Blog 28 by Tan: Life is Boring Without a Bit of Spark

I’m not going to lie. The blog is likely to be a boring one, which I hope people will forgive considering I rather selflessly hit a donkey in the last post in order to keep the excitement level high. This update outlines the logistical shenanigans that surrounded getting Mick’s bike fixed and us out of the country. It is boring even for us, but we thought it was a great example of what awaits anyone considering a trip like this. The fun riding, the great people, awesome sights and touching human experiences all happen within an environment of mind-numbing chores, never-ending maintenance, and scheduling and logistical problem solving. For those who continue reading, you will get the bonus of learning more of the boundless generosity shown to us by our wonderful Namibian friends.   For those seeking more riveting viewing, I understand, and bid you Good Day.

With the visa extension sorted for another 2 weeks, time was now available to sit back and listen to just how sore my poor body was. I spent much of the next couple of days lying down, groaning and just generally reveling in some therapeutic self-pity. It was great and within two days I was feeling quite good again. However, it was apparent that I didn’t get off scot-free with the donkey debacle, as with the reduction of swelling and stiffness came the realisation I had done some significant damage to my right shoulder. I could only lift my right arm from a hanging position by my side about 20 degrees before intense pain and a severe lack of strength stopped everything. I’d torn my rotator-cuff; pain was relieved with anti-inflammatory meds, the odd paracetomol and regular massage. We were able to identify that a couple rotator cuff muscles/tendons were torn to some extent, however the one connecting the cuff to the shoulder blade was the worst.

With this new information we were able to piece together the accident more precisely. We knew from the enormous deep yellow bruise slowly emerging from my right elbow that when I hit the tarmac my right arm was instinctually in front of my core and chest. My elbow took the initial impact, which then violently dragged the arm downwards tearing the muscles and tendons at the back of the cuff, before flinging my arm around to my side and out in such a way that it tore the front of the rotator-cuff and bicep. My chest plate, neck brace and exposed abdomen were then introduced to the wonders of coarse chip bitumen.

It was clear that this was going to be a very slow, laborious fix. Although I must add I am typically a very fast healer. I should have known. Past experience has taught me that when it ‘feels like’ you’ve broken a bone it is most likely tendon or ligament damage. When I broke my legs many years back (not on a bike) I was surprised to learn they were broken as they didn’t hurt like you imagine they would. Tendons and ligaments on the other hand are much worse and, for me anyway, are much more like the levels of pain you would expect from a break. I’d take a broken leg any day over tendon or ligament damage. Bones heal all on their own, but with tendons/ligaments you have to work hard if you want to see improvement. Fortunately I had Mick, who’d torn his rotator cuff about 10 years ago, nagging me daily to do my exercises, so things progressed well.

Mick tore his lifting a 20 litre oil drum after doing preliminary damage playing high school and uni rugby. It took about 4 months and doctors threats of a reconstruction to get back to full mobility, another 3 or 4 months to return to about 90% strength, and another year before it felt as strong as it did the day it was injured. It is a good thing we got our fill of off-road riding in Kaokoland because it was going to be off the agenda for some time now. We tentatively penciled in the Lake Turkana route from Kenya to Ethiopia in a couple months as the next likely opportunity to do some proper adventure riding. Mick was going to have to make do with bitumen roads for a while if we wanted to get the shoulder ‘Turkana ready’. It was going to be hard but we committed to no ‘unnecessary’ off-road until then.

While my pity party was in full swing, Mick was trying to diagnose the source of the ignition fault. Mick did the following things that have no meaning for me, but might do to those reading:

MICK: The bike was starting perfectly, and running fine up to about 4000-4200 rpm, where it would start to miss and protest. If the throttle was opened up it would rev out to 6500rpm and higher but would splutter and miss and occasionally backfire. I could see from the voltmeter that all through the rev range the stator was charging perfectly. I could also see that the ignition signal from the coil was being interrupted, as when the bike missed and backfired the tacho would drop out. These symptoms suggested that the initial theory of interference or breakdown of the ignition signal was still sound and the best place to start.

I isolated the stator, pulse coil, and ignition coil and then hooked up the battery to them one at a time trying to find where the leak was occurring. If there was some sort interaction, I would be able to read it on the other coils. While it did point out that the pulse coil seemed fine and there was something fishy going on with the pulse coil power supply, it was largely inconclusive. However, I did find that my stator had far worse winding insulation than Tanya’s with about 3 times the leakage. This was understandable as my stator had come out of a hire bike with a fritzed pulse coil and who knows how many kms. With the leakage idea not pointing to the problem, I started doing some more rudimentary diagnoses techniques by swapping CDI, ignition coil and reg/rec from Tanya’s bike. None of those was the issue. A good example of where having the same bike as your riding partner is the way to go. From there I did some resistance checks and everything was in spec apart from the pulse coil power supply, the black and white wires from the stator. They read massively over spec, like 800 ohms when it should have been 0.3 or something like that. I then pulled the stator out to check the resistance readings at the source and found the high resistance was in the windings itself and not in the loom, so stator f@cked is the diagnoses.

Hazaar! Mick was now certain the stator had died. As parts were no doubt going to be shipped from South Africa, given our tight timeframe we had to be confident we’d diagnosed the problem correctly. We wouldn’t have the time to ship one thing and then find out later it was something else and then ship that. Now that he was certain, Mick went to the local bike shop to order a new stator along with a couple other bits and pieces. We were sure they would have stator’s in stock in South Africa and that for the extra cost of air-freighting, we would receive it in time. Mick could then fit it in no time and we’d make our visa window.

This old picture from Kaokoland shows the ¼ turn fairing fasteners we were using. Note the missing fastener, the constant vibration meant that they would drop out periodically. They were good to look at and convenient to use but not up to the task.

And this is what we are running with now, 6mm bolts and body washers. Simple and effective. Oh, and ugly…..

With the problem on its way to resolution Mick did some further chores, which included getting my bashplate re-welded and our fairing mounts modified. Mick had used a fastening system for the fairings that made it quick and easy to attach and reattach. However the ¼ turn fastening clips had proved more aesthetically pleasing than robust, and despite carrying a couple spares we were now out. We needed to go more simple and utilitarian, more ‘Africa’, so we changed the assembly to 6mm bolts that were easily replaced and very strong, if a little ugly.

The Suzuki dealer then contacted us with the quote for the new stator. For the stator, freight and tax it was going to cost us nearly N$15,000, about US$1500 at the time. We couldn’t believe it and nor could he, telling us that he nearly fell off his chair when he read the quote. We figured it would be more expensive than aftermarket spares, but we weren’t expecting that sort of price. Heck, my complete bike cost less that $4000.

Mick stumbled upon this Honda CBX1000 while at the bike shop and immediately lusted after it. The guy running the shop was given the bike as a farmyard wreck but soon had it running after a small amount of work and restored it fully with some spare parts from another cheap bike. Unlike in Australia, these highly collectable bikes can still be found here reasonably commonly and for very reasonable prices i.e. cheap. So cheap in fact that there is a burnout squad in South Africa that goes from bike rally to bike rally competing in the burnout competition with a team of CBX1000s. They then redline the bikes while off the saddle and spin them around producing smoke. Doing that to an air-cooled classic bike is a crime against humanity according to Mick

With that not even being close to an option, we jumped online to source a cheaper stator. There were countless secondhand stators available on ebay from Oz and the States for prices between $120-200. However, we figured the safest bet was going though Procycle in the US, which we had only ever experienced excellent reliability and service from and we hoped they would look out for us given their previous years’ profits must have had a lot to do with us in the lead up to our trip. Mass money went from us to them. Bulk gear went from them to us. Sure enough the Procycle guys quickly got us a quote for a new high output stator and express shipping to Namibia and agreed to ship it the moment the payment came through.

For a princely sum we paid to get the part from the US to Windhoek in under 7 days though UPS. From there, our friend Johan in Windhoek could pick up the parcel, pay duties in cash and get the part to a courier. We’d receive it in Grootfontien the next day and be able to leave the duty money with his brother Dirk. No credit card and complicated international bank transfers required. It was a great option with room to move, even at 7 days delivery we would be left with 5 full days to fit the part and leave the country.

