SchalkL
Race Dog
I am not a very good writer (especially english) but here goes:
Trip Start 24 Sept and end 5 Oct: NAT bash Molopo (Suppose I am a bit late with my RR :
)
Route: Southern part of Namibie to places that was recommended by trip reports and members of this forum. Tx for everyone's input!!
Distance: 4000km (95% Gravel)
Riders: Solo trip
Bike: 1200GS fitted with quite a few protection accessories
Luggage: Trax Panniers, Vario Topbox, Bags Connection bag,
Tyres: Mitas E07 (new)
Navigation: Garmin Zumo 350, T4A Paper map
Accomodation: Camping & Chalet (depending on mood and availability)
Day One:
Molopo Logdge, 10 days before the NAT Bash.
My trusty steed early awaits:
Backup plan:
Day Two:
Molopo Lodge - Haakskeenpan - Rietfontein border crossing - Karasburg - Firsh River Canyone
Hakskeenpan:
To Karasburg the road immediately started looking like this - Fantastic!
You cross a lot of dry riverbeds. A bit sad but also have a calming effect on the butterflies in my stomach thats been building up over the last few days.
The countryside started to change a little bit with more hils, corners and bushes. A word of WARNING! If you ever do this road you can propably do 160 on the straigts but the your chances of getting killed by a Kudu or other wildlife crossing is 50/50. I normaly like to go a bit faster than is common sense but sticked to around 100km/h on my whole trip. Funny enough it did not bother me at all to go a bit slower, I really enjoyed these roads a lot!
Between Karasburg and Fishriver canyone
Canyone Restaurant :- I think the owner of this is propably missing
My campsite and Hobas campsite 10km from the Canyone itself. Campsite was neat and clean with a little shop but LOTS of tourists in busses and no warm water due to that.
It was national braai day in SA and I did not miss out.
A few pics of the Fish River Canyon
Stopped at Ai Ais the next morning for breakfast and its a lovely place. Next time round I will definitely treat myself a bit stay here:
Following is few pics of the road to Rosh Pinah. This part of the trip was one of my favourites. The surrounding and the somehow beautiful loneliness of it all is something you can't describe.
From Rosh Pinah your are forced to do 160km of tar to Aus. Pure hell, if the cops caught me on that stretch I would still be in jail.
At least a nice stopover halfway there..
At last Aus. And then I realised I had to do another 100km of tar to Luderitz. I thought about skipping the town as it is a in and out stay over
I suppose if you have been to Luderitz you've seen it but what a suprise. I loved this place. At the end I stayed 2 nights.
On my way the wind nearly blew me of the bike so I did not feel like camping. I found this cottage belonging to Nam wildlife, flippen nice for something like R100.
The view from my cottage.
And then I went to the Oyster Bar, from the outside a scruffy place at the harbour but nice inside and then the oysters, WOW. I eat oysters from time to time but not mad about it. HA, I went back 3 times to this place and even asked if they could send it fresh to SA.
Pic of boat outside bar that I thought looked cool
Being surprised by the wildlife cottage, I decided to go and have a look at there campsite. Fantastic! I think you just need to pick your spot carefully to avoid the wind. Following a few pics on and from this campsite.
Now this is a little treasure in town. The Diaz Coffee shop. Excellent coffee and german cakes and stuff. Also free wifi.
The compulsory visit to Kolmannskuppe. They have a tour around 9:30 in the morning which is really worthwhile doing.
The station masters house. Let me tell you, they lived in style. There is even a small railway track from the station at the bottom which was used to bring lemonade and cake up to the house teatime. I love the layout of this house, all the rooms have doors leading into the next room.
Next stop was the lighthouse.
Ok, cheers Luderitz. On my way back to Aus. Got so fedup with the tar that I did some stretches on a gravel road running parallel nex to the railway line.
Breakfast at the hotel in Aus, not bad.
Now on my way to the famous sandy D707 towards Sesriem. This part of the trip was worrying me a bit since i was riding solo.
Well, turned out to be not so hectic. Its sandy YES, but no thick sand and if you keep the GS at around 80km/h it just cuts through it.
I passed just 1 car (Avis T Corolla) on this road, the tour busses normally take the Helmeringhausen route.
On my way to Sossusvlei I stopped at Betta. Lovely campsite. I want to build myself a lapa like this!
From here onwards the sand is gone and it turns to this grey slippery gravel. You need to ride it the same way as sand (around 80km/h) but all I could think of was that in the sand it should be a fairly soft landing, on this stuff my bike will be ruined.
So I reached Sesriem, which is the reception for Sossusvlei for those that don't know. What a f..up! Flippen tourists everywhere you look. I wanted to come go Sossusvlei for a long time so went to reception, asked about the tour bus and the answer was: Yes sir, we have bus that takes 6 people at R300 per person but since you are the only booking you need to pay R1800. Needless to say I am not paying that to see a dried up pan with some dead trees in it. Oh, yes, when I entered the gate a 150yeard old guard stopped me and said: Onthou net, jy ga nie met daai scooter in hierie warm sand ka ry nie, jy sal vrek.
