GG
Race Dog
It started as Pierreâ??s wish to do 7 countries in 7 days. My mind was willing but my butt had different thoughts after my recent Namibia trip! So it ended up as 5 countries in 7 days taking in a little of the Okavango, Vic Falls, Chobe and the Magkadigkadi pans, full enough itinerary for me. Mostly tar and 3 500 kms and a trip that saw an elephant mock charge Pierres bike from about 15 metres, the mighty Vic Falls, and us braving an unplanned Zimbabwe border!
Day 1: The KTM and the Kalahari
Saturday am we left in the dark and hit the Trans Kalahari highway
The trans Kalahari is so flat and straight you can see you pension coming. This was the boring part, the entertainment coming in the form of Anton on an Adventure, Rika on a GS and Henry on a KTM at Kang on their way to fight sand monsters in Namibia!
Henryâ??s KTM obliged and let him down to the great joy of the BMW adventures team! But weâ??ll leave that story for them to tellâ?¦.
Day 2: Locust and Sand Terns
After a comfy night at the Kalahari Arms in Ghanzi we have breakfast on the road. It beats the Wimpy, the Kalahariâ??s sparse golden grass and a bokkie resting her numb bum!
On the road to Maun the locusts filled the road and the birds eating them filled the air. At times I needed to keep my hand on the hooter to frighten the birds off their feasting and mass kamikaze on my screen. As it was they rose in flocks filling the air with wings and a few unfortunates smacking my screen in puffs of feathers and loud bangs!
We reach the end of a long boring 580 km stretch and Pierre rockets forward onto the sand desperate for his first St Louis beer at Drotskys. Too fast too eager and he went down! My first thought was my camera, Sueâ??s to scramble off the bike while still moving. â??Iâ??ll walkâ? she wailed, while I held onto the rocking bike screaming at her to sit still and breathlessly reaching for the camera. In a life and death situation priorities are importantâ?¦ an unrecorded fall is a tragedy!
The greater sand turn with sand on its beak!
Our second nights stop, Drotskyâ??s cabins on the Okavango river, a beer, a good bed and its another hard day in Africa!
Day 3: Border Buggery
Day 3 dawned with us entering Nambia across Mahango game reserve. As we enter a local informs us to look out for the lions on the side of the road. We saw some nervous Zebra but I think the lions were afraid of us!
We enter the conflict ridden Caprivi strip. Pierre has regaled us with stories from his days in the Mag keeping a bunch of unruly SADF troopies from drowning themselves in the Kavango and the local Cuka shops! Pointing out the roadblocks, bases and laughs of the army we stop on the bridge over the Okavango and head into the old operational areas!
Border guardsâ?? on the bridge..
Every 10 kmâ??s like speed cops, signs warn us of elephant and to keep to 80 km an hour, the road is flat and straight and we canâ??t help cranking along at about 160, but our hands are curled over our brakes like John Wayne on his 6 shooter and our eyes peeled for a leaping kudu or rampaging elephant.
We should have relaxed, we only saw one elephant in the Caprivi!
â?¦. And the lesser scarlet shrike
Nothing prepared us for the buggery at the Zambian border where they slowly skinned us for every dollar or rand we had, R 500 odd per bike for every conceivable cost from carbon pollution to council taxes.
The road to Livingstone from Katima Mulilo used to be a nightmare of potholes and powder dust traps. Itâ??s now a great road with the odd swamp and waterland on both sides.
We head for the Waterfront Hotel in Livingstone which is a ripoff but the cheapest ripoff on the river! And with a great deck on the river. In fact Zambia is very expensive! As we head for our tents a biker strides over, his beard and gritty smile telling a story of a long ride. Heâ??s short of biker company and we meet Willem de Wet, on his way alone down from Cairo. We sit with him long into the night on the deck over the great Zambezi lusting for the places he has traveled from and dream long into the night of the sands of the Sudan and exotic places he has been.
Day 4: Wet T shirt competitions.
The next day is a rest day where we do the tourist thing at Vic falls. The river is full and we walk through the extraordinary rain storm and forest created by the crescendo of water that flies high above the falls and smashes down on the best wet Tshirt show of them all!
Lording it at the Livingstone hotel. Zebras and monkeys share the lawns with the lords and ladies. We have a beer (local) and pretend we belong, although this only lasts as long as it takes to check the prices of the burgers! Mr Livingstone I presume had American Express when he got here?
Day 5: Zim Dollars by the Millions
We leave Livingstone, planning to ride the 85 kâ??s to Kasane and the Chobe Game Reserve , reportedly one of the greatest game concentrations in Africa. But hey this is Africa, we arrive at the ferry 70 kâ??s later and there was a strike. A hundred trucks packed 5 kmâ??s deep on either side of the Zambezi and lots of shouting and screaming by the truckers at the Zambian customs. After our rape in these self same greedy hands I sympathized and held myself back from joining the lynch mob and holding down the customs officials for the eager truckers to return the favour!. Eish but it meant returning to the falls and braving the Zimbabwe border.
