Cold cold London

Yes, how did this happen? I cannot tell you! Suffice to say, despite being incredibly lethargic and depressed since returning things are good, I’ve been busy mending things around the new house, compiling a pimping CV and visiting friends I haven’t seen since the summer.

So the last country on the trip (South Africa), was somewhat a rushed thing. I cannot tell you exactly why, but looking back we seemed to do it as fast as possible. Of what I recall, our biggest event, was trying to book our bikes to be shipped home, the rest just fades off at the edges. I should point out, our bikes still haven’t arrived and we packed them up the day before flying home.  That’s shipping for you!

…in Summary:

From Windhoek, Cam, Craig, Eve (Craig’s girlfriend on the back of his bike) and I headed south towards Sossusvlei (big sand dunes, pictured as Namibia). From there headed down to the Fish River Canyon (a big gorge which has some breath taking scenery), then onto Orange River where we camped one night before leaving Namibia.  Following morning we met the Germans (Max & Jakob) at the border. Refer to the previous post with pictures.

Day 1 in South Africa (20/12/2010) we got as far as Strandfontein (Namakwa), where other than a near river crossing adventure the day was rather dull. We ended the day in some beach-resort camp-site/caravan village thing where we were following Jakob’s GPS which informed us of campsites in the area, alas, they were saturated and after poodling around for a while, discovered that that wasn’t going to work out for us. Luckily, while a couple of us waited for the others to find an alternative campsite, a local man came out of his chalet and offered us his driveway to camp on. Thankfully, the others returned to tell us there was no space in the other campsite either. So we turned to Stavi (our new host) who made our first night in South Africa amazing. Worked out he had been overlanding in Angola, and had lots of photos to show us, he also owned a vineyard and had lots of wine to offer the others, so the night ended quite merry.

Day 2 (21/12/2010) Stafi had booked us a reservation in a restaurant in Jacob’s Bay called Isabella’s, he also booked us a night in the camping ground in Jacob’s Bay, and planned our route out for us. What an amazing guy! A few hours later and there we were, eating in Isabella’s an epic seafood meal.  Off topic: check out the massive red grass hopper!

Day 3 (22/12/2010)  we arrived in Cape Town, met with Bernd (the guy in the Landy who we last saw in Tiwi Beach, Kenya) and headed toward the Cape of Good Hope where we did our little photo-shoot, turning round and heading back to Cape Town and I had a fuel starvation problem with Daisy, lost sight of the others and ended up lost without a hope. Pure Irony: I crossing Africa without a map and without tools, and at the very end when I’m at the destination I break down and get lost!? Thankfully, help came in the form of a telephone call from the others while re-fueling. I met them at the cable car for table mountain and off we went again.

Day 4 (23/12/2010) the day was spent ringing around for quotes on getting our bikes freighted home.

Day 5 (24/12/2010), Christmas eve was spent walking around the city centre for me, Cam Craig and Eve went wine tasting and then the evening celebrated with all of us (including our German friends) at a restaurant called Butcher’s Grill, meat there was amazing.

Day 6 (25/12/2010), Christmas day:  Craig, Eve, Cam and I went to the beach which was lovely to do on Christmas day, thinking that back home snow was on the ground and everyone suffering the cold. Fun to think about while lapping up the sun’s hot rays.

Day 7 (26/12/2010),  Boxing day; We went to a concert in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens to watch Civil Twilight, not a band we had heard of before, but it was on, and Jakob and his girlfriend (Susi) were going to be there so we went along.

Day 8 (27/12/2010),  We climbed Table Mountain, prior to Eve heading home.  Sadly, the table-cloth was on the table (a euphemism for there being cloud on the mountain top) and the visibility was awful. After that Eve and Craig went to the airport, the rest of us went to the beach.

The following day we shipped our bikes and following that catching our flights home.  :D

I do apologise for not keeping you all in the loop. Internet rates in Namibia are high and availability is scarce much like the north of South Africa. Add that to the fact my laptop is now broken and you’ve got a good set of excuses for not writing anything.

I’m going to try and book my bike on a flight home, I will later try and share with you some of the fantastic sights we’ve seen on our way these past few weeks. No guarentees as these computers aren’t great but I will TRY!

I’m glad to tell you that I’m now in Namibia and at the capital city of Windhoek… however, I am currently ill again. The others have headed off to Swakopmund for a few days to see the Atlantic and suchlike. However, I’m going to spend a few days here recovering.

The good news is that we have flown over the Okovango Delta, and obviously rode through Botswana. Additionally we met the German guys again (Max and Jakob) and rode with them for the past 3 days.

