Karen1 April
Our trip started off with a very hectic packing session, trying to finish up all work, then concentrating on fitting all our camping gear, as well as sailing stuff, and rain/thermal gear for all weathers, into only two bike panniers and a top box!
To ease our departure, we had deliberately chosen a very close first destination – Mwandi View, only 70 km or so away. The aim being to psychologically depart from Kasane/work/home, while not having the pressure of a long ride, and being conveniently close to the Namibian border for the next day. Had a great evening with our friends Anton and Amelia, enjoying a good few glasses of wine, the best sunsets on the floodplain, and Anton’s traditional after dinner “ambience” session around the fire!
2 April – Epic Sands!
After a really easy border crossing into Namibia, we stopped in Katima for essential shopping, for example – Lindt dark chocolate, a luxury not often available in Kasane, as well as the highly recommended and cool “Aweh Gig” data package for my Namibian sim card. Our previous trip caused huge bills on Botswana Mascom data roaming so we felt oh so in control and efficient, getting our local sim and data sorted!
The Trans-Caprivi Highway was uneventful, stopping only for a fine dining lunch, and to test the much awaited Ahweh Gig – which, sadly, was an epic fail! Hello Mascom roaming for the obligatory social media photograph of biker chocolate lunch!
| To Ngepi Camp As we turned off to Ngepi, I was apprehensive about the upcoming sand road, and rightfully so, as we immediately encountered some thick sand and the bike promptly fell over! After this rather rude awakening, we managed to get through the 4.5km of thick, deep sand all the way in to the camp by trial and error, and judging ahead when I should get off and walk. If not judged in time, the bike would go over, we would pick it up together, and I would walk until we found firm ground again. In the intense heat of a Caprivi afternoon, striding purposefully through thick sand in full “Stig” bike gear was quite a sauna-like experience! |  |
By the time we arrived and set up our camp, we were ready for an ice cold glass of wine and a relaxing evening alongside the beautiful Kavango River, while having a good laugh at ourselves and planning our strategic escape for the next morning.. We were lucky to actually only experience 3 bike falls in total on the way in, and aimed to reduce our target to zero the next day!
3 April – Tyre Drama!
We decided to treat the sand as if it was Botswana Savuti sand, and departed as early as we could from Ngepi, for the sand to be as cool as possible, and with just a few well timed walking sessions by me, we were happy to make it to the tar road without any mishaps! We visited the Divundu filling station in preparation for the 200km trip to Rundu. I tried unsuccessfully to purchase water at the shop, as all they could produce was very un bike-friendly 5 litre bottles, and looked for some sort of decent food but unfortunately had to settle for some cans of red Sparberry “rooikooldrank” (another luxury unavailable in Kasane) and some packets of crisps. After enjoying this very nutritious breakfast at a lay-bye, we took off again for Rundu, commenting on the lovely quiet road, with no traffic. Suddenly Tiennie felt the bike behaving strangely and decided to pull over to the next lay-bye in order to check out the rear tyre. Our worst fears had been realized, as we discovered the tyre was punctured/cut beyond repair. To make matters worse we were stranded in a treeless spot, in the middle of nowhere, right in between two towns. Tiennie’s many Macgyver gadgets on board unfortunately did not touch sides with repairing this tyre, but part of the ongoing learning curve realized that if we had been carrying a tube he would have been able to inflate this inside the tyre, and we could have limped on to Rundu. Sadly, however, we were out of options and realized we were now an immobile one-wheeled bike!!.
Sadly the Aweh Geeg data was seriously getting on our nerves as it still did not work, but our priceless roaming data, and a squeak of cellphone signal gave us just enough to do a Google search, revealing the phone number of Trentyre in Rundu, and connected us with the lovely Ernest, manager of the trye branch. Who did not sell bike tyres.. ..nor did anybody else in Rundu! However, thanks to Ernest’s contacts, several phonecalls later we had networked our way into getting a second hand bike tyre of our particular size, (uncommon for this part of the world), couriered up all the way from Grootfontein, to Ernest’s shop in Rundu, and a towing service was on its way to fetch us.
