A Tiger In The Desert

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MrBig

Grey Hound
Joined
Sep 18, 2006
Messages
9,410
Reaction score
1
Location
Stellenbosch
Bike
Triumph 955 Tiger
It's one thing to take your better half on the back of a bike. Itâ??s even ok to leave her all dusty and make her sleep in a small tent.
On sand.
Making her drink warm water all day and wearing hot, black clothes can surely just further add to the enjoyment?

But to let her PUSH a 300kg bike in sweltering heat because of MY stupidity is a different story completely!
So I silently swear, plead and pray while bouncing and shaking the green bastard around â?? hopefully squeezing that last drop down his thirsty throat.

He grunts one more time and surges forward with his final breath. Just enough to put us on top of the last hill.
Coasting the last three hundred or so meters into the fuel station I feel the life slowly returning. Phew..
That was close.

During the last couple of years we have done quite a bit of road-tripping with the bike.
Traveling the back roads and mostly gravel and dirt became a preference â?? even if only to escape the craziness of main routes.

For some reason we decided on Namibia over December this year. The criteria was a place with no tourists and cool weather. Zero out of two does not however, create the impression of good planning - but an idea was spawned nonetheless.

To keep the budget within acceptable limits we decided on a combination of camping and whatever else.
It turned out problematic for places like Swakopmund where 90% of quad bikes sold in Africa ended up for the holidays. Almost like a convention. In reality more like a circus..

Iâ??m jumping ahead though.

It would be the Tigers first long distance road trip and he had big shoes to fill after the incredibly awesome Africa Twin we rode before. Day one came rapidly - packed to the max

The Green One almost let us down in spectacular fashion by running out of fuel 1 km short of Klawer. Ok, to be fair it was MY fault. But hell man, that Triple makes for a GREAT ride on a quiet road early in the morning!
Any rider worth his salt would have been hard pressed to stop himself from twisting the ear just that little bit more!

Paying the price for my glut we barely made 280kmâ??s on the tank (where I estimated a range of 340kmâ??s before even using the reserve which should give another 50 odd).

Namibia01.jpg


As anybody who has travelled the odd 700kmâ??s from Cape Town to Noordoewer know â?? thereâ??s not much on the way there. With nothing to distract us we made great time and stopped in Springbok to buy some supplies. It was still too early for lunch and we decided to make straight for the border.
Another entertaining road:
Namibia03.jpg


Apart from the ridiculous heat (we measured around 40 C on the bike while riding) the border crossing was painless. Abiqua is about 12kmâ??s further along the river â?? weâ??ve been there before and they offer wonderful grassed camping right on the bank of the Orange river.

First thing we did was shed the kit and took a dip.
If you go past there I highly recommend them. Friendly people and a bar with cheap beer. What more can one ask for? It was awesome!

Distance for the day: 720kmâ??s

Namibia04.jpg

 
Top