We got the tracking number from Procycle the following day and were horrified to see that UPS had added another 5 days to the delivery date; it was now scheduled to arrive the day our visa expired! Checking the tracking every day (in fact every couple hours), we could see they left the package at their US facility for 3 days before it headed to Germany on its way to Namibia. We paid US$170 to get it in a week or less and then as soon as they have your money they say nearly 2 weeks! UPS and donkeys – my least favourite entities at this point.

Lynn making vetkoeks ‘fat cakes’ which were deep fried dough later filled with curry. Unfortunately we very foolishly took no other photos of our Grootfontein guardian angels

A day or two later the scheduled delivery date came forward one day, however this still meant the parcel was set to arrive in Windhoek the day before our visas expired. All we could do was hope it arrived faster than expected. It was now just a waiting game. Dirk and Lynn were so amazing to us and offered their house until the bike was fixed. We were soon spoilt with wonderful home cooked meals, good wine and even better conversation.

Dirk and Lynn proved to be an amazing couple to meet. Lynn was the head nurse at the private hospital, and Dirk the minister at the local church. They were long time Grootfontein residents, and knew everyone it seemed.   When driving around in their spare car, we had many people wave at us excitedly only to look very confused when they saw who was in the front seat. Dirk told us many great stories about his time as a travelling minister in Bushmanland helping the San people around the turbulent times of independence. It became obvious to us, from his rapport with the community, his concern for his parishioners to the constant effort he put into his work, that he was one of these very rare humans who invested 100% of his energy into the improving the wellbeing of everyone around him – dirty Aussie bikers included.

Views of the waterhole at Onguma lodge. We stayed in the campground at night and right here all day

In order to recuperate and get our minds off the troubles we decided to go camping for a few days at Onguma Lodge in Etosha National Park which was only a couple of hours away. Dirk and Lynn ascended the generosity stakes by loaning us their spare car to take on our camping trip. Not just that, they filled it with firewood and enough meat to feed an army and all their braai equipment. The next few days were spent lounging by the waterhole, reading, blogging, drinking fantastic South African wine, braaing and tracking the movements of one highly anticipated parcel around the planet.

Last time we were treated with a large group of giraffe, this time zebra

Mick getting his braai on. For those unaware a braai is essentially a bbq but no South African will approve of such a comparison. They are so passionate about their braais that if you ever wanted to wage war on the country all you’d need to do would be to take control of firewood and charcoal supplies and you’d bring the country to its knees

The next week was spent enjoying the company of Lynn and Dirk. Spending mealtimes with them became so normal and comfortable that it seemed like we had always lived there and started to joke with them about being their surrogate wayward Aussie biker children. Mick spent time doing various bits of bike maintenance and repairs, and we tried to get some spare ignition keys cut. Our bikes use round security keys which are not susceptible to being jammed open with a screw driver like normal motorcycle ignition barrels are. Turns out getting keys cut for them is also difficult, as the only machine in Namibia that could do it was broken. Oh well, we resolved we would have to careful from now on. And before we knew it we found ourselves in the painfully familiar situation of having a broken bike, a long way to go and a visa about to expire.

Finally on the Friday (5 days until the visa expired) some good news came our way. We received a phone call from Johan and Jume that the parcel had arrived in Windhoek and they were on their way to pick it up and pay the duties. Yahoos all round! It would then go in the overnight courier and even if we left the following morning we still had 3 days to cover 800km. Easy. Just as we start to celebrate and get ready to pack however, we hear the most unbelievable news. The customs computer system is down and the package cannot be cleared.

Despite the extensive efforts of Jume and Johan over the next two days there was no luck. The system was down and until it was repaired, nothing but emergency medicine was getting cleared.

We were racking our brains to come up with alternative plans of action. If there is one thing we have learned from this trip, it is that everything is fixable. There are always options, many options usually, that simply vary in terms of convenience, cost and risk. For us now it was just a matter of evaluating those pros and cons and determining which was the best course of action to take.

With the visas expiring on Tuesday, as of Saturday night we determined the best options were either to ride 2 up on my bike to the border of Botswana about 4 hours away and exit and re-enter Namibia. However, we worried that we might not get granted another tourist visa after 2 entries and 2 extensions on the last visa. We would then find ourselves separated from both the package and the bike. Another option Johan was pushing for was for us to leave with both bikes (Mick would ride with his stator unplugged, and then we would stop and charge from my bike) to the Botswana border then they would do the 600km round trip themselves and cross into Botswana and hand deliver the parcel to us. The generosity of these guys simply knows no bounds.

An unexpected social occasion with Johan and his family

Naturally there was meat

However, the option we went for in the end was to borrow Dirk and Lynn’s car again and drive the 450km to Windhoek on Sunday afternoon and pick up the parcel in person on Monday when we were feeling pretty confident the computer problems at customs would be sorted out. It was a gamble, but the system couldn’t stay down forever. We had to do this in person as we would not be able to get the parcel couriered to us in Grootfontein in time. So Sunday night we found ourselves socialising with Johan and his family in Windhoek yet again, which was excellent. First thing the next morning we were at the UPS office and discovered their system was up and running and they were in the process of getting the parcel. The Windhoek UPS guys really worked hard to get the parcel to us, with the manager of the depot going down personally to customs early that morning to ensure they cleared it straight up. A few hours later it was in our possession and it was high fives all round.

And drinking. We had some more of the sour cherry shooters that Johan and Jume introduced us to when we first met

Traditionally drunk with the cap on your nose – why? Why not!

Johan’s new purchase since we were last in Windhoek, a low mileage XTZ660 Tenere with Leo Vince pipes. He did well, it was a good deal. We suspect our invitation into the household had something to do with getting Johan’s wife comfortable with the idea of the new bike and the possibility for Jume to join Johan for road trips as a passenger. Johan has already taken the bike on a road trip up in Damaraland!  

We said a very fond farewell to Johan and his family who had been beyond generous to us. It was a special and unexpected opportunity to make such firm friends with them and their extended family after the simple offer of an address to ship stuff to. Before we left town we dropped in on our friends Tony and Freidel again. We explained the events of the last few weeks and told Tony just how thankful we were for his recommendation of the neck braces. Before doing this trip we never imagined how it would come to involve so many people beyond the two of us. Really we expected our trip to be an insular type thing. We expected it to be just the two of us, all the time. Of course we hoped to meet people and make new friends but never did we imagine we would have the incredible fortune to meet as many great people as we have and to have built such strong friendships in the process. That has been the greatest gift of the trip.

The long awaited arrival

It’s so perfect in every way

Thanks Procycle

After covering the 450km from Windhoek back to Grootfontein we arrived at 7pm on the eve of our visas’ expiry. We spent the night installing the new stator and packing and didn’t get to bed until 2am. After 4 hours sleep we were up and on our way, with both bikes running like clockwork. We made good time and were in good spirits despite our lack of sleep. We had the excitement of things being right down to the wire and felt comfortable that we would make it. We ended up travelling the necessary 800km and arrived at the border town of Katima at about 4.00pm.

Installing the new stator by night

An easy fix when once you’ve got the part

After an excellent 2 ½ months we were leaving Namibia and crossing into Zambia. The crossing involved a lot of paperwork and a long list of fees; visa, insurance, road tax, carbon tax and council tax. Frustratingly, the visa and road tax had to be paid in USD, where as the insurance, carbon tax and council tax had to be paid in Kwacha, the local currency. Anyone entering Zambia with a bike be warned, it is an expensive place to bring one. Due to the amount of VAT claiming paperwork in Namibia and the run around we got in Zambia, we were the last to make it through the border before it closed at 6pm. From there we travelled 50km to Mwandi where we found a campground for the night. We didn’t bother to eat before crashing out and claiming some much needed sleep. We had made it!

Riding through the Caprivi Strip. We saw the tell tale signs of elephants all about but didn’t see any. With the Pirelli MT21s lasting longer than expected we were carrying the new tyres with us

Riding around the world – a fantastic and massively rewarding experience we recommend to all. However, on extremely rare occasions it can be just a little bit shit. But really only a little bit…

Blog 27 by Tan and Mick: Smack Dat Ass

TAN’S VIEW:  The roads in the north of Ovamboland are flat and straight and lined with a menagerie of animals, including many cows, goats, dogs and worst of all, donkeys. They are an obvious hazard and we certainly had our eyes peeled for them. From our time in Botswana and other parts of Namibia, we are well practiced in sharing roads with donkeys, which I have found to be far from clever but also far from the stupidest animal getting about. They are worlds above kangaroos, emus and sheep for road smarts for example. Needless to say, we didn’t see this coming.

