Adrenaline rush

How long can an adrenaline rush last?  Between the Fish River Canyon and Sossusvlei we road on the slipperiest surface I ever imagine possible, and we rode on it for hours and hours and hours.  Even Gun-it-Gary slowed down to 80Kph, unheard of in the annals of history.  The theory of twist the throttle if it gets wobbly worked, but sometimes the wobble continued through the twist, eventually you’re at the end of your throttle twist and the wobble is still there.  Directional Stability is the jargon of the day – the theory that your momentum will get you through any trouble as long as you keep the power on – and keep your wheels spinning for their added gyroscopic effect.  The counter-intuitive lesson for this road came from Pete – ride your rear brake while accelerating and the bike straightens up – strange but true!

Debbie, who has been unruffled and totally cool – able to simultaneously surf the web on her iPad, take photos, adjust the GoPro on Gary’s helmet and smoke an e-cigarette while Gun-it-Gary drifts through the bends, even Debbie was rattled by this road.  The only person who hasn’t appeared to be rattled is my dad, he’s just cool, cruising along, keeping up with the pace, never more than 5 minutes off.  The little blue squirrel has been officially renamed – the little blue fox – with the 3 hounds chasing it.  It goes to show that you don’t need to spend a fortune on a state of the art machine and do loads of mods to it, this incredible little machine just does its job effortlessly, suites my dad perfectly. He is putting us all to shame, taking a stock standard 11 year old hair-dressers bike with road biased tyres and just doing this trip at 70 years old is a humbling thing to observe. Gary is even talking about getting one and using it to make the KTM/Husaberg gang feel inferior – something I fully support. 

The hounds chasing the little blue fox down the slippery road

The adrenaline rush couldn’t come soon enough because our first night of camping at the Cañon Roadhouse at the Fish River Canyon was so cold the it had slowed our metabolic systems down to a virtual hibernation.  Pete wouldn’t shut-up about not having used his hot-water bottle. Our journey from the Canyon to Sossusvlei was slightly delayed because Dirty-Gary’s air filter was so manky that he had to give it a full diesel bath and even then it still wasn’t clean.  Just before our take-off we refuelled and I spotted a sticker from the soloscooterist on the fuel pump – Mike you’re a legend and we are honoured to be travelling in your 8-inch tyre tracks.

Cold camping in the desert

Homage to Mike the Soloscooterist

We took off at about 11 with the trip from the Canyon took us through more spectacular scenery, the journey to Sossuvlei was a bit too much to bite-off and chew in one sitting and so we spent the night at the Lovedale farm – farmed by the Campbell family since 1840.  This little guest farm provided the perfect respite for the night – great little cottages with geese, peacocks, sheep, horses, cattle, springbok and a 3-legged cat adding to the cast of characters.  We braaied under the milky way, with the African Horizons playlist providing the soundtrack, littered with tunes recommended by friends and followers from around the world.

The scenery today was remarkable again – I know – how many times can we say this???  But today we dropped down from the plateau and the earth turned red and opened up into a wide-open plain that went on until it hit a boundary of mountains on the horizon.  The landscape was dotted with oryx, springbok, vultures and eagles. 

Namibian vistas

Where are all the people in this place?  The total population of Namibia is only 2.1 million, it has a population density of just 2.5 / sq km.  We saw far fewer than that.  Miles and miles of road, and we’ve passed a maximum of 3 vehicles in a day.  You can spot them kilometres away as they kick up a dust plume.  When you do see them they irritate you, their approach means you have to get into the right lane - this might sound like an easy manoeuvre, but it is a terrifying experience as it often means riding over piles of stones, as round as ball bearings and as high as the Himalayas, with the bike wiggling and snaking through them.  In the middle of one of these lane crossings I had to practice a full emergency braking manoeuvre as an Oryx appeared out of nowhere on my right and crossed right in front of me.  Majestic creatures, their long horns . 

I wasn’t the only one with animal stories, Gary and Debbie got amazing footage of vultures struggling to take off ahead of them, Pete made an Oryx run into a fence, and my dad nearly killed a little bird.  My near-encounter with the Oryx was harmless in comparison.

Few days will compare with this.  It was such a good day that Pete had a Magnum ice-cream for breakfast.  Yeah – I know – we were in the middle of the desert – are you seeing a mirage you may be asking…  But I have 3 witnesses – Pete traded in a Nutella sandwich for a magnum ice cream, the stuff that epic road trips are made of.  How bad-ass are we?

Mr Magnum

We made it to Sessriem– the jump-off point to the Sossusvlei dune field.  While refuelling and watching Pete eat his second Magnum of the day we heard the distinctive sound of a big BMW GS approaching, the back was piled high with gear and as it turn to pull up to the pump a side-car appeared attached to it.  Of course they were Bavarians – who else would travel 3-up through Africa on a motorcycle and side-car carrying everything you need to establish a colony every night.  Pete felt an immediate affinity and rattled away with them in their native tongue, discussing stossdaempfer (shock absorbers) and wellblech (corrugations).  They started off in Nairobi 4 months ago, and when we said that our destination was Nairobi, they warned us against it – saying it was a complete dump.  Oh well – its home…