BUT you have to wait for the rest, took me months to do this bit, need a day or two to put the rest together :biggrin:
Trip Start 24 Sept and end 5 Oct: NAT bash Molopo (Suppose I am a bit late with my RR :
)Route: Southern part of Namibie to places that was recommended by trip reports and members of this forum. Tx for everyone's input!!
Distance: 4000km (95% Gravel)
Riders: Solo trip
Bike: 1200GS fitted with quite a few protection accessories
Luggage: Trax Panniers, Vario Topbox, Bags Connection bag,
Tyres: Mitas E07 (new)
Navigation: Garmin Zumo 350, T4A Paper map
Accomodation: Camping & Chalet (depending on mood and availability)
Day One:
Molopo Logdge, 10 days before the NAT Bash.
My trusty steed early awaits:
Backup plan:
Day Two:
Molopo Lodge - Haakskeenpan - Rietfontein border crossing - Karasburg - Firsh River Canyone
Hakskeenpan:
To Karasburg the road immediately started looking like this - Fantastic!
You cross a lot of dry riverbeds. A bit sad but also have a calming effect on the butterflies in my stomach thats been building up over the last few days.
The countryside started to change a little bit with more hils, corners and bushes. A word of WARNING! If you ever do this road you can propably do 160 on the straigts but the your chances of getting killed by a Kudu or other wildlife crossing is 50/50. I normaly like to go a bit faster than is common sense but sticked to around 100km/h on my whole trip. Funny enough it did not bother me at all to go a bit slower, I really enjoyed these roads a lot!
Between Karasburg and Fishriver canyone
Canyone Restaurant :- I think the owner of this is propably missing
My campsite and Hobas campsite 10km from the Canyone itself. Campsite was neat and clean with a little shop but LOTS of tourists in busses and no warm water due to that.
It was national braai day in SA and I did not miss out.
A few pics of the Fish River Canyon
Stopped at Ai Ais the next morning for breakfast and its a lovely place. Next time round I will definitely treat myself a bit stay here:
Following is few pics of the road to Rosh Pinah. This part of the trip was one of my favourites. The surrounding and the somehow beautiful loneliness of it all is something you can't describe.
From Rosh Pinah your are forced to do 160km of tar to Aus. Pure hell, if the cops caught me on that stretch I would still be in jail.
At least a nice stopover halfway there..
At last Aus. And then I realised I had to do another 100km of tar to Luderitz. I thought about skipping the town as it is a in and out stay over
I suppose if you have been to Luderitz you've seen it but what a suprise. I loved this place. At the end I stayed 2 nights.
On my way the wind nearly blew me of the bike so I did not feel like camping. I found this cottage belonging to Nam wildlife, flippen nice for something like R100.
The view from my cottage.
And then I went to the Oyster Bar, from the outside a scruffy place at the harbour but nice inside and then the oysters, WOW. I eat oysters from time to time but not mad about it. HA, I went back 3 times to this place and even asked if they could send it fresh to SA.
Pic of boat outside bar that I thought looked cool
Being surprised by the wildlife cottage, I decided to go and have a look at there campsite. Fantastic! I think you just need to pick your spot carefully to avoid the wind. Following a few pics on and from this campsite.
Now this is a little treasure in town. The Diaz Coffee shop. Excellent coffee and german cakes and stuff. Also free wifi.
The compulsory visit to Kolmannskuppe. They have a tour around 9:30 in the morning which is really worthwhile doing.
The station masters house. Let me tell you, they lived in style. There is even a small railway track from the station at the bottom which was used to bring lemonade and cake up to the house teatime. I love the layout of this house, all the rooms have doors leading into the next room.
Next stop was the lighthouse.
Ok, cheers Luderitz. On my way back to Aus. Got so fedup with the tar that I did some stretches on a gravel road running parallel nex to the railway line.
Breakfast at the hotel in Aus, not bad.
Now on my way to the famous sandy D707 towards Sesriem. This part of the trip was worrying me a bit since i was riding solo.
Well, turned out to be not so hectic. Its sandy YES, but no thick sand and if you keep the GS at around 80km/h it just cuts through it.
I passed just 1 car (Avis T Corolla) on this road, the tour busses normally take the Helmeringhausen route.
On my way to Sossusvlei I stopped at Betta. Lovely campsite. I want to build myself a lapa like this!
From here onwards the sand is gone and it turns to this grey slippery gravel. You need to ride it the same way as sand (around 80km/h) but all I could think of was that in the sand it should be a fairly soft landing, on this stuff my bike will be ruined.
So I reached Sesriem, which is the reception for Sossusvlei for those that don't know. What a f..up! Flippen tourists everywhere you look. I wanted to come go Sossusvlei for a long time so went to reception, asked about the tour bus and the answer was: Yes sir, we have bus that takes 6 people at R300 per person but since you are the only booking you need to pay R1800. Needless to say I am not paying that to see a dried up pan with some dead trees in it. Oh, yes, when I entered the gate a 150yeard old guard stopped me and said: Onthou net, jy ga nie met daai scooter in hierie warm sand ka ry nie, jy sal vrek.
BUT you have to wait for the rest, took me months to do this bit, need a day or two to put the rest together :biggrin:
