Archiv der Kategorie: Namibia

The Last Stage

6. Februar 2015 Daniel 1 Kommentar

We left the Brandberg area on the 1^st of December, going a bit north to see the rock engravings at the Twyfelfotein. Only gravel roads take you there. They are in excellent condition so it was really good fun to ride there. Twyfelfotein is Afrikaans for doubtful spring and not twelve springs as one might thought. The german word for “Twyfel” is “Zweifel” which sounds quite alike. This spring was called doubtful, because it is not constantly carrying enough water to survive. Probably this place would have been abandoned and forgotten long ago, if it hadn’t been for the rock engravings. Until now over 2500 individual engravings have been found, most of them are older than 6000 years.

Nearby the engravings there are petrified trees, a burnt mountain and organ pipe like rock formations to be seen.

After a night at the Aba-Huab campingsite we took the route over Outjo and Okahandja to get back to Windhoek. On the way it was now Topher’s fuel pump that stopped working probably. In Windhoek we replaced all tubes and tried to get the same exchange pump that we mounted on my bike, but unfortunately they didn’t have another one. So we tried a different one from a different shop. But that low pressure pump wasn’t so low at all and destroyed the sealing of the carburetor… Okay now that things got serious we went to a Yamaha dealer nearby. The guy was super friendly and very helpful. He managed to fix the carburetor, cleaned it and also took a look at the first pump. It seemed to be fine. We assembled everything again and gave it a try, but after 20 km the engine started to lose power again. The only thing to prevent that was not to drive faster than 80 km/h. So that should be our schedule speed for the remaining route. We realized that time was brutally running down and that we had to skip something to reach Cape Town in time. Sadly we decided to leave Sossusvlei out and to go directly to Lüderitz.

Passing Rehoboth and Mariental we reached Keetmanshoop after 500 km and 3,5 curves and stayed for the night in the Quiver Tree Camp. There you can take a look at Namibia’s biggest quiver tree forest and a place with stacked rocks called giants playground.

Dassie (in german: Klippschliefer) cute little things, but they give you a mean look all the time

Topher decided to dismiss his fuel pump and connected the tank directly to the carburetor. It seemed like using only gravity flow to feed the carburettor was more efficient than the half working pump. To keep the gravity flow pressure up high Topher was fuelling up at least every 100 km. The bike still wasn’t working fine, but we could do now 90-100 km/h without break down and reached the seaside town Lüderitz.

While we were staying in Lüderitz we did a day trip to the Sperrgebiet national park and visited the ghost town of Kolmanskop. Once planed as the headquarter of the Consolidated Diamond Mines, it was deserted in the 1950’s due to the collapse of diamond sales after world war one and the discovery of richer diamond fields near to Oranjemund. The ghost town is now partly covered by sand and a famous tourist attraction.

Now was only one spot left before we had to leave Namibia, the fish river canyon. From Lüderitz we took the C13 south, which leads all the way down to the Orange River, the natural NAM-ZA border. Following the river to the east was probably one of the most beautiful rides of the whole trip. The gravel roads are just perfect to drive on (probably our gravel riding has improved as well;) ) and the eternal rock desert landscape was so colorful and transforming as you can’t imagine.

We turned left on the C37 and went north up to the camping site Ai-Ais. From here we had planned to go to the fish river canyon the next day, but only David made it. All three of us were struggling with a flu like affliction since a week or so. In the last couple of days it got worse for Topher and me, while David recovered. This day 100% of Dribbdebach-Touring stayed in bed, partly knocked out, and David did the 50 km trip by himself. Thus also the fish river canyon remains a destination for our next trip to Namibia.

The following day we were feeling better but still not really in a good shape. Unfortunately time was running and so were we, if 90 km/h can be considered so 😉 We went south until we were back on the C13. After a while the gravel road turned to tarmac and we stopped knowing that this had been the last gravel road of our trip…

Now it would only be getting the distance done without falling asleep and so it was. The border crossing was a drive by and after an overnight stay in Vanrhynsdorp we reached Cape Town.

Capetown arrive from David on Vimeo.

We took a day to settle down at the Ashanti lodge and did a city tour in a red bus. In the evening we went to the famous Longstreet for dinner and to get a taste of Cape Town’s nightlife. The next day, exactly four month after we set off, we drove to the Cape of Good Hope our final destination…

Clever penguins. The cap is much nicer than the south pole.

