Namibia.....

So after what seemed like forever, only 90kms actually, we arrived at the Namibian border. This was to be our last country before entering SA so we actually both felt a bit depressed about it, even though for me this was the country I was most looking forward to. It seems the further south you go, the easier the crossings actually get, the only issue I actually had on the Namibian side was that I was asked to pay some kind of road tax, fair enough, but we had no money and they did not take any cards so we were asked to pay at the first town we arrived at. At the same time while waiting for me outside, I noticed a green mambu slithering pass behind Delilah while she sat on her bike at the gates, you know how she loves snakes!!

the welcome mat

Now at the first town, we proceeded to the office to pay the road tax, seems they actually only took cash as well. As it turned out, all of the cash machines in the town were actually offline since the morning so we headed back and asked the guy in the office to write us a letter that said we would pay at the next available office, and we were on our way again, along the Caprivi strip. We headed towards a campsite about halfway to Rundu called Bum Hill, on the way having to pass through a checkpoint were we actually had to get off our bikes and step onto a wet mat to disinfect our feet.........not too sure about this but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Our little tree house

Bum Hill is a great campsite, not too expensive and you get all your conveniences for wild camping. You even put your tent up on a platform built about 3m off the ground into a tree, this to help not being trampled by straying buffalo or elephant.

As the sun set in all of its glory, we noticed that it had started to rain lightly, so quickly placed our raincover over the tent, these rain storms dont really last very long so we did not bother to secure the tent too much. Boy were we wrong on this occasion, the heavens opened and we experienced the worst thunder storm ever, and that in a tree house, it went on for hours, thunder sounding every few seconds like we were in the clouds, we had to hold on to the tent for fear of it blowing away, even the alarm on the bike was sounded due to the violent nature of the storm...........but we survived and this was definitely something we would not forget for a while.

Elephants, what elephants?

Once again, in the morning we headed off, on the way noticing loads of elephant signs, seeing fresh elephant poo (by now you would be able to tell these things) but not seeing any elephants, how sad. We eventually passed though the nature reserve and reached Rundu, opting to stay at a lodge due to the previous nights storm and lack of sleep, just as well as the storm hit again. Having had a good rest, enjoying the pool and dry beds we pushed on to Otjiwarongo in the morning, passing Grootfontein on the way. This would have been the turn off to head for Etosha Reserve but as we were on bikes, there was no way we would be allowed in, anyway the campsite we stayed at, Arcadia, was located next to a crocodile farm and had enough wildlife of its own to keep us happy, well we ended up watching a movie on the laptop and that was sufficient for us. Tomorrow would see us arriving in Winhoek to get the bikes fixed, cant wait........

Oh boy, here we go again

The remains of our stormy night after 'securing' the tent

The view from our little tree house