 

There you’ll see some marks from where the bike scraped against the road. And many donkeys in the distance. Damn donkeys!

 

I was riding out in front and in the far off distance I saw two donkeys fighting which I found quite odd as it was the first time we had seen donkeys do anything that wasn’t physically suggested by its owner with a stick. One donkey was chasing the other and biting its back. They were galloping like horses (granted, slow, small and stupid ones) complete with a trail of dust. I was about to get Mick on the intercom to warn him, but they crossed the road again about 100m in front of us and I knew Mick would have seen them. So I instead concentrated on getting past them safely. After crossing the road they ran head long towards me on the flat grassy verge on the left hand side of the highway.

Donkeys can gallop when sufficiently motivated it turns out. Sure enough they crossed the road again from left to right about 30m in front of me. We were doing about 100 but I quickly braked and dropped to probably 80. Crossing that close in front of me heightened my attention significantly but it still wasn’t fear inducing proximity. As soon as they crossed I told myself they could well canter off onto the verge and turn back in a long looping arc to cross again as they had before. I was more than shocked however, when they turned on a dime just a meter or two off the tar and doubled back straight across the road. It was just too fast. As one donkey was chasing the other biting its arse, than meant I was facing a wall of donkey.

Lighting quick decision processes then played out. I grabbed the brakes and looked to the left of the road. It was flat and grassy but it was also the direction the donkeys were going so I ruled that out. I looked to the right of them but could see a car coming in the opposite direction. I judged I could not swerve around them. It would have been a highly aggressive turn that I might not be able to execute and I couldn’t risk crashing onto the other side of the road with oncoming traffic. That left direct impact as the only option, albeit a shitty one, and I slowed down as much as I could in those few tiny moments. From my vantage point, I just a wheel’s length from hitting the second donkey right in the middle of its body. I looked up to the road ahead beyond the donkey, relaxed and hoped that he was moving faster than I thought he was. Unfortunately he wasn’t. Everything after that was a bit of a blur as it happened so quickly my mind simply couldn’t process the visual. I didn’t knock my head but I had no visual recollection of hitting the highway, it all just happened too quick and I was quite thankful for that.

 

Where the donkey strike occurred. You can see the tyre mark where the front wheels went full lock and unceremoniously threw me off

 

MICK’S VIEW: I was about 30 or 40m behind Tan and saw the donkeys cross about 30m in front of her from left to right. We both were doing 100-105 and braked down to maybe 80 or so. Seeing them cross over I thought we would now ride by and all would be fine, it was one of those close calls but at 30m it was close but really not that close, just one of those moments that catches you by surprise and you think, “shit that was lucky”. However, the donkeys hit the verge and turned hard to the left and came straight back across the road. We both got on the brakes but it wasn’t for long, maybe only a second or so before Tan hit the second donkey just in front of its rear legs, doing 70kph I’d guess. I was probably about 15m behind when she hit. Tan turned slightly to the left at the last moment before impact so the front wheel turned full lock to the left and threw Tanya off the right hand side of the bike, now the high side.   The bike then went over and down on the right hand side. Tan flew off head first and hit the road right shoulder and chest first and slid down the road, head first and face down. Thankfully just before impact she instinctually turned ever so slightly to the left which means she didn’t hit the donkey square on but at a slight angle. This meant she didn’t fly straight over the bars and into the fairing, but over the right hand side of the tank and clear of the bike. It was a bloody good bit of fortune. But it all happened so quick I could hardly process what was going on.

As I was sliding down the road I could hear the sound of my bike sliding along the highway behind me and I was naturally concerned about it hitting me. Soon the sound of its movement died down so I was able to relax while I continued on my gut slide down the highway. The sound of my Shoei, grinding down the road was so loud I think I got worried about my head and questioned if I needed to try to protect it some more. I clearly remember telling myself mid slide ‘I have a great helmet, it’s a great helmet.’ I think I was considering whether I needed to try to protect my head with my arms. Fortunately I knew better than to do that. Then I remember saying in my own head ‘I’m feeling a bit stressed,’ then I told myself to shut my eyes and then I thought ‘that’s better.’ Thanks to being a pretty average snowboarder and years and years of crashing off road, crashing the right way has become instinctual. So there I was, relaxed, eyes closed, arms against my body looking like “a salmon swimming up river to spawn” as Mick remarked later.

While I still had momentum behind the slide I rolled onto my back and was immediately looking for traffic. Soon Mick was above me and the first thing I recall saying was ‘Am I safe here, am I safe here.’ I didn’t want to get up straight away if I didn’t have to. Mick said I was ok for now, he quickly felt around my torso and neck and then went and moved the bike off the road.

In typical African fashion there were soon a lot of people around and they were all very concerned, with many of them having witnessed the donkey strike. They were keen to drag me off the road so Mick had to fight off their good intentions until I could get a sense of what I might have done to myself. Immediately I thought I had broken my right arm and was holding that in close. In the slide the mouthpiece of my Camelbak came off causing water to wet my right arm, which I thought was blood. So I opted to examine my arm last as I thought a bloody mess was likely to upset me. As a few minutes passed I was starting to feel quite good actually. My lower body felt completely fine and my left side was okay. I hadn’t hit my head at all and only scraped the point of the visor and the helmet’s chin guard so the helmet, though a visor bolt had broken, was in good condition. The Shoei Hornet is an awesome helmet, it must be said.

My hand and wrists were perfectly fine. It was just my right arm and belly that were worse for wear. I was incredibly glad that I was wearing my ladies AlpineStar Stellar body armour that day as nothing protects as well as a perfectly fitting set of body armour. The only place the armour falls down is protecting the belly. I got some deep gravel rash on my hip down my right side but it wasn’t bleeding and looked surprisingly nice and clean. I was eventually satisfied that my arm wasn’t broken but I was worried about my belly/abdomen which was sore after my 70kph belly flop onto the highway. When I examined my abdomen area I felt no strong pain or rigidity but it was undeniably not feeling awesome. I hoped it was just from the gravel rash but figured a hospital visit was in order to confirm.

 

The hospital in Otapi

 

MICK’S VIEW:  I got hard on the brakes and stopped no problem about 3m or 4m before the bike and 7 or 8m before Tanya, parked the bike on the very left of the road but still on the road to protect us a bit from oncoming traffic and make sure something big and visible was in sight and in the way. The donkey had gotten up and off the road and was looking sadly ok albeit rather feeble and with a bit of limp. They might be tough, but even a full sized donkey would have felt the impact of 200kg of loaded up bike plus rider, ploughing into its guts at 70km/h.

Tan’s bike ended up just off the road on the left hand verge on its right hand side but Tan was still face down on the tar, but thankfully on the very left hand side of the road. She rolled onto her back as I got over to her and she was conscious but very shaken up. She was holding her right arm very gingerly and was pretty sore. She had massive gouges in her chest plate on the right side and holes in her jersey all down her front and right elbow. She said she thought she was ok but it was obvious she was pretty beat up.

I felt her ribs, collarbones and neck as they are classic injuries from an accident like this but all seemed ok. I was pretty confident by the way she was moving that there probably weren’t any broken bones, even thought she was still very worried about her right arm. She said her back wasn’t sore either, which was a good sign as she has had past spinal injuries. I went back to the bike and picked that up. I didn’t look properly but could see from picking it up that the fairing was smashed, dash bent and broken, headlight broken, forks looked bent, all in all it looked pretty fucked up, kinda like when a bike hits a donkey at 70kph.

Plenty of people stopped and it didn’t take long before there were lots of people standing around and seeing if we were ok and just generally gawking at the crash of the foreign woman on the motorbike. A few people tried to move her but I told them to leave her be and one guy wanted my bike off the road but there was no way I was moving that, not yet anyway. I went back to Tan and her right arm looked very sore but I started to think we had got off pretty light and might even avoid a trip to hospital.