Time seems to fly by when you’re having a good time and the last 4 month living on the road just passed in a rush. But if we recall any day of the trip it was so full of experiences to earn, friends to meet, fears to overcome, freedom to find, adventures to master, fun to have and tears to cry that every day could count for a whole week.

Topher took a flight the next day to meet his parents and girlfriend in Windhoek. They were traveling Namibia for three weeks and took a flight back to Germany on the 01.01.2015.

David and I spent another week in Cape Town, where we organized the transport of our bikes, did a two days trip to the Cape Agulhas (the most southern point of Africa), climbed the Table Mountain and did some diving in the 2 Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town and in the Atlantic near to Simons Town.

Predator Dive from David on Vimeo.

Sharkdive.mp4 from David on Vimeo.

With the end of this trip the biggest adventure of our lives (so far) is completed and it left us with mixed feelings. As much as we were happy that we really made it and were looking forward to see our families and friends again, we were saddened about the end of this phase of life. But be sure there are more trips to come.

Finally we want to thank you very much for following our blog and for thinking of us from home or somewhere else of the world. This trip wouldn’t have been possible without the help and support of other people. Therefor we are very grateful and want to especially thank everyone who took a part in our cause.

We are really clad to have teamed up with David who was a great travel companion, a big help and became a good friend, thanks!

Take care and we hope to see you all again or to meet you for the first time in real life

Guude

Daniel & Topher

Africa, Botswana, Namibia

Zim to Nam

27. Januar 2015 Christopher 4 Kommentare

Hey Guys, it’s been a while. We are meanwhile back in Germany, after reaching Cape Town safe and sound. But there is still a lot to write about left. So let’s take it from the last blog entry.

Initially we wanted to visit some good friends of mine in Harare/Zimbabwe. Unfortunately we were running a bit out of time and had thus to cancel the visit. So our only Zimbabwe time was in Victoria Falls and from there to the border to Botswana. Zimbabwe is nowadays infamous for its high corruption and endless check points. During the short time we spent in this country we realized that a travel on the bikes through Zim has the potential to be a massive pain. We got in several check points and everytime our bikes road worthiness was tested. Lights, indicator, horn and documents. Luckily Daniel repaired his broken indicator back in Zambia so we just had the annoyance of the check points but never had to pay a “fee”.

At the Botswana border we went through our first disinfection bath with the bikes and boots. They try to prevent the spreading of the foot and mouth disease, which is apparently a big problem for the mostly farm based industry of Botswana and also Namibia. They also try to prevent the spreading of Ebola by checking the body temperature at the border. We had to put a thermometer under our arms (very hygienic) and note the temperature on an official paper. We all had readings around 35°C. I asked the officer what to write down, since with this temperature we were pretty much dead. He replied “Just write it down”. OK… Effective measures…

We stocked up supplies in Kasane at the Chobe River and had our first look at Namibia on the other side of the river, but first Botswana. The highway down to Nata could be pretty boring if it weren’t for all the elephants and other game standing along the road. The road runs between the Chobe National Park in Botswana and the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, both with large elephant populations and no fences (elephants don’t mind fences too much anyway). So plenty of animals migrate between the two parks and the “caution elephants” signs should be taken serious.

One of the many elephants along the road

We passed a camp along the road named “Elephant Sands” and decided to spent the night there. What a well named place, they got plenty of sand and even more elephants. When we pulled up on the camp ground we saw several other motorbikes. All overland travelers like us. And a total coincidence as well, like us the other travelers haven’t seen much bikes around Africa. We had a nice night constantly surrounded by elephants.

The next destination was Maun, the gate to the Okavango Delta. A place which I thought while planning the trip of being one of the highlights. It turned out to be to be a major letdown. There was too much water in the river and a boat tour with the high grass would have been pointless. So we didn’t really see much of the Delta and decided to push on towards Namibia also because we needed spare parts which we only could get in Windhoek. While doing a bit of a service on our bikes David found his front sprocket to be worn beyond limit. Three teeth were already missing and we needed urgent replacement. Also, our front tires we mounted back in Istanbul were down and needed replacement. Funny thing with these Mitas tires. The front wears faster than the rear. The rear was also mounted in Istanbul but made it until Cape Town with still some km left on them (according to African standards, not European).

