Bikes, planes, boats, beers and swamp

All good things have to come to an end and so our journey through Namibia eventually had to end.  Namibia was a real revelation for all of us, a pleasure from the easy border crossing getting into the country, to our last night of camping 20km short of the border. 100s of kilometres of roads which are a biker’s dream!  We posted a few pictures and comments on the Yamaha Tenere Adventure group and one response summed it up perfectly: “When God designed Namibia he had just bought himself a Tenere”.

It wasn’t just the topography, the perfectly maintained gravel roads and the legendary hospitality, Namibia is also spotlessly clean, safe and friendly.  We spent a night in Windhoek, fitted a Kenda Big Block on the back of Pete’s bike and fixed a puncture on mine, and headed east through Gobabis towards Botswana.  We could see that there was a campsite right next to the road just short of the border, our destination for the night.  The start of the journey was surprisingly cold, and my fingers were so numb an hour into the ride that I went straight for the right-turn indicator the moment I saw the “Biltong for Sale” sign.  In the middle of nowhere we were served cappuccinos, biltong, chilli bites and droëwors all by a little man with a pointy beard and a beaded band holding his glasses on. 

Supplies!

Our camp for the night was on a hunting farm called the Kalahari Bush Experience.  The family run farm sold us Oryx steaks, a few bottles of red and set us up perfectly for our final Namibian night.  Namibia just provided for us, a dead hardwood tree on the edge of the camp produced perfect coals, Pete’s leatherman became a very effective set of braai tongs, the red wine disappeared way too quickly, but was quickly replaced by my secret stash of McBains single-malt whiskey – a South African single malt that turned out to be so excellent that nothing remained in the bottle by the end of the evening.  The heavens provided us with a spectacular milky-way show complete with shooting stars.  One of us got lost trying to find their tent – I won’t name and shame the person who’s torchlight we watched disappear into the bush…

A bed for the night

Zen and the art of motorcycle contemplation.  Pete is in love.

Leatherman

Campfire tales

The crossing into Botswana was a pleasure and we were through in 40 minutes.  The first thing to greet us on the Botswana side of the border was a massive billboard that declared that Botswana has a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY TO CORRUPTION!!!! Botswana instantly felt like another country, animals on the road, cows, goats and donkeys.  Our concerns about heavy sandy roads disappeared as we bombed up the tarmac road, with the needle sitting at between 130 and 140, we chewed up the miles and reached Maun and the Old Bridge Backpackers in the mid-afternoon. 

The Old Bridge is an awesome location, on the Tamlakani River with a big old fig tree holding pride of place on its banks.  The bar entertains a collection of weary overlanders, bushy-tailed backpackers and eccentric locals who prop up the bar from about 9am and reminded me of characters from a Tarantino film.  We were directed straight to a campsite with another biker – Ashley is an Australian who is on a 2-year journey on a KLR from Cape Town back to Australia.  We hit it off instantly and commented on the fact that we weren’t meeting more motorcycle overlanders – he mentioned that the only other one he had met to date was Mike the Soloscooterist – but while Mike has already bombed through Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania, Ashley is still in Botswana taking advantage of the benefits of time…  Ashley hadn’t yet named his bike, and it didn’t take us long to name it Shrek – a fitting name for the delightfully ugly green machine with a set of lungs on it that even made Pavarrrrrrottti seem quiet.

Meeting Shrek - Good luck Ashley!

We are getting better at setting camp, with our tents up in record time, we scraped the bugs off our helmets and settled down for a few cold St Louis beers and discussed our options for the next day.  We were spoiled for choice, experience the delta on horseback, by mocorro (a dugout canoe poled through the delta), a scenic flight or an elephant back safari.  We decided on a scenic flight followed by a sunset cruise.  In the morning just before we set off for the airport there were two back-packing blondes asking about getting onto a flight – the receptionist suggested that they go with us and before we knew it Pete and I had similar pillion accoutrements to Gary.  We delivered our new passengers to the airport safely and stepped onto an 8-seater plane piloted by Marcus who took us on an hour-long flight over the delta.  The view from the air was fantastic, we saw herds of elephant with 30-plus animals, hippos wallowing in the rivers, giraffe grazing, and a village deep within the delta.  We flew around Chief’s island and headed back to Maun.  Pete and my bad-ass biker credentials were further tested as it turned out that the two hot blondes we had picked up and whizzed through Maun were a gay couple teaching in Lilongwe.

Scenic flighers

Delta elephants

Delta scenes

GoPro Elephants

Psycho bodaboda

After a failed search for a Magnum ice-cream for Pete, we headed back to the Old Bridge and boarded our boat for our sunset cruise.  Armed with a cooler box of beers and red wine, we cruised up the river and played with the GoPros and the cameras as the light painted the sky and swamps a kaleidoscope of colours.  So far this trip we have probably averaged 1 photo / km, but our boat trip quickly smashed any previous records.

Kavango aquatic K9

Sunset and spray

Reflecting on the delta

Charlies Hell's Angels

The next morning we headed towards the Makgadikgadi pans,  planning to camp the night in the middle of the pans.  The surface of the pan was reported to be hard packed during the dry season, and easy to ride on, but the approach road to the pan was another story, we were greeted by deep sand and as I led us out I rounded a corner and dropped Placido in a deep sand drift in a swift manoeuvre that saw me stepping clear of the bike before I even knew what had happened.  We now finally all own our bikes with each of the three tenors having been  dropped at some point during the trip.  Back in the saddle we headed on for another 100m when Gary and Debbie took a big tumble, and Gary got his foot caught under the pannier, twisting it 180 degrees in the wrong direction.  Tough as a piece of Elephant biltong, Gary was determined to press on, but the sand was relentless and we weren’t too sure that we were still headed in the right direction.  We eventually decided to head back to town before getting ourselves even deeper into trouble, and to take stock of the damage.  Planet Baobab has provided our camp for the night, replete with a 15-foot aardvark.  Gary’s foot seems to be on the mend –some ligament damage but no broken bones.  Debbie’s bright pink camera took a face plant in the sand and wasn’t working anymore – a potential tragedy for African Horizons.  Panic Mechanic Peter Pleitz got to work on it with the only tools he had, and spent a good hour blowing and sucking on Debbie’s bright pink equipment.  It’s working better than ever now!  Tonight we’ll help Gary drown his pain, no biker left behind!