Day 2 - part 1(pictures in this episode can be viewed at better resolution here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmiw29nP)
In the morning we raised at sunrise (i.e. too late as the sun rises in Namibia this time of the year only at about 7:00 am), broke the camp, and went for breakfast at the lodge. Then we geared up and headed for refuel at the Palmwag garage. Justin also wanted to patch the pinchd tube, but they sent us back to the workshop in the lodge to do that. So we went back and while the guys were fixing the tube under Justin’s close supervision, I scavenged in the workshop new bolt for my wonky sidestand and replaced the old bent one (due to some somersaults in Lesotho, which made the sidestand unstable) with the new one, Loctiteing the shit out of it. It made it marginally better, but wobbly sidestand will be a headache for the rest of this trip (I have replaced it now with steel one).
By the time we were done and set-off again, it was past 11:00 am. The late morning starts (usually past 9:00 am if we didn’t have any issues to attend to) unfortunately became the norm and as a result we ended up riding in the heat of the day a lot and often late into the afternoon. I tried to lobby for earlier starts, but came short of physically waking the other two still in the darkness of the morning and eventually just resigned myself to the rhythm of the group. Later on at one or two occasions I even became the cause of late start myself due to some sloppy morning routine. The late starts I think contributed somewhat to some issues we were to run into later on in the trip.
The main highlight of the day was the ride through Little Serengeti and Khowarib Schlucht/Gorge - one of the things I have missed completely on my prior trips. The original plan was to ride through those in the morning and then make it in the afternoon as far as possible on D3705 running between Sesfontein and Kaoko Otavi towards Robbies pass for an overnight bushcamp. Taking into account the long day of riding day before and late start I decided to just complete the morning route and then stop early for overnight at the campsite in Ongongo warm spring (or Warmquelle in German) about 20 km north of exit from Khowarib gorge. Which was only about 160 km or so away, so the plan was to arrive there soon enough to relax a bit in the spring pool, before we push again hard next day. Here is the route:
First 60 km or so we just gunned it up C43 highway towards Sesfontein until we arrived to the track heading east towards Little Serengeti over the nearby mountain range.
We had some fun crossing the mountains, but nothing dramatic and soon made it to the flat plains covered by sparse bush called for some reason Little Serengeti. All the known African critters are supposed to roam there, but we haven’t seen any - maybe with exception of impala or springbok or some such.
Pretty soon though we found remains of an animal that probably have had run into one or two of those critters. Justin, who seemed pretty oblivious to the beautiful scenery we were riding in stopped immediately and roped Bertie into playing with the carcass.
Initially it looked innocuous enough:
But when Justin started to put the bones in his mouth I got alarmed:
So I was quite relieved when they found different, I like to say safer, way to play with the bones:
But I celebrated way too early - it took less then minute for Justin and Bertie to combine the games together and hey presto there was Justin with the bone in his mouth again.
Luckily, like all the little ADHD boys these days, they had attention span of a squirrel, and abandoned their game as soon as they spotted a lizard perched on the swingarm of my 500. Thank heavens they didn't try to lick that...
That kept us busy for about a minute or two and we were off again.
Topic: Capie and Vaalie taken for a ride by dodgy Russian (Read 29484 times)
