Monday, December 15, 2014

the 1st tractor to the south pole was a Ferguson (TE20), and so is the 2nd... "Tractor Girl" made it in 17 days with a sponsorship donor MF5610


Image from http://www.autoblog.com/2014/12/15/tractor-girl-antarctica-south-pole-expedition-videos/

Of course, The 1st got there with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1958



1500 miles from the Russian station in Antarctica to the south pole, 17 days, at between slow, and 6 mph with great conditions.

In 2005, Monon Ossevoort took on the adventure of going around the world on a tractor,


notice the diesel filters in the above image? Reason? Too many cheats selling fatty vegetable oil laden diesel fuel... that clogs filters... this system allows for bypassing filters so they can be cleaned out

Performing her theater show 'DOEN' (Do It!) in some post-conflict countries on her way, and raising money for War Child.  By the end of April 2006 she had travelled right down through Egypt and Sudan, crossed into Ethiopia and then reached the border with Kenya.




She said she has been like a lone rescue service for broken-down vehicles along the way. "I once towed a bus 140km through the desert to Sudan's capital," Manon Ossevoort said in Tanzania.

 Her plan was to travel through northern Kenya and into Uganda, before proceeding southwards. By December 3 2007 she had reached Tanzania, 30 months and 20,000 km into the trip.

 The tractor was holding up just fine although it was slow, rough going. By October 22 2008 she had reached Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.


Ad Keukelaar of the Harley Davidson shop of Cape Town arranged for the welcome party (Pretty cool thing to do, compliments to Harley Davidson of Cape Town!)

Although Manon admits to having been "scared of shadows in the night" and having panicked at coming face-to-face with a heavily tusked elephant in the Maasai Mara, she has never been threatened physically by human beings.





 Instead she speaks warmly of the generosity and hospitality of many of the people she has met along the way, especially the Sudanese. And she is philosophical about the slow pace and the not inconsiderable discomfort of driving a vehicle with no suspension.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7124565.stm

the website" http://www.antarcticatwo.com/

her blog that covers the many years of the trip through Africa (good writing and thorough coverage of the trip) http://www.tractortractor.org/en


At Victoria Falls

I read in her blog that she met Ted, who in his own words: "started working for Harry Ferguson back in 1952. And I can remember seeing them putting the brand new selfmade tracks on the tractor’s and loading them onto the trailer to be shipped to the Antarctic’s to the Hillary team back in 1958!”

That I even learned about Monon is completely due to a cool guy that has liked this website of mine and sends me great leads like this! I forgot to credit him when making this post up, as I got lost among the many pages of sites and info and photos making this post worth your time to enjoy... poor excuse, but I often lose track of stuff. Oldzheimers and overloaded with stuff to share, and it's only due to great people like Case that I, and you readers, get to check out neat stories like this!

No comments:

Post a Comment