Maiden Voyage

First Trip In Our Sherpa Rambler – Ndumo Game Reserve.

- Lawrence And Jenny Burgess

It was after our annual tour to see our daughters and grandson in Cape Town that the idea was birthed in our minds to trade in our Sherpa Tiny for something more suitable for our aging bodies, to be able to live inside when it was wet and cold outside.

Our last trip in the Sherpa Tiny was from Johannesburg to Springfield, Hogsback, Port Alfred, Victoria Bay, Bontebok and finally ending on the down leg at Imhoff Park in Kommetjie in the Cape.

At many of these stops along the way we encountered rain, as we did on the return journey to the Karoo National Park and in Bloemfontein before making it home.

Don’t get me wrong, our Sherpa Tiny had given us nine years of amazing caravanning, but when rain is on the horizon, up-must-go all the canvas which includes three roof awnings and two side sections. This takes time and effort at every campsite, and what goes up must come down just to go up wet again at the next campsite.

We did look around at normal caravans, but I knew all along that my heart was set on the tough Sherpa Rambler gravel-roader. Nine years of travelling approximately 80 000 km all over South Africa had proved to us how durable these Sherpas are. It has the most attractive streamlined shape, it’s “no wood-rot, all-fibre-glass” construction and how they are prepared to tailor-make the interior to your individual requirements kept us in complete alignment with this brand.

Besides, we were offered R12 000 more for our Tiny than we’d paid for it new all those years ago.

At last I received that long-awaited phone call from Neville at Sherpa to head on down to the dealership and collect “Rambles” – our affectionate name for the new caravan.

The next three weeks saw us getting used to our new and much roomier home on wheels. Packing with so much extra space was a pleasant experience.