Larry and Sharon McGillewie's travels: June 2011

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Pics

Winandi's house in Maun

Camp site at Island Safari Camp, Maun

Family reunion with Ralph and Winandi

Sunset on the Kavango River

Supper at a very nice restaurant outside Maun

Lots of water in the swamps and in northern Bots

Roan in Namibia

Kavango River - Ngepi Camp

Kavango River

Another picnic lunch, picnic spots along the road all over Namibia

Near Grootfontein

Camping at Lala Panzi, Grootfontein

North of Grootfontein

Heading towards Swakopmund

Entering the desert outside of Swakopmund

We had a very sad farewell to Ralph and Winandi in Maun on Sunday morning and we headed to the border between Botswana and Namibia, fair tar roads and very very quite. Saw lots of elephant droppings but no elephants on this section of the road. Plenty of fuel so we were in the pound seats!!

We arrived at the border post and we had a very friendly greeting from the Botswanan officials and told us to fill in a small counter book for customs, passports stamped and we were on our way, Namibia just as friendly and efficient only thing they did differently was take R140 road tax for each bike, not bad at all!!

Straight out of the border post we got onto a gravel road, not bad, a little bit corrugated but nothing to worry about, this is also entrance to a national park called Mahango, about 24 000ha and we immediately saw a group of kudu and then one of impala, couldn’t tell if they were black faced or not as they were very skittish. And then Larry got really excited, he had spotted a group of roan antelope!! We were really lucky to see as much as we had as there was a fair amount of traffic on the road. We exited the park and a couple of km further we were back onto tar road.

We travelled for a further 5km and then had to turn off the nice tar road onto a track with lots of deep sand and this was for 4km!! We had been fairly cool up until then but now it was mid afternoon and we were getting hot. I had to paddle through the deep patches of sand and on more than one occasion cars going to the camp had to wait for me to get to a section to pull over so that they could pass.

Someone with a good sense of humour has done a large number of signs getting to and in the Ngepi Camp. The one that nearly gave me a heart attack read: Engage 4x4 now, Low range if you have, Lock your hubs. And then in small writing - you may as well use the 4x4, you bought or hired it, but you won’t need it!! Another one was - we like our kids and our grass please don’t park on either!

The camp was really great, lots of little touches had made it really special unfortunately this was spoilt by a group of people who woke us at midnight singing and shouting until camp management put them to bed. I heard him tell one chap to hold his hand like a lover, talking to the local guide, who had to lead him to bed!

The next morning we chatted to a SA couple that we had met in Kasane, then tackled the sand road again and it really does get better with practice!! I thought that we would take at least an hour to get back to the tar road but we did it in about20 minutes!! Once on the tar it was continuous villages for the next hour and so fairly slow riding. We refueled at Rundu and then headed towards Grootfontein. The countryside kept changing and by the time we got to Grootfontien there were a number of hills and koppies around. We did some shopping at the local Spar (everything available, all South African and prices not toobad) and then headed out of town heading south, past the bad gravel road leading to the meteorite area (we will be back to have a look at this in a 4x4) and found a camp site just outside of town called Lala Panzi. This is obviously a new development and the camp area was very bare but with very nice facilities. Unfortunately we had another bad night when the only other camper, someone working for the construction company arrived back at the camp at midnight and had a loud discussion with his girlfriend and then at 2am I think she must have wanted some more money because then they really started to fight. He then packed all his worldly goods, including the tent into his bakkie and disappeared. Just after that something made a noise just outside our tent but we thought it was someone walking past. Then at 4am Romeo came back and re-pitched the tent in the dark and by 6am he was up and away to work, must have had a very productive day!! We discovered that the noise that we had heard in between him dismantling his tent and re-pitching it was in fact our left over supper which was supposed to be lunch for the following day in our very nice camping pot had been stolen. Larry went to the management and asked them to help look for the pot, it did appear from the construction workers camp, apparently a dog had stolen it, luckily the dog did not have very sharp teeth to damage the bottom of the pot.

