Karen22 April – Langebaan to Goegap
We had another manic packing session, seeing a lot of clothes being donated to the homeless shelter of Langebaan, and much cursing of the irritating thermal and rain gear that take up so much space, but they were grudgingly put back in.. At Velddrif we turned inland, saying goodbye to the ocean and headed back to Goegap. Once again the mad dash was on to shop and still make the crazy 1600 gate closing hour, but this time, we also had the marvellous opportunity to fully test our petrol reserve tank limits, thanks to a simple error of judgement – forgetting to refuel at a strategic point. We were therefore obliged to cruise along the quiet and empty road at a gentle 60km per hour, floating sedately through the mountain curves, and conserving fuel like crazy! A last ditch attempt to find fuel in Kamieskroon was frustrated by finding the one and only petrol pump had closed at midday, and not a soul was stirring in the little dusty out of season dorp, which was all rather depressing, so definitely once again noted the desire to return in flower season, just to hopefully see a bit of life back in the place!
So.. on the smell of an oil-rag we chugged gently into Springbok, and landed thirstily at the first filling station we saw! Once topped up with fuel, we roared off to our friendly OK store, and this time managed to even squeeze in a bottle of wine, a good tradeoff for that left behind clothing!
One of the best things about Goegap is that it is such a rough and basic place that we are usually just about the only people there. I am sure it gets busy in flower season, but whenever we have been there, it’s been isolated and lovely, just what we enjoy. When we arrived, Tiennie noticed the tread on the cool Anakkee offroady tyre was suddenly disappearing at a rapid rate. Decided to monitor it closely, in order to avoid another Tyre Drama! Here we also managed to acquire our first dent, by a freak occurrence of the bike falling over on the uneven gravelly sand, and unfortunately landing on its own pannier that was just in the way! Nice dent in the fuel tank but it could have been much worse!
Incredible sunsets at Goegap Nature Reserve
23 April – Goegap to Molopo
Due to some weird misinformation from the Garmin software on my Mac, we ended up doing rather more mileage than we had planned on this day! However, the route via Upington to the border of the Trans Kalahari Park was absolutely incredible, and totally unexpected. The red sand dunes suddenly appeared, and just rolled away on either side for kilometre after kilometre, with hardly another vehicle in sight! The pale tops of the roadside grasses were glowing through the afternoon sun, just stunning!
At the same time, it became quite ridiculously chilly, in fact freezing on the bike! We were having to breathe deeply to keep the compulsive shivering at bay… and, during periodic stops, some serious anarchy was taking place on the Annakee tyre, as we found we were almost down to just a few millimetres of tread! We arrived, freezing cold, in the dying hours of the day at Molopo Lodge, and decided to abandon the camping idea, booked into a warm, luxurious chalet, and enjoyed the best dinner in their fabulous, cozy restaurant filled with interesting artefacts, and hearty German-style menu!
24 April – Molopo to Cornwall Lodge, Botswana
Up early in the morning, we started Googling urgently for suppliers of motorbike tyres in Gaborone – obviously being familiar with the way things work in Botswana, we needed to get a tyre ordered asap so as to make sure there could be one available by the time we arrived there. The guys at Yamaha did a fantastic job of ordering “that” sized tyre for us from Joburg with a promise that it could well be there in time for our arrival in a few days time! Future avoidance of tyre drama assured, we put on lots of warm clothes and jumped onto the bike for the crossing into Botswana and destination Cornwall Lodge and Campsite!
Another stunning route, through Gemsbok border post (Bokspits on Bots side) and along the continuation of the red dunes all the way to Tsabong, where we stopped for fuel.
Cattle gave way to camels on the road outside Tsabong, quite fascinating to encounter! We found the road to Cornwall Lodge, which turned out to be a very unsuitable gravel road for our type of bike! We lost the rear mudguard, and an exhaust bracket holding down bolt, as well as being shaken into a million pieces! By the time we got to Cornwall, we really could not face putting up our tent so once again succumbed to lodging rather than camping! Had a lovely evening outside with a romantic table for two, and a home cooked meal produced by the very welcoming Sindi!
25 April – Cornwall Lodge to Gaborone
I am happy to report that the thermal gear that we had been grudgingly lugging for the whole month, was hauled out along the way, and we had to park off in a lay bye, and completely re-do our layers of clothing from ground zero up, as it was seriously very, very, very cold! After this we felt a lot better, and fortified by lunch in a warm Nandos takeaway restaurant in Jwaneng, we were up to the last stretch to Gaborone!
So good to finally arrive at our home away from home – Mokolodi Backpackers. A friendly welcome from the staff as always there, as well as our favouite ducks, pig, dogs and cats!
Gabs traffic!
We had a dinner invitation by Nigel and Fran, and as ever in order to get to their place, we had to do battle with the Gabs rush hour traffic and get past the horrible Molapo Crossing intersection. At this point I experienced yet another biking first – weaving through the lines of crawling traffic, into the sunset. Having seen bikers doing this, and kind of envying them that freedom, from inside a traffic-trapped vehicle, I truly had really NO idea how incredible this feels!! Although I must admit I was asked to “Kindly.Please.Shut.UP” due to my freaked out and probably very off-putting verbal reactions on the back of the bike!!
After exchanging the bike for a little blue bug car to drive home that night, and for our shopping the next day, unloading a lot of luggage onto our long-suffering friends in order to have it couriered home, and using Nigel’s “Man Cave” for MacGyver to fix the broken bits on the bike, we felt very much more liberated. Yamaha in Gabs pulled out all the stops for us, even personally visiting the courier warehouse to locate our cargo from SA. Once we had the new tyre in place, all was ready for the journey home the next day.
Our last little 1000 km stretch was in sight, and just two major milestones we always wait for on this familiar road – firstly crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, and secondly spotting our first elephant alongside the road… then safe landings in Kasane!
This was an epic 6210 km round trip, anticlockwise from Kasane, as per the map below.
*At some point along the way, Tiennie had a light bulb moment, and suddenly realized this bike trip was actually one of his forever “bucket list” dreams! We certainly both enjoyed it to the fullest and learned a lot from all our mistakes and experiences on the road. Our later bike trips have benefitted greatly as a result, and we have done a couple more since this trip, although not on such a grand scale.. yet…
I have been given the green light for my own Bucket List trip destination– of course I have a multitude of these – so watch this space in due course!!
If you have made it this far… thanks so much for reading our journal, the first of more to come!
