Day 2: Felix Unite campsite to quiver tree forest and Mesosaurus Fossil bushcamp.378km, 90% gravel with short tar stint at Keetmanshoop. 8hr day.
Felix Unite is located on the border of the Orange river and the sunrise the following morning provided a beautiful photo oportunity.
After a quick breakfast, we were onto the dirt proper. The plan was to head west and make our way to the Ais-Ais national park.
The roads in Namibia are endless.
By the time we got to Ais-Ais, we were all ready for a snack. Be weary though, these places hit the tourists hard. I paid R20 for a litre of water (Spar/PnP sell 5 litres for R15). I left the store a little annoyed at having to pay so much, and almost choked when Hugo pointed out the free drinking fountain right outside the door that I'd rushed past in my haste to find sustenance.
Ais-Ais is beautiful, but deadly hot. A trio of Indians came strolling along. They'd just completed the 3 day hike through the canyon. We were struggling sitting still in the shade from all the heat; I couldn't imagine hiking in and out of the canyon for 3 days. These guys looked spent, but they were all smiles.
Then it was back on our trusty steeds, heading north towards Keetmanshoop along Namibia's dirt highways.
We spotted something interesting on the side of the road and decided to turn to have a closer look. Alex didn't make the turn and I believe now holds the dubious honour of the first drop of the trip. There would be many more.
Let's go for a spin!
Hey look! Champion spark plugs!
Hugo.
Like a boss.
There was so much wildlife to see in Namibia.
We made our way through Keetmanshoop towards the Quiver tree forest and Giants playground. Both of these turned out to be tourist traps and after my experience at Ais-Ais, I wasn't about to fall prey again. A little further down the road we found accomodation on a farm which had its own unofficial Quiver tree forest. Better still, we were offered an exclusive bushcamp with hot showers and flushing toilets by Giel at the Mesosaurus Fossil Campsites. The only problem was that we had to ride 3km in sand to get there.
Of course, we didn't all make it through the sand without mishap and there was another cloud of dust as one of us went down. It was well worth the struggle though. We camped under (later: beside) a huge camelthorn tree with the biggest weaver-birds' nest I've ever seen. They're cool to look at, but beware the poop when all the birds become active at dusk.
We spent a couple of hours doing minor repairs. Hugo's auxilliary socket wasn't working (blown fuse) and he'd lost half his numberplate. Mark's bike was rattling to pieces and the boiling/hissing sound told me his radiator fan had stopped working (another blown fuse). Fortunately it hadn't boiled dry and there was no damage to the engine. Alex's forks were also starting to develop an ugly oil leak. We cleaned out the crud with a few sheets of paper and some carefull inserting and twisting. The seals were definitely finished though.
This is probably a good time to put in a word about bike choice and preparation. We chose the 650 class because we're all reasonably small, inexperienced guys on student budgets (ie can't handle the cruiseliner 1200s or deathly fast 990s, nor can we afford them!) But we still wanted to be able to cruise effortlessly at over 100km/h all day and the smaller 250 and 400s feel a little strained at those speeds. Then we wanted to keep the number of different models of bikes down to a minimum so we didn't need to carry lots of different types of tools. We considered a lot of different bikes. KTMs, Kawasakis, Suzukis, Hondas, Yamahas and BMWs were all on the table. Eventually we settled on the KLR650 and F650GS Dakar. The others were eliminated on grounds of reliability, cost, availability/popularity. Our chosen steeds performed very well considering what we put them through and I would probably make the same choice again given the option.
I already owned a Dakar, so when I purchased Alex's one on his behalf, I knew to check for the problematic front fork oil seals and they were fine (water pump and steering bearings are some of the other common faults on the Dak). But it seems these seals can fail pretty quickly and with very little warning. Alex's bike was in mint condition before the trip and he didn't want to ruin it with the inevitable fall(s). So we fitted second-hand plastics (from a pre-facelift model, hence the multicolours on his bike) and crashbars. His original plastics are still hanging in the garage, to be refitted when the bike is sold one day. In retrospect, those crashbars are worth their weight in gold. They saved the radiator on at least one occasion and his plastics still look good too.
In the dying afternoon light we went for a bit of a walk to take some pictures...
Nightime around the fire is a special time to reflect on the past day. But I was too tired for long stories and went to bed early
Topic: Noobs in Nam (Read 9960 times)