All was normal and disappointingly normal at the Zim border although we were fleeced by a very clever con man who first of all convinced us we needed R 60 worth of Zim dollars at the border (untrue no-one not even border officials want Zim dollars) but then proceeded to give us $ 60 000 000 in exchange.
It looked exorbitant until we realized that we should have got $ 600 000 000 for our R60. $ 60 000 000 would not even buy a coke!!!!!!! The dollar bills have a note that they were issued on 1 Jan 2008 and expire on 28 June 2008. Money with a sell by date! Extraordinary!
Vic Falls town in Zimbabwe is a ghost town compared to when I was last here 5 years earlier. A tragedy and very sad to see. The Zim border was actually a pleasure the officials polite and quick compared to the Zambians. Zimbabwe car guardâ?¦..
We make it to Kasane in Botswana 80 kâ??s down the road. The town is packed with SA registered 4x4â??s. We need accommodation but of course true to tradition Pierre has two bike traveling rules:
1. Never book ahead â?? it cramps my style and forces me to follow a planâ?
2. Sleep in a tent! â??Iâ??d rather sleep in a jailâ?
While we drove from lodge to lodge slowly preparing for the local jail, we found our first elephant.
Four lodges and four â??sorry fully booked sirâ? responses later we find a cute little safari camp. Ngida Safaris. Sue and I get the honeymoon suite. A tiny reed hut barely squeezing in a giant double bed with frilly duvet and headboard. This was Grandmas feather bed!
That afternoon we did a boat trip and lorded it at the Chobe safari lodge. The amount of elephants and game quiet fantastic
Day 6: Potholes from Hell
Bikes are not allowed into Chobe National Park but sneaky Pierre has a plan. There is a transit road right through the middle of the park to the Namibian border. We wake at crack of dawn and head down this road through the park. Before we even get to the park we find our first herd of elephant grazing next to the Welcome to Botswana sign
In the park at close quarters we see buffalo, waterbuck, impala, vulture and more elephant. A solitary bull mock charges Sue and I so I blast up the road giggling at Pierre behind us. Pierre stops and a cat and mouse game develops, the elephant trumpets, flaps his ears stomps forward, Pierre prepares to flee, the elephant retreats only to do a mock charge. The size and vulnerability of an elephant from a bike is phenomenal.
We pack and head off to Nata on the edge of the great Makgadikgadi salt pans, the greatest in the world, home to flocks of flamingos and pelicans. The road from Kasane to Nata is one huge pothole, the potholes are as big as a Honda Gold wing and in the glaring heat often hard to see at 160 kâ??s an hour except for the large black skid marks on either side left by trucks and cars At each long skid you can almost see the foot flat on the pedal and some driver going â??oh my fuck the great rift valley just moved to Botswanaâ? before a resounding crash and biting half their tongue off!
We slowed to about a 100 flipping our bikes through and around the potholes giving the odd crawling 4 x4 a snotty look. UNTIL of course confidence gave way to arroganceâ?¦ I shot past a 4x4 on the right as he maneuvered through a minefield. I flipped right and then left, oops 4x4 was there and no time to brake shot into the Kimberly Hole! Pierre also quiet cool by now was too close on my tail and followed! Our turn now, Sue heard (very clearly on the coms unit) a loud OH FUCK and something about the rift valley before we dropped into hell and then shot out the other side with a jaw rattling tongue biting bang! What a suspension and what luck, our tyres held and our rims were not buckled although my ego is still bruised!
And guess what Mr Pierre of never book and sleep in a jail fame had done it again. Nata lodge had not a bed for our tired banged up bodies. So we headed into town in trepidation to the Nata Inn. As we approached a large pack of braks, mongrels ran out from a ramshackle thatch shack. Sue giggled at the sight â?? Pierres going to get worse than his jail tonightâ?! Luck was on our side and behind the hovels was the inn and it turned out to be a wonderful spot with showers, DSTV and warm comfy clean beds
After dropping our bags and showing off our bikes to the crowd of locals we headed for the pans. The normally dry salt pans are full of water, like an inland sea, in the middle of the Kalahari Desert!!!!!!
We have sundowners as the setting sun turns the pans gold and the pink flamingos wing their way through a crimson sky.
Day 7 Butt Breaker
The next day we head home, the wind howling, rain clouds filling the sky and our bikes rocketing out of the Kalahari leaning like sail ships in the wind. The last day is a butt wrenching 892 km race into the wind to an icy rainy Joburg.
