An Adventurous Lady

Eighty-year-old women are supposed to stay at home. The neatly dressed grandmother of our collective imagination gets her pleasure from indoor pursuits – cooking, reading, and knitting. Julia Albu never set out to be exceptional. Her daily routine slotted neatly into what the world expects from an older woman living in a leafy village near Cape Town. Every morning she would listen to the radio, and one day the discussion turned to the former President and his extravagant taste in cars. “I was excited,” Albu said. “I phoned in immediately to say I was going to be 80, and my car, Tracy, was a 20-year-old Toyota and she ran beautifully. We could happily drive to London together, so why the greedy politician needed all these new cars was beyond me.”

Encouraged by the enthusiastic response she received, Albu promised on air to get to Buckingham Palace to have tea with the Queen – and before long, the seeds of what had begun as a joke started shooting up. Six months later, before her 80th birthday, Albu’s youthful half triumphed. With Tracy’s grey exterior decorated with the rainbowcoloured stickers of her sponsors, Albu set off on a frosty morning from her house in Jakkalsfontein, heading up a tree-lined road pointing north. A cavalcade of Harley Davidsons gave her farewell outside Johannesburg to provide Albu with her first taste of African adventure.

In those early weeks, Albu often spent nights in a canvas shelter next to her car. But while her spirit was unbreakable, her body was not, and sleeping on the ground soon took its charge. One would sense Albu’s frustration at being physically unable to explore all the corners of the continent unfolding around her. “Oh, to be 40 years younger and not in this godforsaken body,” she said. “The mountains I would have climbed; the lakes I would have swum in.” Instead, Albu satisfied her boundless desire for Africa through its people. Her travel diary is filled with page upon page of names, numbers and business cards, including the addresses of hundreds of teachers she sent schoolbooks to through a charity she is engaged in.

Albu’s African odyssey was interrupted in Egypt, the country where her luck in namedropping the Queen finally ran out. Held on the border for several days while Tracy was fitted with Arabic number plates, her only option was to sleep in a cafe. “I’m not sure if you’ve ever spent the night alone in a room with seven Egyptian men, but it certainly was an experience,” she said. “They were kind though, and if they were surprised I was a woman on my own, they didn’t show it.” Because it is not just Albu’s age that has captured our imagination, it is also her gender. Women today fight for political, economic and sexual equality, but the decision to drive alone through Africa is one that would raise eyebrows in even the most tolerant of societies. “But why should men be the only ones who are allowed to go off and have big adventures on their own?” Albu asked. “I was never afraid for my life on that trip. Yes, when I was a girl the thought of me driving alone through Africa would have been completely absurd – but the world has changed, and I’m glad it has.”

Up through Egypt she went, and then to Greece crossing the Mediterranean by ferry. From Greece, she drove through Albania, Montenegro, Croatia,  Slovenia, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, and arrived in London for the summer season. “Oh, I was dying to have tea with the Queen – particularly after telling the world that I was going to,” Albu says. “But it was the week of Royal Ascot horse race and apparently she was otherwise engaged”.

London is not the final stop in Albu’s odyssey. Her taste to travelling drives her to cross Africa overland for the second time! Excitement and adventure are not prerogatives of the young. And if the inhabitants of Buckingham Palace one day read about Albu’s story and send an invitation down to South Africa, she and the Queen will undoubtedly have a lot to say on the subject.

22. Why did Julia call the radio programme?

A It was a chance to win a new car.

B She decided to participate in the discussion.

C She had an opportunity to talk to the President.

D It was one of her usual activities.