Those guys cycle from Cape Town to Burindi

It was a long and rather boring ride towards Namibia. Botswana is extremely sparsely populated, with only 2 million people on an area 1.6 times of Germany. 50 km before the border it started raining and never stopped with temperatures dropping to 16°C. This doesn’t sound too bad but we are used to the heat by now 😀 After the border we were soaking wet and the motivation to camp pretty low, so we looked for a roof and bed that night and found a guest farm along the way. Plenty of farms in Namibia offer rooms and food. This one was called Zelda Guest Farm and probably the worst you can find. The white owners were the most unfriendly people we met in a long time and even tried to cheat us with the bill. If you ever find yourself along the Trans-Kalahari Highway don’t bother to stop at the Zelda Guest Farm. At least we had our first night in a bed since Iringa/Tansania!

We made our way towards Windhoek, the last African capital city of our trip. The last days Daniels bike was acting up again. Constant power losses to the degree that the engine went off and wouldn’t start again for a few minutes. 60 km out of Windhoek it got so bad that we couldn’t get much driving done anymore and I had to tow him into town. Towing with the bike is still no fun… We found a nice backpackers accommodation and spent the next days working on the bikes. Windhoek was the first city since Nairobi with a proper selection of spare parts. We got new front tires and David could get a new chain kit from the local BMW dealer and also replaced his steering head bearings, which also were beyond.

We still couldn’t really figure out the problem on Daniels bike, it was either the ignition or the something with the fuel supply. Replacing the spark plugs did not improve the situation. We tried to leave Windhoek three times in one day and the bike always came down with the same issues some 30 km out of town.

One of the plenty stops — One of the stops

In the end Daniel and I swopped the fuel pumps on a parking lot outside Windhoek in order to find the source of the issue. The problem was transferred with the fuel pump to my bike, thus highlighting the fuel pump as being the source of the problem. The original Africa Twin fuel pump is known to break easy, therefore we already had new mechanical pumps on the bikes. Didn’t stop it from breaking either… We went back to Windhoek and could find a low pressure fuel pump at the Quad and Bike Clinic in town. After the new pump was installed we could leave Windhoek with no problems.

We rode towards Swakopmund and stopped at the Spitzkoppe Mountain, a truly wonderful camping spot. Once you leave the main highway in Namibia its gravel roads. Most of them are in a pretty good shape and riding on them is good fun, especially with new tires!

It's a tough life :D — It’s a tough life 😀

We had a nice fire at the camp and tried to fry some marshmallows. The marshmallows didn’t really like the heat on the bike and were kind of tough to get out of the bag.

We had a funny bird at the camp who really liked our bikes mirrors.

With Swakopmund we reached the African Atlantic coast. The water is pretty cold here, around 13°C and is having a strong impact on the air temperatures close to the sea. Even though we were riding from shrubbery savanna into the sand of the Namib Desert temperatures were dropping from 34°C to around 20°C. It again felt cold while riding 😀 Swakop is an remarkable place situated in the sand dunes of the desert. The architecture reminds a lot of the old German cities along the Baltic Sea and the German population is quite strong here with many street names and stores in German. We celebrated the reaching of the Atlantic Coast with a fantastic dinner at the Swakopmund Brauhaus 😀

Swakop is pretty touristy and we made use of that by joining a tour into the desert called “the little five” where one gets the small animals of the Namib shown. After this impressive demonstration of survival in this hostile environment we went again into the desert with rented quad bikes blasting over the sand dunes, making the survival for the small animals a bit more hostile… Words cannot describe the fun we had! Our guide constantly tried to slow us down and stop us from goofing off, but no chance, just too much fun 😀

Our guide looking for the small five — Looking for the small five

Got some food for the little guy — Got breakfast for the little guy

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Happy Chameleon

The chameleon liked David but charmoflage is not his strong site

Sidewinder Adder. The bite is not deadly but apparantly you wish to die…

On a daytripp down to Walvis Bay we climbed the Dune No.7 which is a bit of an afford but gives a great view.

We’ve been riding a lot towards south the last months, so for a change we drove a bit north towards the Brandberg Mountain, passing Cape Cross with its very large seal colony of about 250,000 animals. For some random reasons motorbikes are not allowed on the road to the cape, but our combined persuasion skills convinced the gate keeping lady to let us through. We promised her to tell anyone, oh well…

It was the time of the year were the seals get their young and the colony was crowded with seal pups. Sounds sweat? Nope. Plenty of them die, this plus the almost unbearable stench of the colony is pretty disgusting.