Namibia continued

In the bedroom?

Arriving at Walvis Bay, we headed straight for the first and only campsite on the gps, but with the strong wind blowing, we decided to check out the backpackers instead, as they are usually cheaper and you get breakfast as well, thats when there is room available though, this time, we were not so lucky, as most of Walvis was overbooked. With this in mind and having set our sites on camping, we headed for the local Spar for our supplies. This was were we met Ion, a Romanian guy living in Walvis for the last 20 years, he came up to us, chatted about the trip for a bit saying that he was really keen on doing something similar in the next 2 years and then invited us to stay at his place, wow. Ion is a motorcycle enthusiast, to say the least, with thousands of bike mags dotted around the house, hundreds of replica scale bikes in the rooms, a vintage scooter on the dinning room mantle and a Ducati in the bedroom.

Before we could get any lunch, we were asked if we wanted a tour of the town, and when coming from a local, I guess the answer will always be yes. We passed by a few interesting spots including and old SA war museum, a church that had been brought across from Germany (the oldest building in Walvis Bay), took a ride along the promenade of the lagoon and saw some flamingoes and pelicans and then stopped off at a really great bar built on one of the oldest piers for a brilliant sunset drink. We then headed back to the house to get some dinner and a rest.

Bikers of Walvis bay unite

The next morning after breakfast, we quickly packed our things, ready for a long day on the gravel roads. We got asked by Ion to join him on a prayer run his bike club was having and would only last about an hour, so we agreed and went along. What a great bunch of people from Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, and a great morning had by all. On the way back, they headed for a braai and we headed for Sossulvlei at about 1pm. The ride was not too bad with lots of animals to see and amazing views. Unfortunately, sand is not Delilahs friend, and leaving so late meant only reaching Solitare for the evening, which I must say was not bad at all, a great campsite, shop and pool to soak in,

Delilah hitting the dirt

So 310km on really sandy gravel roads from Walvis Bay to reach Sossulsvlei and they are denying us entry with our motorcycles, I guess we will have to hitchhike in, in the morning. In the meantime, we decided to sort of some accommodation in the form of one of the closest campsites to the road leading to the dunes, much more expensive than our previous sites, but with discount pretty comparable to the surrounding accommodations.

We met a lovely German/Greek couple at the campsite in Sesriem, who we actually saw at the previous campsite in Solitare. They have offered us a ride in their car to Sossulsvlei and back after which we would probably head to Keetmanshoop, then Luderitz and Fish River Canyon. More to follow shortly......

Site-seeing anyone?

Note the missing bell on the left - stolen once again i guess.

Scooter in the dining room?

Walvis bay is known for its whale cemetery. Delilah standing with some of the remains.

Flamingoes on the lagoon.

Amazing wooden pub

What a picture

Ion and friend at the biker run

Biker prayer run at the beach

Now that's what i call a sunset

The oldest building in Walvis imported from Germany

First we crossed the Tropic of Cancer, then the Equator, now this....almost there

Swakopmund

Well 5 hours later and running on fumes due to the heavy head on wind we pulled up to the first available garage in Swakopmund. Getting into decent accommodation was not going to be easy due to the late hour we arrived as most of the campsites were already shut. We eventually headed for a backpackers and even managed to pursued a discount on the room we stayed in, sweet. Finally, in the morning we would reach the west coast of Africa, and how nice it was to see the ocean again.

Sandboarding was also on our list of things to do with Swakopmund boasting some of the highest living dunes in the world. being a bit slower than snowboarding, it does tend to be safer but don't forget that you still have to walk back up the dune to have another go, now that will kill you. If you do get the chance to do it though, then do it, its brilliant.

This morning we decided to move on to Walvis bay, got up early in the morning, everything packed on the bikes, breakfast in our tummies, and what do you know, Delilah's bike does not want to start, flat battery. So 4hrs later after visiting a few of the stores we finally got it sorted, seems with all the falls shes been having we forgot to check the battery water level, another rookie mistake. Luckily Walvis bay was not that far and even the heavy side wind would not see us arriving there after dark.....

What you doing?

Nice and cool once again

The most photographed prison and the hottest biker chick

The most photographed prison - done once again

The biggest crystal is housed in this house - who could tell?

Arts and crafts anyone?

What the heck was i thinking, baby blue just does not go with my skin tone

I need water..... where are we going..... are we there yet?

Its the walking that will finally get you

Maybe running back up will help - not!!!

The road less travelled

Windhoek and more

Just having passed through a hectic storm

Have you ever experienced outrunning a storm? Well that seems to be a daily occurrence while heading through Namibia, we tend to hit a rainy patch for 5mins then pass through, what an amazing sight. The weather seemed to change constantly to match the changing scenery. Namibia is definitely turning our to be one of my favourite places.