While Mick was seeing to the bike I was sitting amongst a large group of concerned locals. There were two guys in particular that looked so worried and looking at them I could tell this one guy was battling with wanting to place a hand reassuringly on mine but wondering if it would be too inappropriate. It was really sweet. At that point I noticed I had lost the mouthpiece to my Camelbak and become totally fixated on that fact. All I could do was stare at it is and say quietly, ‘Its gone, it is not here, its……gone’. It seemed to be the only thing that mattered. The shock was starting to set in. A local lady noticed my concern over the lost mouthpiece and went and found it on the road and gave it back to me. That, along with the genuine concern on the face of everyone there was really heart-warming. It wasn’t a morbid gawk fest. People genuinely cared.

MICK’S VIEW: Tan was up and standing but was not particularly mobile, or even stable. She said she was feeling nauseous and her eyes rolled back in her head and she was looking pretty bloody likely to faint. One of the first cars on the scene was owned by a catholic mission and came complete with its own nun. Sadly she didn’t have her winged hat on so couldn’t fly. They offered to take her the 6km into town and gave me some pretty rough directions to a hospital i.e. go into town and turn right and the hospital is down there. I put Tanya in the front of the car, and went back for her tank bag and helmet and put that in the back of the car. Stupidly I threw the ignition key and GPS loose in the helmet – bad habit.

 

A local lady kindly offered to look after the bike in her millet plot while Mick transported his to the hospital

 

Tan shot off for the hospital and I pushed the broken bike off the road. The fairing was pretty cracked and looked buggered, the dash was bent, one of the switches was broken, mirror was broken and few other things. At first glance I thought the forks were bent but on closer inspection thankfully they were just twisted in the triple clamps. I pushed the bike further off the road, and a local lady with a plot directed me to park the bike in her front yard and agreed to take care of it. I then jumped on my bike and made my way into town. My gremlin limiting the engine speed is still there, I could get to a bit over 4000rpm which is about 105 and the bike would start spluttering and missing. But that was a problem that could wait for later.

I found the hospital pretty easily but I didn’t even know for sure if I was even at the right place, so I asked the security guards manning the gate if an “Australian lady” had come through. Yes, she had apparently. I waited a moment and nothing happened, so I ask them to lift the boom gate so I could come in, but they told me I had to park outside. ‘No way’, I said, ‘I’m hardly in the mood for negotiation, and I’m not leaving the bike outside’. It’s Namibia, which is pretty safe for Africa but its still Africa, there is still the odd light fingered person about. I think they could tell I was starting to get a bit pissed off and wasn’t going to budge, so they let me park the bike inside the fence in the shade next to the security hut. I found the mission people inside the hospital and spoke to Tanya and she seemed to be doing ok.

 

Photo removed for now, will get it back up shortly.

The hospital kitted us up well for taking care of the wound

 

I was feeling pretty unwell on the way to the hospital and noticed that the driver looked so worried about me he was doing his best to avoid potholes while looking over at me ever couple of seconds. By the time I got to the hospital I was feeling a lot better but still wanted a professional to clean up the wound and give me a good once over. Nothing felt serious but I was worried a bit about my guts. As the nun held my hand and took me into the local hospital, all eyes fell on me in stunned silence and I felt the sudden urge to cry but managed to restrict it to a few stray tears. I saw the emergency doctor within minutes and she did her examination and ruled that she didn’t think I needed x-rays and everything looked ok. She was surprised by my lack of injuries actually. The nurse checked my blood pressure and cleaned up the gravel rash nicely and gave me some medication and a heap of dressings, plus put my arm in a sling. The doctor was keen to give me a pain killing injection but I told her I was fine and she settled for giving me some paracetomol.   The final bill for my hospital visit was N$150, about 15 bucks.

 

Mick settling the $15 hospital bill. That included immediate treatment and all dressings and wound cleaning stuff. Pretty good we thought

 

We found a shady place to rest and work on the sick bike across the road from the hospital

 

MICK’S VIEW:  The hospital was basic but clean, and the staff were really quite professional and seemed to know what they were on about. I was pretty impressed, and I don’t mean that to sound condescending, but we were in a little Ovamboland town after all. After thanking the doctors and the kind nun and driver, we walked across the road to a cheap looking restaurant and had some lunch and a cool drink.

Once Tan was settled I hitched a ride to a taxi rank and then paid off a driver to take me to the bike, I told him I wanted to go 6kms out of town but his taxi wasn’t full yet (in Africa, taxi’s only go when they are full, so people sit and wait until then), I told him I’ll pay him for all his seats there and back. How much will you pay he asks? N$50, about $5. He said yes straight away. When I arrived at the bike the locals were keen to hear how Tanya was doing and were happy to hear that she was fine. They also wanted to know what her name was which we found really touching, especially because discussing this point later with other people we suspected this was so they could include her in their prayers.

 

‘Juhna’ is now sporting some gnarly scars. Thankfully the Safari Tanks, like Aussie lady bikers, a made tough

 

 

Mirror bit the dust and the aluminium dash properly bent

 

Barkbusters took a beating, handlebars required straightening and mounts copped some gravel rash too

 

While back at the crash site, marks on the road allowed me to pace out the distance Tan had slid down the road. It was about 14m, which was a pretty fair effort. I gave the bike a once over, reattached the fairing slightly and made sure everything was kind of working. The bike fired straight up. Forks were twisted to buggery in the triple clamps but thankfully not bent. I rode it back to the restaurant and started straightening things while Tanya rested. I had to remove and straighten the hand guards, straighten the dash, epoxy a heap of new cracks in the fairing. The DRL mount was bent and broken. The lens for the projector was cracked, and the dipper mechanism bent also. The heated grip switch was broken so I disconnected the heated grips. One of the elements was also damaged as the grip got road rash down to the bars. I took the broken mirror off and put the good one on the right hand side. I also tried to address the miss at high revs my bike was having. I thought it might be some shit getting picked up into the main jet so figured I’d drain the fuel bowl while all the tools were out and hopefully any grit would drop out. After about 4 hours we were good to go.

 

Damage to the projector mounts, lens and dipper mechanism

 

Poor bike

 

The fairing was broken now for the third time

 

We’ve gone though A LOT of epoxy resin in the last 2 weeks

 

She’s pretty beat up now

 

After a hearty meal of deep friend Russian sausage, hot chips and a coke I felt actually pretty good. I checked out my bike riding kit and was able to put together how I must have impacted from the damaged to my armour. It seemed I hit my right elbow first and the right side of the body seemed to cop a bit more impact than the left. After a few days when the swelling on my right elbow went down enough it revealed a bruise that mirrored the full elbow guard on my body armour. Mick is convinced that, were I not wearing my body armour and were instead wearing my riding suit, I would have broken it. Another thing we were so happy for was the fact I was wearing my new Leatt neckbrace. It felt like a fortunate twist of fate when I thought about it. It was only after meeting Tony in Windhoek that we got to thinking we should buy neckbraces. Were it not for him we probably wouldn’t have bothered to get them. We bought them only a month and a half previous and were it not for that neckbrace I would have been in a huge amount of discomfort after my donkey crash. As I slid down the road the neckbrace simply locked in with the helmet and instead of bouncing up and down on the bitumen my head stayed in one position and I just slid on my armour and the tip of neck brace. We felt lucky to have met Tony and Friedel before this accident, now I am more thankful than ever. TONY WE OWE YOU A DEBT OF THANKS!

 

Some sctraches on the boob plate of my body armour. This body armour was the first gift Mick ever gave me. BEST GIFT EVER. 5 ½ years old and the gear is still looking out for me

 

My Leatt neckbrace purchased only 6 weeks previous. MONEY WELL SPENT. You can see the damage from the neckbrace grinding against the road

 

Seems I wasn’t the only one to register damage in the crash. Note the donkey hairs wedged under the indicator. They still travel with me as my lucky charms

 

After about 4 ½ hours, and despite the discomfort in my arm/shoulder, I was up for the ride.  I was obviously riding on high alert as there were countless animals lining the road for the entire route. My past appreciation for the humble donkey was gone and I found myself giving dirty looks to every one that I passed like they were all part of the murderous donkey conspiracy.   Well you failed donkeys! You failed! It wasn’t long before I was feeling confident again and we managed to polish off about 270km before stopping for the night.

