Our last day at Big Milly’s and what we thought would be the last evening in Maggie so we planned to cook all the perishable food we have left and have a meal with Andi & Coni.  However the weather God’s had different plans…….the heavens opened and we had a wonderful storm which thankfully for us only lasted an hour or so. 

Early the next day we all headed onto Tema to the shipping company where we had hoped to put the cars into the container and we would be on our way.  But as there is no hurry in Africa we only managed to get the container to the loading area and would have to return the next day when the customs officer would be there to see exactly what we were loading into the container. 

As Jamie & I would be flying from Ghana on Wednesday we decided that we would find a hotel as close to the hotel as possible so we could check in and drop off all our bags before loading Maggie into the container. 

Naturally as luck would have it, as this was the one day that we did not have time to waste, Jamie committed a driving offence by driving over a painted island and was “arrested”.  After much talking from Jamie he managed to get himself released on bail of 15 million Cedi and would have to return the next day for court……only one problem they wanted Maggie to remain at the police station pending the outcome of the court hearing as we had no car documents with us as we had given all the papers to the forwarding agent for shipping.  Of course this was not an option for us so when Jamie came out to let me know we knew it was time that I had to try do some persuading by either crying, fluttering my eyelashes, begging and pleading or just out right bribery. 

Whilst I was talking to the police officer about what had been decided it struck me that I could drive Maggie and get it to the container for loading as Jamie was the offence and not the Land Rover.  So I offered to leave Jamie at the police station whilst I drove to collect the car papers….of course I would get Maggie loaded into the container and return with the car papers to collect Jamie (That's the story Charlene keeps telling everyone).  The police officer was really confused as he could not believe that I was willing to leave Jamie behind, but both Jamie & I knew we really had no other option at this stage as this was the only chance we had to load Maggie into the container and we would be flying to South Africa the next day.  Eventually after much consideration he decided to speak to his boss, the Chief of Police.  He explained to the Chief my offence, the fact that we were insisting that we needed our car as that was what we lived in and that I was prepared to leave Jamie behind.  The Chief then spoke to Jamie asking if he knew and understood the crime, thankfully Jamie gave the correct response and apologised.  After the Chief explained to the policeman why we live in our car he looked at the both of us and said “We want you to be free to explore and visit Ghana, so you can go, just don’t do it again”. 

Without trying to come across in a hurry, just in case he changed his mind, we thanked the Chief profusely and walked out of his office.  The policeman then decided it was time that we thanked him as well and suggested that we should find something in our car for him (of course he wanted some money).  So we gave him 45 Cedi and explained that this was all that we had left (which of course was not the truth), he then felt bad, only took 20 and gave us 25 back as he said he could not leave us with no money! Finally after spending 2.5 hours at the police station we were now free to leave and could make the 2 pm loading time for the container.

We have never been so relieved and knew that the quicker we could get Maggie into the container the better.  With Maggie finally loaded and the final paperwork to be collected the next day we got a taxi back to the hotel in Accra.  Now it is just a flight to South Africa and a matter of waiting 3 – 4 weeks for the container to arrive in Cape Town.