While all the negotiations, arrangements and phoning were going on, we felt somewhat vulnerable in the blazing sun, in the middle of nowhere in the “wrong” country, on a road with what previously felt like a good thing – very little traffic! And no water (thanks to the Divundu shop!) We had a bit of a Bear Grylls moment or two pondering our survival skills (negligible) and made a tactical decision to flag down self-drive tourists or anybody for water supplies. Along came a Namibian woman and her two children, smartly dressed, walking between villages – but, before I could initiate the survivalist move, she beat me to it by making a beeline for me, and thoughtfully and kindly asking “do you have some water?” resulting in a bit of a stalemate once I realized she was not offering but asking for some herself! After agreeing we both had the same problem, we parted company with some puzzled looks on her part.. I knew she was mentally rating us very low on the survivalist skills scale! We retreated with our camping chairs to the nearest bit of shade that we could find, quite a way off the road.
During the long wait for rescue, another notch on the learning curve occurred, and Tiennie has now proved that he can separate the tyre from the rim on the side of the road with brute force and some small bike-modified tyre levers, instead of the previous known method at home, which had involved driving our Pajero up and down on top of the tyre and rim until they parted company!
After being located in our deserted spot by a screeching fast Hilux and low bed trailer, we made the acquaintance of our rescuer, missing a few top teeth, and soon to be named “Kamikaze Chris”.
We had pre-initiated extreme survivalist procedures, and had asked for our rescuer to please bring 2 litres of water, so after taking possession of our water, were starting to feel a bit more streetwise and regaining a bit of self respect!
We then had the mind-blowing experience of sitting in the back of the rescue vehicle on a mattress, watching the bike tearing along behind us at breakneck speed standing bolt upright in the middle of its trailer! We (unfortunately) had the GPS with us, and Tiennie clocked a maximum speed of 139km per hour with special accelerations and speed-ups for each 60 zone we encountered!! I was holding onto my trusty Saint Christopher for dear life, and was so grateful to have him there as backup to protect us! Tiennie pointed out that the bike was now flying down the Trans Caprivi highway much faster than our normal cruising speed, undignifiedly not under its own growling power, but rampaging along on a trailer! It was all rather alarming, and we felt unstable inside the flimsy, canopied rear of the bakkie, to the point where I suggested to Tiennie that we should maybe put on our bike helmets and jackets just in case! We ended up just laughing hysterically, hoping for the best, and never have two people and a bike been so happy to arrive at a tyre place in the outskirts of Rundu!! After handing over a fistful of cash, and a lecture for a smiling and oblivious Kamikaze Chris regarding his driving skills, we went inside to meet our hero, Ernest.
After very kindly offering to drop us off at the nearest recommended accommodation (expensively nice upmarket lodge), Ernest was generous and perceptive enough after a few minutes of chatting, to realize that we were actually on a derailed camping adventure, and so he went totally out of his way and drove us and our luggage all the way out to N’Kwazi campsite on the river (where we had actually camped before in December 2015 and loved). He promised to come and fetch us the next morning at 10.00 in order for us to get back to his shop to meet up with Formula Couriers and the bike tyre delivery. We started to move all our bookings forward one day, and also quickly realized that this far into Namibia, we were operating in a one hour different time zone due to daylight saving time. No matter – sundowner time is anytime on holiday, and we enjoyed ours, looking over the Kavango river to the Angolan shoreline on the other side.
4 April – Tyre Drama resolved
After moving our watches on to reflect Namibian time, and thus being on time for collection by Ernest, a quick fitting at his shop of our miraculous second hand tyre enabled us to rush off to our next destination, Otavi – with a stop en route in Grootfontein where the incredibly annoying “Aweh Gig” was finally conquered by a lady in a random shop (who reminded me so much of one of our own staff back home!) Then a quick visit to the wonderful Johan of Northern Bikes, to thank him in person for having sent our life saving second hand tyre, and to purchase a tube to add to our repair stocks.
Otavi was a lovely place, where we could unpack and sort out our stuff in a private campsite with private ablutions, and enjoy dinner in a fantastic, typically Namibian restaurant. Next day we left early for Lake Oanob, with our aim being to buy a new tyre in Windhoek on the way! We found the recommended tyre place, luckily very close to the highway, and purchased a very well priced “Annakee Wild” tyre, being a bit more off-roady than we were used to, but we didn’t really have a choice so gratefully had it fitted. At this point, I was devastated to discover I had left my vital St Christopher behind at Otavi, that I had worn every single day before now losing it at a very bad time. Being close to tears about my stupidity and the loss of my saint, just days before the nerve-wracking prospect of the upcoming gravel roads, I had take the next step on the journey of letting go of these fears.