 

Can’t believe my luck. And the lack of pain and discomfort (silly woman – that came the next day – in spades)

 

The one thing that did hurt was my guts from belly flopping on the road. There is no give in bitumen

 

I couldn’t help but kick myself for crashing into a donkey. However, it was a good lesson for us. It was the first time we had seen donkeys behaving in this way. Now we know that whenever we see an animal acting differently we will come to a crawl before passing them. Really we were so fortunate as it could easily have resulted in significant damage to the bike and serious injury to myself. Perhaps we just cashed in our good road karma from helping unbog our Austrian friends in the Gunamub. As unwelcome an event as it was we could not get over how fortunate we were. As far as hitting a donkey at speed on a relatively busy highway goes, it was as good an outcome as you could hope for.

 

Not feeling very awesome. Strangely proud of my riding jersey – will not be replacing or repairing

 

Its taken some quality stacks to get it looking this good

 

It was also a demonstration on the importance of good gear. Prior to the trip we had done a lot of brainstorming on how to keep our pre-trip expenses down. Such things included the ruthless pursuit of the best deal and price for storage, shipping, insurances, banking etc. However, we never once looked at saving money on our riding gear. That was always the place where we were going top of the line and for the most part we sourced stuff in Oz at higher prices to ensure perfect fits. Shoei helmets, Sidi boots, Alpinestars (me) and Leatt (Mick) armour, Leatt (me) and Pod (mick) knee guards, Klim and Fox riding gear; its all good stuff. My advice to anyone, based on my experiences, is to not be a cheap bastard and get superior gear. If you can’t afford good stuff you can’t afford the trip. The stories of people wearing cheap boots stuffed with newspaper so they fit, who then crash and smash their legs and ankles and are not able to work for a year, are real. These things really happen.

 

The gravel rash to my hip. Not extensive but deep. Shall produce a decent scar. Looks a bit like a zombie bite

 

MICK’S VIEW:  The ignition key that I threw loose into the helmet in a rush to get Tanya to hospital got lost. Bugger. I should have put it all in the tank bag rather than rush and stuff it in the helmet – oh well we know for next time something out of the ordinary happens. Slow down and secure everything. We left the hospital aiming to get as far as Tsumeb but only got to Oshivelo before the sun was starting to set. With the shock of Tanya’s donkey dance subsiding we begun to focus on my miss. It hadn’t gone away. I could do 100-105 no problem, but at 105-110 it would start to play up. I noticed an interesting symptom though. An oncoming car overtook not far in front of me so I turned on all my headlights to make sure I was visible, and the miss came on strong. Lights off and it went away. It was electrical load related.

We found a hotel room in Oshivelo, which is little more than a petrol station, weight bridge and collection of buildings that used to mark the border of Ovamboland during the war of independence. Once soldiers had gone through Oshivelo and it was considered active service. We got a room in the intriguingly named “Apollo 11 Complex” and set about getting some much needed rest.

We went to a local restaurant across the road to find out that all it served was “chips”. Seriously, it was a chip restaurant. Nothing else. So we sought out the only other restaurant in town and discovered that all they served was chips and sausages. We ordered everything on the menu (chips and sausages) and while the sausage was good the chips were underwhelming. It seemed the establishment had made the same mistake as some of the world’s largest corporations by diversifying too much and having their key product suffer. We went to sleep after emailing the symptoms of the bike and a diagnosis theory of mine to our trip electrical engineer and awaited his input. We are pretty fortunate to have an expert electrical engineer on standby for any electrical issues that crop up. He is my old man and works for free.

 

Makeshift garage at the Apollo 11 Complex

 

Mick looking for electrical gremlins

 

The next morning we found that surprisingly, my dad’s diagnosis was reasonably similar to mine. We thought that there was some sort of interference from the charging circuit into the ignition circuit; being engine speed and therefore voltage related it made sense that there was probably an insulation problem. I’d guessed maybe it was a break in the loom but Dad thought it might be down at the stator itself, which made a lot more sense as I had not only converted the stator from star to delta. I had also attached a new pulse coil so if any of those joins weren’t insulated properly it could be a HV leakage point. I spent a lot of time investigating the electrical issue while in the hotel, messaging in real time through Facebook to my dad on the other side of the planet. We’re a long way from Jupiter’s Travel days.

 

Looking for bad connection but sadly everything looked fantastic

 

Couldn’t see anything untoward so decided to insulate everything anyway

 

I couldn’t see any issue, in fact I was pretty pleased to see that the delta mod and pulse coil splice were actually pretty damn neat, but the theory was good so I re-insulated all the connections anyway. I ran out of the Pratleys 15min epoxy so dug out the JB-Weld, which takes about an hour to set so we lost lots of time there. Had no effect sadly, other than make my neat delta mod and pulse coil splice really bloody ugly.

It was stinking hot in the hotel courtyard as it was a brick building with a 8ft high brick wall all around and white dirt, so reflected all the heat like an oven. It was ferociously hot. My temp gauge on the vapor said 61deg! Tan meanwhile was lying down in the shade making the occasion groan of discomfort. The pain and stiffness of the donkey accident were setting it. She was disappointed to learn that the neck brace that went a long way to minimising injury didn’t spare her the full effect of the whiplash altogether. She was sore, really sore. And she became all the more dissatisfied when she somehow managed to lose her new ignition key at some point during the day. We were clearly in a downswing luck-wise. We had lost 2 ignition keys in 2 days. We now had to fish out the only spare we had left.

 

Every connection re-epoxied with whatever I had. Far from pretty

 

With Tanya getting sorer and sorer we considered staying another night, however we new there was a bike store where our spare tyres were waiting for us with Johan’s brother Dirk in Grootfontein, so we decided to travel the 180km to get there. We eventually left Oshivelo around 3.30pm after having spent all day working on the electrical problem without success. Then, 3kms out of town Tanya got me on the intercom to tell me that her fairing was loose. Due to the cracks, the fairing was shaking around and the fasteners came out so its was only held on by a single one. This was a last straw for me I cracked it, I was so bloody sick of fixing bikes and wasn’t a very happy camper. We ended up tying the fairing on with some para-cord and continued on our way. As we hit the highway I lent down and unplugged the stator. With no charging the electrical miss was gone and the bike behaved perfectly. Interesting.

We were now quite overdue to arrive at Dirk and Lynn’s house in Grootfontein so went straight to their placee. By the time we arrived I was very stiff and sore but didn’t think I looked too bad but upon seeing me Dirk and Lynn insisted we would stay with them. They thought I looked terrible. Turns out Lynn is the head nurse at the local hospital and she saw to it that I had the right medication and ran me a hot bath with Epsom salts which was a dream come true really. They had already eaten so went and got us pizza and drinks we devoured like wild animals while getting to know them.

We discussed with them our immediate problem, which was the fact our tourist visa was due to expire the following day. We were over 800km away from the border crossing and even if I was feeling up to it, Mick’s bike had a potentially serious electrical problem. We had been considering just overstaying our visa as it had already been extended once. Dirk advised us against doing it as the Namibian government has a proven reputation for being over-zealous with their enforcement of visa rules. He knows of multiple occasions when people have been detained and even deported. Dirk is a minister and happens to know just about everyone it town so rang his friend that had once worked in the Department of Home Affairs for us. His friend said it was extremely risky for us to overstay the visa and that if the cops noticed our expired visa there is a good chance we could be detained. Fortunately, with Dirk’s connections we were able to arrange for a second visa extension. When we got to the Home Affairs the lady we dealt with knew full well that she wasn’t supposed to give us a second extension, even with the medical records from the hospital, but her superior knew our story and gave it to us. We were so fortunate to have Dirk and Lynn to help us.

So now friends the grand total for our two lots of visa extensions to Namibia is $180. But at least we were in Namibia legitimately for the next 2 weeks, which we thought would be an appropriate timeframe to diagnose the problem and get parts air freighted from South Africa. Ha! The fools we were! Turns out, the donkey crash was the easy part.

Blog 26 by Tan: Last Dance in Kaokoland

Even with Van Zyl’s completed, there was still hundreds of kilometers of off-road riding to be done to get out of oblivion and back to civilisation. Our next planned fuel stop was still 450kms away in Raucana, while the next place we could get a meal and place to stay was about 285kms away at Epupa Falls. If you started a ride at the bottom of the pass without completing it you’d think you’re in hectic adventure riding paradise, with sand and rocks, climbs and descents in excess. But compared to Van Zyl’s Pass the rest of the day’s riding was blissfully easy (relatively speaking anyway) and would have been much more fun if we weren’t so exhausted. But it was certainly still fun. For the first part it was sandy twin track through the deserted Marienfluss Valley. We saw a bunch of springbok but apart from that the only sign of life in the area was the two of us.

