Finding the Beagle seems like fate now. Keeping needs in mind we kept perusing the various vehicle sites. Jim was on the Alu-Cab site one night and he read out loud the details: a 2008 Toyota, overland ready, with 28,000 kilometers on it. Must be a misprint, I thought; an eight year old rig with so few kilometers?. . . somebody dropped a zero. But no, the mileage wasn’t a misprint. The truck was the Alu-Cab showroom vehicle for the drive-off camper attached to it. Cool.

Rather than commit before financing was lined up, this time we went straight for the money – we beat up our options and came up with a plan. Sent the sellers a new email, saying if they still had the vehicle we were positively interested. And we didn’t hear back. . . oh well. Missed that one but there would be another one showing up soon. It’s just that this one seemed to meet so many of our wants and needs – couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Thinking that the opportunity was long gone, imagine our excitement when we got an email saying the vehicle was still around – the sellers were set to take it an expo in Cape Town but if we were to commit, they’d be happy to not have to drive it to the expo. Yea! We got on the stick and a couple days later, the Beagle was ours, sight unseen but for the photos the sellers provided. The buying experience was a delight. The sellers were excited to share their Africa camping adventures – we can’t wait to drive the Beagle up to their house and hear some stories.

Now to get it registered in our name and store it – the hard part – we sent Jim to Cape Town. What a drag, right? The bureaucracy was daunting but not undo-able. Storage was easily handled by Duncan at  African Overlanders near Stellenbosch. Adrian and Rentia were most helpful and Jim was able to spend some time with them. He took the Red Bus around Cape Town and climbed Table Mountain on a nice day. It’s a mean flight home from there but he got it done.