Anyhow, internet here is bloody expensive and I’m not feeling so good… and my laptop just this minute broke so be patient!

Tomorrow, we should head into Namibia… (after i fix my exhaust). Anyhow, we made some great friends in Lusaka who are also here in Livingstone which went rafting with us.

Photos:

So since my last post we’ve made our way across Zambia and now in Livingstone.

In Chipata, we had a day off restocking our supplies and general maintenance (oil changes and tyre pressure checks):

The following day, we headed west toward the Luangwe Bridge Camping, however upon arrival we were met with RIDICULOUS prices for camping and the food menu prices were simply absurd. So we got back on our bikes, and carried on further down and wild camped in the forest:

The following day was a cynch after waking up nice and early we arrived in the Zambian capital (Lusaka) at around 10am and settled in to the Chachacha/Lusaka Backpackers with little else to do, but managed to meet some Americans and Brazilians who were heading down to Livingstone the same time with same ideas as us.

The following day we headed the 300 miles (7 hours) down to Livingstone, rather boring, no photos to show for it. Except for DAISY.. she is being a right madame right now, she’s managed to damage the exhaust further:

The exhaust cap has cracked and torn itself away from the exhaust can cylinder. I have since been to a welder in Livingstone to have it cut back and welded:

Sadly, after a visit to the Victoria falls the weld was rejected..(along with all the exhaust packing) and Daisy is now BOOMING! Sounds great for about 3 minutes… but riding at 300 dB isn’t relaxing.

Anyhow, enough of that.. the Victoria Waterfalls eh??

…yup they’re dry.

…or not.

(Don’t ask me about my hair)

Here is the last of Kenya:

….and Tanzania for you!

Enjoy!!

On our way through the capital city of Malawi (Lilongwe), we stopped at a very westernized shopping center which boasted a pizza chain, which we could not resist. It can be amazing how for days on end of travel ling through towns with mud-hut shops selling inedible ingredients can be contrasted with a sleek and polished shopping mall within the same country, however, we didn’t stop to question it, it’s the first bit of Americanization we’ve seen since Nairobi (it was great!).

Anyhow, from here we’re going to casually ride down across Zambia over the next 4 days, (excluding today here in Chipata to do some maintenance and restock on supplies). Hopefully find somewhere to FINALLY connect to the internet and post these GREAT bits of news for you all to read!

Unfortunately, not photos were taken on our ride here yesterday.

Border crossing from Tanzania to Malawi was seamless, easier than the border crossing into Tanzania (in which we had a few slippy-slidey moments from one border post to the other (on account of the mud and heavy rain), and then greeted with an unforgivable $5 USD bureaucracy charge to stamp our carnet (which defeats the whole point of the carnet being a free document)… however, this was all a long time ago and we’re now in MALAWI!!! Like I said, it was very easy to get into Malawi.

So our first jaunt into Malawi we headed up to the university town of Livingstonia (however, Dr. Livingston never managed to make it here). The 15km ride up the mountain from the sealed road to this somewhat important university town in Malawi was surprisingly exhilarating; tight hairpin bends on loose gravel/sandy surface on a single lane track, the climb was nerve-twitchingly-fun and at the top was beautiful leaving you with the fear that you have the same road to get down again. However, in the good ol’ British way, there was a typical Victorian stone building with a porch/veranda looking down from the mountain to the coastline of Lake Malawi, the staff were adorably humble and polite.

From Livingstonia, we headed south to Kande Beach a hot-spot for meeting overlanders on Lake Malawi which is approximately 55km south of Mkata Bay (which from what we saw of Mkata Bay we’d not recommend stopping there). There at Kande Beach, we spent 2 nights, it was a similar repeat of Tiwi Beach, beautiful sandy white sand beach, chilled out atmosphere boasting lots of exotic insects/animals to keep you busy fighting off. Despite the plausible availability of internet at the resort the mere cost of it stopped us from even trying it ($6 USD/ hour). Much to our disappointment this humming overlanding mekka was empty for the 2 nights we stayed there, only a Belgian family who have been 5 months overlanding from the south heading north and their two young sons who have both caught Malaria in Zambia… comforting to think that that was our next destination.

From Kande beach we headed to the Zambian border…. another very long day riding…

A few facts about Malawi: it is one of the poorest countries in Africa, boasting a population of 12 million and has 60% of the population under the age of 18…. and erm… 90% of the military and police are HIV+ as are 30% of all pregnant women. Just fun to think about!