Home, after 3603 kmâ??s in 7 days at an average speed of 110 km/h! The monsters look sand blasted by insects, sand and potholes but flew like magic carpets across Southern Africa. We are sad, we have journeyed where we planned, laughed, teased and filled our eyes with the rich African vistas but tomorrow we join the rat race the images of our journey calling to us like ghosts till we hit the road again â?¦.soon!
Day 1: The KTM and the Kalahari
Saturday am we left in the dark and hit the Trans Kalahari highway
The trans Kalahari is so flat and straight you can see you pension coming. This was the boring part, the entertainment coming in the form of Anton on an Adventure, Rika on a GS and Henry on a KTM at Kang on their way to fight sand monsters in Namibia!
Henryâ??s KTM obliged and let him down to the great joy of the BMW adventures team! But weâ??ll leave that story for them to tellâ?¦.
Day 2: Locust and Sand Terns
After a comfy night at the Kalahari Arms in Ghanzi we have breakfast on the road. It beats the Wimpy, the Kalahariâ??s sparse golden grass and a bokkie resting her numb bum!
On the road to Maun the locusts filled the road and the birds eating them filled the air. At times I needed to keep my hand on the hooter to frighten the birds off their feasting and mass kamikaze on my screen. As it was they rose in flocks filling the air with wings and a few unfortunates smacking my screen in puffs of feathers and loud bangs!
We reach the end of a long boring 580 km stretch and Pierre rockets forward onto the sand desperate for his first St Louis beer at Drotskys. Too fast too eager and he went down! My first thought was my camera, Sueâ??s to scramble off the bike while still moving. â??Iâ??ll walkâ? she wailed, while I held onto the rocking bike screaming at her to sit still and breathlessly reaching for the camera. In a life and death situation priorities are importantâ?¦ an unrecorded fall is a tragedy!
The greater sand turn with sand on its beak!
Our second nights stop, Drotskyâ??s cabins on the Okavango river, a beer, a good bed and its another hard day in Africa!
Day 3: Border Buggery
Day 3 dawned with us entering Nambia across Mahango game reserve. As we enter a local informs us to look out for the lions on the side of the road. We saw some nervous Zebra but I think the lions were afraid of us!
We enter the conflict ridden Caprivi strip. Pierre has regaled us with stories from his days in the Mag keeping a bunch of unruly SADF troopies from drowning themselves in the Kavango and the local Cuka shops! Pointing out the roadblocks, bases and laughs of the army we stop on the bridge over the Okavango and head into the old operational areas!
Border guardsâ?? on the bridge..
Every 10 kmâ??s like speed cops, signs warn us of elephant and to keep to 80 km an hour, the road is flat and straight and we canâ??t help cranking along at about 160, but our hands are curled over our brakes like John Wayne on his 6 shooter and our eyes peeled for a leaping kudu or rampaging elephant.
We should have relaxed, we only saw one elephant in the Caprivi!
â?¦. And the lesser scarlet shrike
Nothing prepared us for the buggery at the Zambian border where they slowly skinned us for every dollar or rand we had, R 500 odd per bike for every conceivable cost from carbon pollution to council taxes.
The road to Livingstone from Katima Mulilo used to be a nightmare of potholes and powder dust traps. Itâ??s now a great road with the odd swamp and waterland on both sides.
We head for the Waterfront Hotel in Livingstone which is a ripoff but the cheapest ripoff on the river! And with a great deck on the river. In fact Zambia is very expensive! As we head for our tents a biker strides over, his beard and gritty smile telling a story of a long ride. Heâ??s short of biker company and we meet Willem de Wet, on his way alone down from Cairo. We sit with him long into the night on the deck over the great Zambezi lusting for the places he has traveled from and dream long into the night of the sands of the Sudan and exotic places he has been.
Day 4: Wet T shirt competitions.
The next day is a rest day where we do the tourist thing at Vic falls. The river is full and we walk through the extraordinary rain storm and forest created by the crescendo of water that flies high above the falls and smashes down on the best wet Tshirt show of them all!
Lording it at the Livingstone hotel. Zebras and monkeys share the lawns with the lords and ladies. We have a beer (local) and pretend we belong, although this only lasts as long as it takes to check the prices of the burgers! Mr Livingstone I presume had American Express when he got here?
Day 5: Zim Dollars by the Millions
We leave Livingstone, planning to ride the 85 kâ??s to Kasane and the Chobe Game Reserve , reportedly one of the greatest game concentrations in Africa. But hey this is Africa, we arrive at the ferry 70 kâ??s later and there was a strike. A hundred trucks packed 5 kmâ??s deep on either side of the Zambezi and lots of shouting and screaming by the truckers at the Zambian customs. After our rape in these self same greedy hands I sympathized and held myself back from joining the lynch mob and holding down the customs officials for the eager truckers to return the favour!. Eish but it meant returning to the falls and braving the Zimbabwe border.
