of all, I got no idea what podcast means,
1:04:15
Speaker 3: and with all these instruments that you've got you but
1:04:18
Speaker 3: it's been a privilege, honestly, Thank.
1:04:20
Speaker 2: You Jack, it's a joy. Thank you my friend,