(Daniel) As if the going wasn’t hard enough already, today really scared me. Today we planned to leave Quetta, and on Nick’s instructions, I changed the fuel filter, which instantly solved the power loss problem. Despite draining it several times, when I removed it, a thick brown sludge poured out, a souvenir from the last fuel stop in Iran.
We waved goodbye to the hotel staff before fuelling up in a local shell garage. From there, we took the road towards Dera Gazi Khan, a small city on the way to Lahore. Everything seemed to go well, as we drove out of town, and through a picturesque village. Then on in the direction of the Afghan border.
However we just kept going towards Afghanistan, and I could see from the GPS that we were nearly at the border crossing. We realized that we must have missed a turning somewhere. I turned around and drove back along the road, frustrated at the mistake, and possibly feeling some trepidation over the proximity to a sensitive border, I was driving faster than I should have.
Overtaking a lorry on the dirt side, I went quite hard over some bumps and suddenly felt the Wolf pull hard to the side, it was like we had thrown out an anchor, and felt like we were about to flip over. The wolf pulled back sharply and veered hard on the road. Rowan called from the back, that the trailer was on its side, and as I stopped I saw a wheel rolling off into the desert at speed. On closer inspection, the axle spindle had sheered off, making the 2 ton trailer immovable.
This was bad, unrepairable on the roadside, it would need either a new axle or welding, which would probably not be strong enough to continue very far. As we looked at the damage many people arrived and a crowd quickly formed. Fortunately a policemen appeared, and just in time, as a small fight broke out.
I couldn’t see the side of the trailer that was on the floor, but could imagine that it didn’t look good under there. When I looked back at the road, I noticed that the contents of the brake drum were scattered everywhere, and that some bits were cracked including the pads. A Toyota Land cruiser passing by stopped, and the man inside told us that he could arrange a flatbed truck with a crane to lift the trailer and take it back to Quetta for repair. He said that we would likely not find a new axle in Quetta, but that it could be welded, and we should be back on the road within a few hours. This sounded good, and we could look at a better repair in Lahore. To my surprise that flatbed was on scene within another ten minutes. Bearing in mind that we are in the middle of nowhere, 50kms outside a city, this seemed like a miracle, on reflection the men in the Land Cruiser may have been following/ surveilling us. We agreed a price with the flatbed driver and he lifted the trailer onto the back, along with the wheel and the bits and pieces of brakes that we had managed to find.
We drove back to Quetta, and to a garage that the other man had recommended. The boss in there took a look at the work, and we agreed that he would hammer out the wheel arch, weld the axle and skim it back to size, then repair the brakes by welding the pads back together, and theb reshoe them. He would have to make some of the smaller components again, as they had gone missing, but this didn’t seem to faze him. I dropped Rowan and Gabbs back to the Bloom Star, where we checked in again and ate lunch. Then I returned alone to the garage to supervise the work on the trailer.
The repair took longer than they expected, and went on into the night, but I must say that the quality of the repair seemed good enough for the expedition ahead. I asked the price, to which the man asked for 1700 rupees. I tried to haggle, at which time someone pointed out that this was around 24USD. I gladly paid, and gave a small tip. The workshop was staffed by an army of apprentices, some looked as young as ten years old. But they all mucked in, and the work was completed before they sat down together to evening tea. After thanking everyone individually, and giving out some work glasses, I hooked the trailer up and drove back to the hotel.
We went back to the same local restaurant, and then Rowan and I went and picked up some more beer to celebrate our repair, and quick recovery! Before I left, many people told me that the trailer would be the thorn in my side from the start of this trip, and they were right, I will put thought now to my options should the trailer continue to go wrong, as it is more and more likely each time we repair it
Distance Driven 100kms