All was normal and disappointingly normal at the Zim border although we were fleeced by a very clever con man who first of all convinced us we needed R 60 worth of Zim dollars at the border (untrue no-one not even border officials want Zim dollars) but then proceeded to give us $ 60 000 000 in exchange.
It looked exorbitant until we realized that we should have got $ 600 000 000 for our R60. $ 60 000 000 would not even buy a coke!!!!!!! The dollar bills have a note that they were issued on 1 Jan 2008 and expire on 28 June 2008. Money with a sell by date! Extraordinary!
Vic Falls town in Zimbabwe is a ghost town compared to when I was last here 5 years earlier. A tragedy and very sad to see. The Zim border was actually a pleasure the officials polite and quick compared to the Zambians. Zimbabwe car guardâ?¦..
We make it to Kasane in Botswana 80 kâ??s down the road. The town is packed with SA registered 4x4â??s. We need accommodation but of course true to tradition Pierre has two bike traveling rules:
1. Never book ahead â?? it cramps my style and forces me to follow a planâ?
2. Sleep in a tent! â??Iâ??d rather sleep in a jailâ?
While we drove from lodge to lodge slowly preparing for the local jail, we found our first elephant.
Four lodges and four â??sorry fully booked sirâ? responses later we find a cute little safari camp. Ngida Safaris. Sue and I get the honeymoon suite. A tiny reed hut barely squeezing in a giant double bed with frilly duvet and headboard. This was Grandmas feather bed!
That afternoon we did a boat trip and lorded it at the Chobe safari lodge. The amount of elephants and game quiet fantastic
Day 6: Potholes from Hell
Bikes are not allowed into Chobe National Park but sneaky Pierre has a plan. There is a transit road right through the middle of the park to the Namibian border. We wake at crack of dawn and head down this road through the park. Before we even get to the park we find our first herd of elephant grazing next to the Welcome to Botswana sign
In the park at close quarters we see buffalo, waterbuck, impala, vulture and more elephant. A solitary bull mock charges Sue and I so I blast up the road giggling at Pierre behind us. Pierre stops and a cat and mouse game develops, the elephant trumpets, flaps his ears stomps forward, Pierre prepares to flee, the elephant retreats only to do a mock charge. The size and vulnerability of an elephant from a bike is phenomenal.
We pack and head off to Nata on the edge of the great Makgadikgadi salt pans, the greatest in the world, home to flocks of flamingos and pelicans. The road from Kasane to Nata is one huge pothole, the potholes are as big as a Honda Gold wing and in the glaring heat often hard to see at 160 kâ??s an hour except for the large black skid marks on either side left by trucks and cars At each long skid you can almost see the foot flat on the pedal and some driver going â??oh my fuck the great rift valley just moved to Botswanaâ? before a resounding crash and biting half their tongue off!
We slowed to about a 100 flipping our bikes through and around the potholes giving the odd crawling 4 x4 a snotty look. UNTIL of course confidence gave way to arroganceâ?¦ I shot past a 4x4 on the right as he maneuvered through a minefield. I flipped right and then left, oops 4x4 was there and no time to brake shot into the Kimberly Hole! Pierre also quiet cool by now was too close on my tail and followed! Our turn now, Sue heard (very clearly on the coms unit) a loud OH FUCK and something about the rift valley before we dropped into hell and then shot out the other side with a jaw rattling tongue biting bang! What a suspension and what luck, our tyres held and our rims were not buckled although my ego is still bruised!
And guess what Mr Pierre of never book and sleep in a jail fame had done it again. Nata lodge had not a bed for our tired banged up bodies. So we headed into town in trepidation to the Nata Inn. As we approached a large pack of braks, mongrels ran out from a ramshackle thatch shack. Sue giggled at the sight â?? Pierres going to get worse than his jail tonightâ?! Luck was on our side and behind the hovels was the inn and it turned out to be a wonderful spot with showers, DSTV and warm comfy clean beds
After dropping our bags and showing off our bikes to the crowd of locals we headed for the pans. The normally dry salt pans are full of water, like an inland sea, in the middle of the Kalahari Desert!!!!!!
We have sundowners as the setting sun turns the pans gold and the pink flamingos wing their way through a crimson sky.
Day 7 Butt Breaker
The next day we head home, the wind howling, rain clouds filling the sky and our bikes rocketing out of the Kalahari leaning like sail ships in the wind. The last day is a butt wrenching 892 km race into the wind to an icy rainy Joburg.
Home, after 3603 kmâ??s in 7 days at an average speed of 110 km/h! The monsters look sand blasted by insects, sand and potholes but flew like magic carpets across Southern Africa. We are sad, we have journeyed where we planned, laughed, teased and filled our eyes with the rich African vistas but tomorrow we join the rat race the images of our journey calling to us like ghosts till we hit the road again â?¦.soon!
