Julia from Jakkalsfontein

Feisty octogenarian has driven the length of Africa – and documented her adventures in My African Conquest: Cape to Cairo at 80

- Sue Segar

IF YOU LOOK DOWN FROM AN aeroplane flying over Africa, you can see this road that looks like a silver ribbon and you think to yourself, I wonder what it’s like? Well, let me tell you: you get on it and you don’t ever want to get off it – even with all the trucks, road blockages and stops. You could just drive forever and ever.”

Sitting in her living room, Julia Albu, 81, roared with laughter as she related how, after deciding to drive from Cape Town to Cairo in her trusted old Toyota, she was advised by experienced overland travellers in Africa, to “follow the Great North Road”.

“I am clueless, I can’t read a map or a GPS garmin. I have no idea. They told me to just stay on the road and not get off it.

“I’d never heard of this road, but actually you can’t miss it, you get on it and drive and you’re so free, it’s such an escape! Anybody can do it and everybody should do it.”

We met at Albu’s home in the Jakkalsfontein Nature Reserve on the Cape West Coast. To get there, you drive along dust roads, with acres of fynbos on either side. You might see a mother ostrich dashing into the bush with a flock of chicks behind her.

On arrival at her house, the first thing I spotted was Tracy, Albu’s very unassuming 1997, 1600 Toyota Conquest, standing in the garage, covered in sponsors’ stickers.

Sitting in her living room overlooking a wild West Coast sea, Albu reminisced like an old Africa hand about her months exploring the continent.

“The roads out of Addis Ababa make Uganda’s potholed tracks look like top-notch highways; between Francistown and Nata the potholes were the size of swimming pools; the local Ethiopian injera made out of the staple teff flour looks and tastes like a blanket…”