Day 6: Mountain Mechanical Mecca almost to Uncle Ben’s famous road down
Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses.
Opuwo is a thoroughly uninspiring town of dubious distinction. Plonked down more or less in the centre of far northern Namibia, it is as close as that part of the country comes to a metropolis. It’s dirty, infested with all the downsides of dysfunctional urbanisation, and a stark contrast to the unspoilt remote wilderness that surrounds it on all sides.
But - for travellers at least - there’s an oasis on top of a mountain, looking over the dramatic scenery to the north, and into Angola: Opuwo Country Lodge.
We’d spent an awful lot of time there in 2013 - it was the launchpad for our Angola trip. We decamped there after a dreadful three day drive north, and promptly discovered Tom’s bike had a hydraulic clutch problem. We then wasted half a day sourcing baby oil to keep his KTM happy, and set off, only to be stranded by a broken side stand switch, and tow it back there with our tail between our legs a day later. We couldn’t fix the stricken machine, and were eventually forced to abandon the forlorn Englishman and ride off to the border with our touring party in tatters.
The place seems to have a strange, dark, magnetic power… my return two weeks later was at the end of a hellish 18-hour ride through the desert in a freezing mid-winter night, so hopped up on painkillers and anti-inflammatories I hardly knew my own name, after a horrible crash the afternoon before on the other side of the border.
Time to meet the Lord of the Mountain: would he prove to be Satan or Saviour this time??
The Professor was in no mood to mess about. He knew his bike was in bad shape and we weren’t going to be able to go anywhere until it got sorted. Job number one - strip and find the source of the issue.
Well, that didn’t take long:
I’m afraid I have to question the wisdom of whichever mechanical genius designed this ‘rally’ (and that’s one huge set of inverted commas) fairing subframe. The thin-walled, mild steel bracket clamps around the steerer tube, and bolts onto the radiator mount studs with two tiny 6mm bolts. Designed to carry only the weight of the radiators, these simply can’t take the pace and just break. The frame follows soon after.
I’d seen several of these things go down at successive Amageza’s, but Prof had had so many hassles with the bike in the lead up to the trip I didn’t have the heart to tell him he should replace this entire fairing subframe too. There simply wasn’t the time or the resources - I’m certain he would have bailed from the whole venture.
So I held thumbs and hoped. Well that worked out well.
Fortunately, we were now at the Mechanical Mountain Mecca otherwise known as Opuwo Lodge, and were graciously allowed access to the workshop. What transpired there was nothing short of a miracle.
Stripped off the bike, several pieces of rusty angle iron were cut, bent, and welded in place to support the offending bracket.
It was a truly incredible and outstanding experience to see what these artisans were capable of. Properly braced, supported, and even better than new!
I honestly wouldn’t have expected more from the best specialist engineering shop in Cape Town, and this was accomplished with nothing more than a hammer, a large angle grinder and a pretty basic welding machine. Just brilliant!
In the meantime I gave the 500 some love - having decided that 3,000km without an oil change would be a bit hard on the old girl, and carried two litres of Motorex’s finest for just this moment.
Two of the three KTMs were now getting mechanical attention (OK, one was routine, but still), while the two Suzukis on the trip were happily munching grass in the paddock. So Thomas decided to pop down to the workshop to gloat, and babble on about the superiority of Japanese machinery. None of that hydraulic clutch nonsense for him this time…
… until he came to a halt in front of us and made a nasty discovery:
Oops. What is this thing about Opuwo, clutches and the expats? The Suzie had had a shitload of loving mechanical attention showered on her prior to departure… but somehow that had not included an inspection of the state of the vital clutch cable.
In a remarkable feat of déjà vu, Tom was bundled into the lodge van and taken down to the mecca of Opuwo to look for a replacement.
A beautiful trio?
Meanwhile, Gav’s saviours set about drilling out the offending bolt.
Unfortunately that’s the end of my photos here, but a stud was welded in the frame of the 690 which did the job for the rest of the trip. Tom unfortunately returned empty handed from town, but in a turn of mechanical genius a bobble was soldered on the end of his frayed cable and the Suzie was back on the road.
We shook the dust off our feet before anything else could go wrong, and exited stage left to the Opuwo fuel station.
The Professor looked a lot happier than the day before… just maybe our luck had turned:
Midge, as usual, was getting all the attention:
But English returned empty-handed from his search for a bicycle cable, or anything to stand in for a clutch cable, should the solder bobble not survive the next ten days.
We’d just have to wing it. What’s the worst that could happen?
Our original plan was to spend the night in Epupa. I had charted a somewhat dodgy looking track over the mountains down to Swartbooi’s drift (the green line on the map above). I knew it was dubious that we’d be able to get down on the far side, but was gagging to give it a go, and the crocs and river bed enduro of the Cunene River trail also lay in wait.
But we’d lost most of another day - it was mid afternoon already - and we had to face the reality that a day or two had to be got back somewhere. The decision was made to cut off the entire Epupa loop, and head straight for Okongwati, at the start of the run up to Van Zyl’s pass.
We plugged in the headphones, headed back onto the C43 dirt highway and banged it over to the ‘Gwati, where we’d fill up before hitting one of the more remote quadrants of the trip.
Behold the Engen of Okangwati:
Beats hanging sacks of fuel off the back of an enduro bike, that’s for sure!
On we went to towards the pass. Many of you here have probably done this section of the track - it’s a lovely, rocky trail through thorn bushes and past small Himba hamlets. Tom had a slightly wild look in his eyes and was shaking off the disturbance of his mechanical misfortune by dicing the Midge at the front. I pottered along at the back, soaking in the tranquil afternoon. It was a special few hours, as the sun slowly sank towards the tree-lined horizon, casting a warm glow over everything, including my state of mind.
Perhaps it was the symbolic turning point of the trip, even though we weren’t quite half way in terms of time - from tomorrow we’d be heading south. We’d had some bad luck and dealt with it victoriously. It often takes a few days to leave the cares and concerns of normal life behind, and sink into the magical zone of a bike trip, and I felt like I was just there. Happy days ahead.
We camped in another stunning river bed, and braaied some fresh meat from Opuwo. Tomorrow was going to be a great day!
Topic: Travels through God’s own motorcycle country (Read 41865 times)