 

Sandy track on the way to Red Drum

 

Made for some pretty fun and easy km

 

Navigating in the valley bottom was tricky with multiple tracks accessing many unseen Himba kraals and pastures. All the tracks were sandy twin track and looked identical, and there was a bit of bush bashing involved in finding the right trail, but find it we did and before we knew it we had reached Red Drum. It really is the kind of place where you’d struggle to navigate by paper maps alone, it could be done but it wouldn’t be easy. Once again, what is worthy of a place name printed on a map in Kakoaland fooled us into thinking we might be able to track down a cold coke, goodness knows we needed one. Turns out Red Drum is literally just a red drum sitting out in the middle of nowhere, placed originally as a navigational aid. The status of Red Drum as a tourist attraction is owed purely to the fact that it is so remote and challenging to get to. We got the obligatory photos before setting out for the community run Marble Camp.

 

Not much in the way of landmarks around here but this came close. Tracks4Africa says this bakkie was blown up by a landline

 

One of the empty Himba camps

 

The old track was deep sand the new track not so much… guess which one we took?

 

Along the route we didn’t see a soul but did spy a bunch of large, empty Himba camps whose semi-nomadic inhabitants had obviously moved on for better grazing. After flat plains and sandy tracks we found ourselves once again on rocky trails as we neared the campsite. We were granted lovely views and more tough, rocky passes through the hills although thankfully nothing near as steep as Van Zyl’s. Some of the hideously rocky ascents seemed to go on forever and all you could do was rev the guts out of the DRs, ignore the burning in the triceps and power though until the end. It was excellent riding.

 

Answer: New track

 

The Famous Red Drum. You will note my spare front tyre is no longer on my right hand pannier

 

A couple of kilometres from the campground we stopped to chat and noticed that the spare front tyre I had been carrying had come lose of its strap and slid off the right pannier somewhere along the way. We usually have the cable of our pacsafe mesh bag wrapped around it twice to further secure in addition to a double d-ring strap, but knowing we had some difficult riding ahead we opted not to lock the top bag to the rear rack incase we need to remove luggage easily to lift a dropped bike. We checked our photos to try to gauge how far back we might have lost the tyre and placed it somewhere between the bottom of Van Zyl’s and Red Drum. Even if just one of us went back to find it, it meant at least a 40-70km round trip that we just couldn’t spare the fuel for given our plans to ride a fuel free route to Ruacana via Epupa Falls.

So if anyone up that way should see a kid playing with a brand new Pirelli MT21 front tyre…. you’ll know how they got it. On the bright side however was that our current front tyres (also MT21’s) were lasting much longer than we expected them to. Mick then had a particularly clever moment when he decided that he would swap my half worn front for the brand new one Mick was carrying while he would then wear out his current half worn front tyre before replacing it with my half worn front tyre, if that makes sense. When those were worn we would then both be ready to change into the Continental TKC 80 front tyres we were waiting to pick up before leaving Namibia. Clever scheduling I thought and with that we weren’t too cut up about donating a brand new $80 tyre to the desert.

 

Hi Mum!

 

Seriously, if you let these things get to you on a trip like this then you are in for a miserable time. A trip like this is highly conducive to the loss and destruction of everything in your possession, including the bike naturally. So with that we let it go. In my dreams, I imagine a hot, stranded solo motorbike traveller with a destroyed 21” front tyre. considering their unfortunate situation when suddenly he notices a little Himba boy playing with a dusty yet pristine MT21 front tyre…

We made it to the Marble Camp and (surprise, surprise) found ourselves the only people there. It was hilarious how utterly shagged we were after riding a grand total of just 65.2 GPS confirmed kilometres for the day. We were so tired we didn’t have it in us to walk or even ride the 3km to get to the local shop selling cold soft drinks. When we are not riding you will very rarely ever see either Mick or I drinking soft drink but on a bike trip especially in a hot dusty place our appetite for the fizzy sugar water is insatiable. We were faced with the conflicting desire to not wanting to move a muscle and wanting to drink cold coke.

There was one way out or our quandary, which we were slightly uncomfortable with using. Coming from a egalitarian society like Australia it was hard for us to go up to a local guy and offer him cash to go and get drinks that we were too bloody lazy to get ourselves. So it was a cultural conflict for us even though things are obviously different over here and many people would welcome any opportunity to earn money any way they can. And sure enough when I asked the guy running the camp if he would get us some cokes he was more than happy and even had a cooler bag handy for such a task. In the end he came back with 4 icy cold cokes and I paid him what a heap of money to try and appease my potentially misplaced guilt for being a lazy bastard and everyone was happy.

We watched the sunset and enjoyed a killer canned veggie and bully beef curry. Then we had a much needed and BLISSFUL shower to wash of the dust and sweat of the day. And what a day it was! We confirmed that Van Zyl’s deserved its reputation and went to bed clean, with full tummies and pleasantly sore muscles.

 

Believe it or not this is one of the main roads in the area

 

The climbs went on and on and on and on

 

Rocky enough for you. This was the top of probably the longest climb of this track, but there were a couple more which came close

 

With champagne in short supply in these parts, I had bought along a special treat to celebrate our slaying of the dragon called Van Zyl’s; custard and tinned fruit and we had that for breakfast. Our plan was to go straight on up to Epupa Falls on the Namibia-Angola border and then follow the Kunene River to Ruacana where we would be able to get fuel. That morning we tried to judge the amount of fuel left in our tanks as our planned route would push the limits of our fuel range even with the secondary tanks filled. Mick was concerned that the amount of slow off-road riding would have increased our consumption, even the main tracks were tough and slow and harder then what we had envisioned. My tank was a bit lower than Mick’s, to be expected as my bike spent some time on its side during the Van Zyl’s descent, and both seemed little lower than expected. We decided to keep an eye on the fuel levels and make the ultimate decision to go with the planned route or play conservative when we got to the turn off between the back route through to Epupa or the main route back to Opuwo.

 

Another chance to clock up some easy km

 

Beautiful country

 

The day’s riding started off really well and we were able to manage speeds of up to 70km/h on the open sandy plain. As we progressed further up the valley though it got steeper and quite rocky. Along the route we came across another little Himba village where we had a quick chat with some older ladies and gave them some matches, spare eye drops and Panadol I was carrying. We had noticed the older ladies in particular seem to have issues with their eyes due to the constant hammering from the sun and sand. Fortuitously, there was an English speaking guy in the village at the time, which is very uncommon for Kokaoland, and with him we were able to explain and demonstrate how to use the eye drops and where to store them.

 

A pretty remote Himba Camp

 

We stopped in for a quick visit and share some excess medical supplies with people who need them more than us

 

We headed further up the valley and things got even rockier. The riding was slow and unrelenting. Some of the rocky ascents were just ridiculous and went on forever. We would hit them hard and fast then eventually we’d be reduced to first gear and still only half way up before the overheating warning lights came on. After letting the motors cool for a spell, we were up on the pegs again willing the poor DR piggies up the trails. It was fantastic and so hard to fathom we were on one of the main roads in the region.

 

Namibia excels at wide open spaces

 

A really fun section that gave us a break from the tough stuff

 

We stopped for lunch in a sandy creek bed (tuna from a can served with a stick) and we checked fuel levels again. With so much slow off-road riding, we were concerned they were lower than they needed to be to make it to Ruacana. From what we knew of the route, especially this time of year, it would be a long wait were we to run out of fuel. We had been told that sometimes there is fuel available along the way sold from jars, but being summer we weren’t convinced that would not be available, there was simply no-one out there.

We decided to abandon the planned route and take the conservative option of heading back for the guaranteed fuel in Opuwo. Our planned route from Opuwo to Raucana including Van Zyl’s would have been about 620km in total, about 80% rocky and sandy off-road and the rest gravel, and with fuel already lost from my bike and the uncertainty of the roads ahead, Mick was and more concerned about fuel levels. He is generally pretty adventurous with routes but quite conservative with fuel, water and spare parts, and this plan was starting to eat into our fuel redundancy. In a place like this, planning to arrive at a destination with no fuel left is pushing the boundaries too far for him and just asking for trouble.

