FEMI OWOEYE
Her name is Julia Albu, an 81-year-old South African. In 2017, she decided to visit her daughter in London. Rather than travel by air and land within 24 hours, Julia opted for an incredible adventure, a challenge of travelling by road, with her behind the driving wheel. How did it happen?
The star of the journey is her 21-year-old Toyota Conquest, which she fondly calls Tracy.
Before take-off, she made a definite plan, vital of which was to take eastern route through Africa. Julia also had supportive sponsors and charities who joined the cause, and a blog site was launched to document the journey.
She also stuffed the car with Consumables, including Bottled water (water from the White and Blue Nile were the best), dried fruit, biltong and biscuits.
“I also carried some delicious chocolate biscuits for the children at some of the borders”, explained Julia.
The journey, which lasted 12 months, kick-started from Cape town in June 2017.
Though Julia stopped in 11 Countries in Africa and even more in Europe, she had her favourite experience in Ethiopia and Sudan.
“I loved each and every country I visited,” she recalled. “I will forever cherish the memories of my trip. I would say the favourite experience and countries were Ethiopia and Sudan”.
As at the time of putting together this report, Julia, who though kept all her fuel slips, was yet to calculate and add the sum total of volume and cost of fuel used for the journey. But she covered about 40 000 km in total.
Although the 12-month trip was quite an experience for Julia, she is planning to tackle another epic journey, but hopefully not in her brand-new Toyota Yaris Sport that she just received courtesy of Toyota South Africa.