Arriving in Windhoek, as it was Sunday, we headed straight for the first backpackers shown on the GPS.......very nice but full, almost overcrowded even so made our way to Paradise Gardens, where we set up tent on the pool deck. The place was really nice with a great host, all the facilities we needed and pretty close to BMW for sorting the bikes out.

Monday we finally headed over to BMW, 3500km and two and a half countries after the bike had actually broken down. They seemed to be very helpful, having ordered the parts in advance of our arrival as the bike was pretty close to end of warranty and we did not plan too much time in Namibia as well. Things started turning a bit ugly when they came back and mostly washed their hands of the bike due to their system apparently not confirming my warranty.

Well, you can imagine what happened next........having spoken to the dealer manager, nearly getting someone fired for incompetence and lack of, well just general customer service and manners, I managed to get everything, but the front wheel (which had corroded), sorted on my bike, and under warranty as well. The front wheel would have to wait until we get to SA due to the amount of time it would take to reach Windhoek. Delilah's bike was also sorted which meant we would, well should have a comfortable and safe last leg of the trip.

Yesterday, despite receiving a courtesy bike from BMW, we opted to do a day trip of Windhoek on foot, so we parked up the bike close to the city centre and walked around popping in at the museum, very interesting, and the local craft market, really good and well recommended. On the way back to the bike,we once again, got caught up in quite a storm, so cut the city tour a bit short and decided to retire to a hot meal and a nice movie on the sofa back at the backpackers.

Heading back to BMW this morning, we picked up our freshly washed and fixed bikes, headed to the lodge to pack them up and were on our way, at 3pm, which should be enough time for us to reach Swakopmund...............................

a sneaky pic of the tribal women in Namibia

on the way to Swakopmund, what a view

they don't come much larger than this, luckily no one was home at the time

a much needed break

another day, another campsite

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

Zambia, to tax or not to tax?

......as per the previous blog, we were heading for the Zambian border, this on a Sunday when everything seems to grind to a complete halt in Africa, yes even slower than what it usually is. We were also made aware that there would be up to 5 taxes to pay before entering so made sure we had loads of Malawi currency to exchange for this purpose as there are usually no ATM's on the borders.

As it turned out, the border was rather painless, just the usual ten thousand forms to fill in before we could be on our way, when it came to paying the taxes, the only one asked about was the carbon emissions tax (yes Zambia), to which i made a joke that our bikes did not qualify for this and they believed me, we ended up paying not a cent. as we did not then have to change money on the black market at the border, we decided we would do it the next day in the bank.

Buck at Eureka lodge

We carried on and as the sky was clear and the roads not too bad we opted to pass Chipata, just stopping to draw some Zambian currency from the ATM, and headed for a little town called Petuka where we found a quaint little lodge to camp at. Luckily there was enough space and light for me to swap my front tyre around as it had once again started to wear unevenly. We also had a bit of forethought to buy some boerewors earlier in the day at Lilongwe, which Delilah had made while i was busy with the bike, this was really a treat and heelped us to a good nights rest even though there was load music being played by the neighbour.

Eureka Lodge

Early to rise the next morning, not that we had an option with the music coming back on at 6am, we pushed on the last 400km to Lusaka and headed straight for the banks to change our Malawi money. This took us 3 hours before we finally realised that there was no way we would get it changed, what a nightmare, they change to Botswana Pula but won't touch the Malawi Kwacha. With this in mind we decided just to hold onto the money and try to change it in SA, and headed for our campsite Eureka Lodge, brilliant little place just outside of Lusaka. They had a pool, a brilliant bar and animals including zebra, buffalo, buck and loads more, just roaming around. I also managed to exchange our money with some overlanders heading towards Malawi, what luck.

Vic falls dry as ever

We thought we would push on again the next morning as it would give us a chance to catch up with Andre for the last time before he headed on a different course for Bloemfontein, and arrived in Livingstone at about 4pm to the really nice Fawlty Towers lodge, where again we decided to camp out by the pool, nice. Before leaving the morning, i did manage to go to BMW in Lusaka, a car dealership, and persuaded them to call BMW Windhoek to order the parts needed for our bikes to expedite the repairs when we eventually arrived, lets hope it helped.

Well we stayed in Livingstone for 2 days, had dinner with Andre on his last night at Ocean Basket, mmmmm, and also went and saw Victoria falls, not much to see at the moment as there has not been any rain falling, but take a walk to the Zimbabwe border bridge, and you can see as much as you would ever need to. Livingstone is a lovely place, and loads to do there. We may have to go back as the Zambesi has one of the best white water in the world.

Tomorrow we head for the Namibian border.........

who comes up with the colours of these corn chips

the rest of the gauge as viewed from the bungee jumping platform on the Zimbabwe side

from a different angle, it did look as if there was steam coming from the falls