We weren’t too disappointed as we figured we’d only be missing out on about 50km of off-road tracks by going back through Opuwo. We could get some cold drinks, another good feed and spend the night before filling up and heading to Epupa Falls on the gravel.

So we turned south east back to Opouwo and onto tracks we had already ridden instead on north east to Epupa. Fatigue over the efforts of the last couple of days was setting in and the hot thick, rutted to high heaven sand was getting tougher to negotiate. I dropped the bike a couple of times in some thick riverbed sand. I was annoyed to notice that one of the drops was in the exact same riverbed that downed me the first time I passed through it.   Down me once shame on you, down me twice shame on me!

 

Totally object fixated on the pile of branches marking the hazard …for the second time

 

We were a whole ‘nother level of exhausted when we arrived back at Opuwo Country Lodge and upon learning their rooms were going for half the usual price we jumped at the chance for some comfort. We needed a good rest and getting a good quality room in Namibia for only $70 is a very rare thing indeed, and we enjoyed the air-conditioned comfort immensely.

 

The heat radiated off the sand

 

…especially when you dropped into this thick stuff. There were many dry creek crossings like this one this section of track

 

Before leaving the next morning we ruined the luxurious esthetic of the lodge was no doubt going for by turning their car park into a makeshift garage so we could take care of some bike maintenance. Mick swapped my half worn tyre out for the new one and in the bid to save space we swapped out my inner tube for the new heavy duty tube we’d been carrying. This also gave us the chance to use the last of the tyre goo we’d been carrying since Windhoek. Unfortunately it didn’t go to plan as the tube got pinched badly while doing the tyre change in a rush in the hot sun. It was seriously hot, probably mid to high 40s and there was almost no shade. After some failed attempts at patching it we conceded that it was irreparable so we ditched it and put the original tube back in. More money down the gurgler…bugger!

Did we mention that we are super keen to go tubeless? Tyre changing is a total pain. We had considered going tubeless before we left but it was just going to be yet another big expense in a long line of big expenses right before we left so we stuck with what we already had. We are thinking if we can get the budget looking more healthy by the time we get to Europe we will go for the conversion. Here’s hoping the travel God’s smile kindly upon the beaten, miserable mess that is our budget over the coming months.

While all this was happening we attracted the attention of a Swiss couple attracted by our sprawling mess. The lovely Swiss lady walked up to us with a look of extreme delight on her face and asked ‘What are you doing? It looks marvelous.’ They were highly interested in our trip, offered us endless encouragement and a place to stay when we went through Switzerland. This is one of the best things about travelling we get to meet so many like-minded people; people that just instantly ‘get it’. Regula (very swiss name) was quite the adventurer herself and despite being at the stage of life when most people are taking things easy, she rides bicycles across countries like Romania and Mexico. Her next trip will see he riding from Finland to St Petersberg. As you do. What a legend!

Knowing we’d be getting a cold drink from the bar before we got on the road they went and arranged for our drinks to be put on their tab. What a kind gesture. We only had a short ride ahead of us on what were good quality gravel roads and we hit the road early afternoon after filling up. Mick was annoyed at himself as he realised that our fuel consumption was as he had expected and we would have made it no problems after all, even with the 1.5l or so lost from my front tank from its horizontal experiences. The one major problem with the TM40 pumper carb conversion is that the float mechanism is very sensitive, and if the bike is on its side it generally starts overflowing petrol. On our way to Epupa we came upon a local place selling petrol which we weren’t aware of so we would have doubley made it to Ruacana no worries. Oh well. The ride was nice, fast and mostly uneventful.

 

Good gravel roads around Opuwo

 

I had a minor road rage incident on the way when I was trying to overtake a little VW Polo full of moron foreign tourists driving on the wrong side of the road, swerving left to right like maniacs and generally just trying to kill me. Mick had already overtaken, and we got separated further and further as it was too risky to stay in their dust trail and too dangerous to get close enough to overtake them. Eventually on a long straight they edged a little closer to the correct left hand side of the road, which gave me the chance to open up and get in front. As I approached them I was able to see why they were driving so erratically and unobservantly. They were travelling at almost 100kph on a remote gravel road and were dancing to blaring pop music. I was so pissed off to see them having such a good time not paying attention to what is around them while I had spent the last few minutes in their dust waiting for a safe spot to pass. What they were doing was a juvenile recipe for disaster that I lost my cool and gave them the finger as I rode past. The girl in front thought I was waving so happily blew a kiss back at me. Seeing that the road ahead was in a good condition I held the bike straight with one hand and turned around and gave the most aggressively profane one handed gestures that I think left no room for confusion and I was close enough to see their faces fall.

 

The top of Epupa Falls

 

Mick looking over towards Angola, which we couldn’t get visas for. The beer and the vista was a poor consolation

 

It only took a moment for me to recognise folly of my actions when I realised that there was only one place they would be heading and it was the same place we were going. The chances were good that we would be face to face with these people in a short time. And things would be awkward. Very awkward, especially because I am more bark than bite. Actually I am more run than bark. Sure enough, after we had set up camp and had dinner the VW Polo full of 20yr old foreign girls pulled up to our camp and asked for directions. I sat there in a proud, self-righteous sulk and refused to look at them while Mick answered their questions and they fortunately went off somewhere else for the night. Note to self: no more road rage.

 

Behold Epupa Falls. Namibia to the right – Angola to the left

 

Ancient boababs in the middle of the falls

 

The next morning we checked out the famous Epupa Waterfall and were gratified to find they one of the most stunning waterfalls I had ever visited and well worth the trip. Even with unseasonably low water levels they were impressive and almost otherworldly in appearance with centuries old baobab trees perched on rock outcrops in the middle of the sprawling falls. However, there was one blight on the vista which was the presence of a strange phenomena the likes of which we had noticed in South Africa and other aprts of Namibia as well; religious graffiti. I dig that people are loving their religion but couldn’t reconcile a need to grab a spray can in a place like this to spread their message.

 

Religious graffiti

 

Panorama-rama

 

Not a bad spot at all

 

We ended up leaving late as we spent some time exchanging info and generally chatting with a couple of fellow travellers. After the last few weeks of heavy off road riding I was really starting to tire. Mick did offer that we could take the nice easy route to Kunene River Lodge rather than the difficult trail that followed the river that marked the border to Angola. I was keen to do the easy option but I could tell Mick, as ever, was keen on the rough route. Figuring it was likely to be the last bit of proper off-road we’d do for a while, I succumbed to the hard route. Additionally, I figured it would earn me enough girlfriend points that I planned to cash in later for an extravagant High Tea at the Victoria Falls Hotel. ‘How bad could it be?’ I asked myself. I really wish I had insisted on the easier dirt road as it ended up being hell on a motorcycle. It took us almost 6 hours to cover 98km. It turned out to be an incredibly hard route.

 

Things started our quite civilised

 

It started off not too bad as the first 28km were in the very early stages of being made into a proper road.  It got us thinking perhaps they have done most of the route and we were in for a not too difficult ride. Folly! While it was less technical than it otherwise would have been, it still took a long time as it was rough country and incredibly hot. The track had seen what we guessed was one or two passes with a bulldozer so all the holes were filled in, but with no road base it was still rocky, rutted and slow going.

There were some extensive and hellish sections of DEEP bulldust that was a real struggle as riding through it was like putting on the brakes and it was so hard to keep the bikes moving fast enough to stay upright. Anyone who has ridden in the stuff before will know that it is very different from sand. In bulldust (or fesh fesh as it is known here) the front wheel sinks and doesn’t float on top as it does with sand with enough speed. It was some of the deepest and most extensive bulldust either of us had experienced but it was entertaining nonetheless.

 

Bulldust Ahoy!

 

Deep nasty staff

 

Mick went first and promptly found the worst line possible

 

The sun was vicious that day and we stopped by the river at a scenic spot to take some photos and to splash some water on our faces – crocodiles be damned. Although it wasn’t as hot as the day previous, it was still low 40’s and was the first day when we were really feeling the challenge of riding in summer. Having lived in some hot places in Aus we were fortunately acclimatised quite well. One thing we were very grateful for was that the heat in Kaokoland was still manageable in summer. Although it was hot riding it was generally only 40 or low 40’s normally with the odd stinker here and there like the day before, i.e. hot but not really dangerously so. That said we were lucky that the day we did Van Zyl’s was not hot, probably only 40 at most.

 

My line wasn’t all that much better

 

 

 

 

 

Mick swimming in bulldust

 

Nice deep ruts

 

 

After the water break things really got real on the trail as we passed the bulldozer prepping the trail for road construction and got onto the track proper. It was so hard we took barely any photos as it was a struggle for every kilometre gained. The only photos we took were of the easiest sections. How to describe it? Unrelenting, steep, ridiculously rocky and eroded ascents and descents. Some of the climbs were so bloody long and some of the descents were so steep and full of deep washouts. The rocks were a hellish mixture of diabolical, sharp angular rocks that threatened to tear tyres and huge, round rolling river rocks that constantly pushed us offline. The worst stretches where only layers upon layer of rocks that functioned like a slow moving treadmill under your tyres. I was so worn out from what had been a heavy schedule of technical riding and I was not altogether happy after a couple stacks, one of which cracked my newly repaired fairing and breaking an indicator. My poor bloody bike had been copping a beating of late despite all her hard work and loyalty.

 

Found some more

 

 

We figured/hoped there were no crocs here

 

I even temporarily forgot my lifetime phobia of crocodile to wet my face

 

SO HOT!

 

Just a short swim to Angola

 

Knackered and the hard part hadn’t even begun

 

It was really hard work. Really hard and quite awful. Once again there were tears (from me), which meant it was proper serious riding. Our progress was much slower than expected and the sun was rapidly going down. While riding my bike out of a deep rut in a bastard rocky section Mick ended dropping the bike and bruising his left hand really badly. I suspect he may have actually broken a bone in his thumb. It swelled up immediately and looked really bad, and worse still he now was forced to move and lift bikes with only one good hand.

With no option but going on, he got back and we went on. However the pain in his hand was amplified by jolting of the rocky trail, so we tried to find/blaze a track right along the river’s edge. Better sand than rock with a hand injury…but no dice there was far too much vegetation. There was no trail to be had so we sat under a tree while we considered our options with Mick’s massively swollen left hand. While he didn’t mention it at the time, Mick later admitted that he was worried he might have pushed it just a bit too far this time. The benefit of riding as a pair isn’t as significant when there is only one person to lift a downed bike. When that person gets injured, what next?

After about 40 minutes of resting and frustratedly contemplating our next move, we realised we had only one; harden the fuck up and ride. So it was back to the rocky rollercoaster of the main trail. He was in a lot of pain as I could hear him groaning in discomfort through the intercom as he negotiated the toughest sections. Mick soon went into robot mode as we knuckled down and focused on getting to where we needed to be.

 

Preparing for another rocky climb on a flatter easier bit

 

This sequences demonstrates rolling rock induced ugly riding (this is one of the easy sections)

 

 

 

Just when we thought the hard stuff was finally over there was yet another mammoth rocky ‘as all get out’ climb. It was then that I realised that I hated this Godforsaken track. It was even harder than I feared it might be. We kept pushing on and we were able to watch the sunset over the only scenic section we came across on the trail. The river was still and the sky was made pink and purple as the sun dipped below the horizon. Great. Now it was dark. We were still a while away from the lodge and soon enough it was pitch black. It is times like this when we feel happy with our decision to install powerful headlights on the bikes. While you never plan on riding in the dark it will happen at some point and at that point you want to be able to see well.

 

 

Rolling rocks of doom (another easy section). The worst bits were steeper, ruttier and rockier

 

Finally we arrived at the Kunene River Lodge and it was well after 8pm. I was beyond glad to see the last of the difficult riding….. at least for that day. We were both ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED! Putting up a tent was simply not an option. We lacked the energy and brainpower to erect a tent at that point and were actually struggling to communicate clearly. I was actually slurring my words in exhaustion. Despite the $140 price tag for a cabin we took it, such was our desperation for rest. And that is how we have pummeled the budget; by wearing ourselves out so thoroughly that a $140 room is the only option.

I managed to arrange a 12pm check-out in lieu of a discount and we got the staff to feel sorry for us enough that they went and opened the bar for us. I was so physically and emotionally exhausted and just so happy that it was over that I quietly wept into my drink. Fortunately the room was excellent and after a long shower we were starting to feel human again. Unfortunately all through the night I kept dreaming of riding steep rocky climbs and struggled to get the rest I needed and paid so much for. Mick had a similar experience.

 

Kunene River Lodge – a nice spot

 

Mick repairing my poor fairing for the second time in a just a few days

 

We stayed on another day (in the campground this time) and caught up on rest and did some bike maintenance and repairs. Mick applied more epoxy to my fairing and replaced my broken indicator. Mick carries spares for everything. He also removed the filter skins, which became well and truly clogged with bulldust.

We left the Kunene River Lodge a little later than planned as we got talking to the cool owners who had a lot of local knowledge and recommendations for us. They told us about the last bikers they had come to the lodge by the nasty route we took. It didn’t end well for them. By the sounds of it they were on big bikes and out of their depth. One of the guys crashed badly on a rocky descent and broke his leg (femur and tib+fib) in 3 places. He then had to wait on his own for help in the hottest month of the year under a tree for 2 DAYS! He was so injured that he could not take off his bike gear, he just sat there. His friend went for help but got to a section that he just could not ride so had to leave the bike and walk for help. He didn’t get very far in that two days but did come across two other highly capable bikers who managed get word of the accident to the owners of the Kunene River Lodge. Eventually the lodge owners got to the poor bugger who must have been in untold levels of pain. One wonders how he is doing now. Poor Fella.

 

Grubby filter skins from sucking up bulldust. But the benefit of these is that with it pushed to the side…

 

..the main filter is clean underneath, it’s a poor mans filter clean, great for the trailside. We run Funnelweb filters. Made it Oz for maximum surface area and they are excellent

 

It is tales like that that make us glad that we carry the InReach with us. If we were in that same situation we would have been able to get the word of our misfortune out immediately and have someone with us potentially within hours, all going well. The InReach has a texting option where you can give full details of your situation. You really can’t put a price on being able to communicate such things as ‘we are fine and have enough water and food but need a bike recovery and ride out’ or ‘I have a badly broken my femur and have no water’. Heck, if you wanted to you could post your tale of woe on Facebook though the InReach, while you are waiting for rescue and be sending and receiving messages with your loved ones. These things are lifesavers and in the case you were lying in pain, alone, under a tree for 2 days the two-way communication would have been a huge source of comfort, I would imagine. We have used the SPOT messenger system before and were pleased with it but the InReach is really a whole ‘nother level of peace of mind.

We got to Ruacana in pretty good time as the road was nicely graded dirt. When we hit the tar road, Mick noticed his bike having some difficulty at higher revs and thought it might be due to the main jet having something caught up in it. He didn’t think it a big issue at the time but resolved to look into it later.

 

Mick’s injured left hand 24 hours later. It looked a lot like something was broken but Mick stopped talking about it after a couple of days

 

The start of the tar represented the end of our Kaokoland adventure and we were sad to be saying goodbye to a region we had fallen in love with. It really is an adventure rider’s paradise, particularly for those who enjoy solitude, remote places and being self-sufficient. We leave the place having toured it quite extensively but there remained a few tracks that we’d love to come back and do, namely the Marienfluss Valley all the way up to the Kunene River in the far north west of the country, and Mick is mad enoughto want to try Van Zyls upwards. For anyone that is used to a bit of heat I would recommend Kaokoland in summer as one of the best times to visit the area. It is hot, but not oppressively so, and it is the tourist low season which gives you the place to yourself and on the cheap. Car hire in this time for example is half the usual price.

 

Riding the last stretch of gravel road for some time. Catch ya Kaokoland! It’s been swell

 

With the big challenge over, it was now just a matter of picking up our tyres that were waiting for us at our friend Johan’s brother’s house in Grootfontein. If we could make it there today that gave us 2 days to cover the 800-odd km to the border before our visa’s expired. No worries we thought.

Just hours after lamenting the bad luck of the bikers on the Kunene River trail, we found ourselves in a spot of misfortune ourselves. On the highway at about 70km/h, I t-boned a galloping donkey. The bike went down, the donkey went down and in the blink of an eye I was sliding head first face down the tar. This was an unexpected, and altogether unwelcome, turn of events.