We left there, not sorry to see the back of the place and headed for Swakopmund, a ride of about 600km. We had decided that if there was any nice looking camp site en-route we would stop for the night. We did make one detour off the road to have a look at a camp site, but once we were told that the night time temperatures got down to -5 we decided to carry on. We are not really equipped to camp in the very cold as most of our trip has been in hot weather. The roads are very good, long straight stretches very few potholes and very little traffic. About 100km from Swakopmund we could feel a very distinct change in the weather as a cold wind started to blow from the west and by the time we arrived we were both cold. The desert as you get closer to the coast is not very pretty and reminded us of the desert in Sudan, ugly and lots of black rocks. The golden sand dunes that we had been expecting were visible in the distance, hopefully we will see more of the sand desert the further south we get. We arrived in Swakopmund at about 4pm local time with very sore backsides and went to the local tourism office and found that because of SA school holidays and a big re-union in Walvis Bay everything was very booked up here, the lady did tell us that the Municipal chalets were cheap and clean so we decided to have a look. The setting is not pretty but the accommodation is adequate and we decided to spend two nights here to have a good rest and have a look at the area.

Internet VERY slow, probably no pics now!!!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

25 June 2011 Maun

We arrived in Maun, after about 650 km, mainly on good tar, but one bad stretch under construction. Leaving Kasane, we rode past a herd of elephant feeding on the edge of the main road! What a privilege to game view from the bikes, on national roads! The rest of the ride was good, with a stop in Nata for lunch – Wimpy – we are getting closer to home. We passed through some well cultivated fields, with sunflower, sorghum and maize, then into bushveld, and eventually into Kalahari type open ares, near Makadigadi Pans. When we got to Maun, we went to Audi Camp where Ralph was waiting to meet us. It was wonderful to see him again. Winandi had done some homework and told us that Island Safari Lodge was much nicer as it was on the river so Ralph and I went to have a look. She was right but the only problem was the road leading to the camp, lots of nice soft sand. Well, I managed to get here without falling off the bike!! After setting up our camp Ralph went and fetched Winandi and once again it was great to see her. We have now spent four nights here and have seen Ralph on a regular basis, unfortunately Winandi has had to be at work all the time. She has just got a job as a pilot with one of the operators here in Maun and does not get any time off for the time that she is training. She has to do 50 hours of training into the delta before she is allowed to fly there herself.

We have spent a whole afternoon fixing and sorting our bikes, tyres and panniers. Hopefully our last few weeks of our trip will be incident free. Tomorrow we leave again, heading north, into the Caprivi Strip and Namibia, our second last country and border crossing.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Pics

Sorry about bad pic!! Farewell with Jo at the Old Farm House!!

Buying black market fuel in Zambia

Outside of the school in Zambia, 180 kids at the school and two class rooms and three teachers. Ages 6 - 18 at this school!

Supper inside the classroom

Long straight sections of road in Zambia

Camping at Moorings and trying to get our washing dry!

We saw these 9 BMW 1200 bikes being transported north.

On the ferry crossing from Zambia into Botswana

Elephants just as we left Kasane, game viewing from a bike is a different experience!

Long straight roads of Botswana

Crowds gathering outside the school in Zambia

Forest Inn in Zambia a good place to stop.

Sunset at Chobe Safaris Lodge

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

21 June 2011 Chobe Safaris Lodge

16 June Old Farm House

We left Tan Swiss early on Thursday morning and had a very easy ride to Iringa about 200km away, they are working on the road and the pass coming up onto the plateau gets very conjested with trucks and busses all wanting to overtake but just don’t have the power. There were a number of trucks stopped on a corner either filing up tanks with stolen fuel or just having a rest, the oncoming traffic hardly slows down.

We arrived in Iringa and went straight to the very nice coffee / book shop that we found last time we were in the area hoping to get something for lunch only to find that they are not serving food anymore, very sad to see a shop which was vibrant 6 months ago just about dead. We rode the last 50km to the Old Farm House and very quickly got some washing done and Larry cleaned the chain on my bike and did a bit of maintenance.

We will be moving very quickly to get to Maun by Wednesday next week to meet up with Johan and Ralph, anyone wanting to send something nice please contact Ralph, carrot cake would be very nice!!

We went in for supper at the Old Farm House and had a very nice surprise waiting for us, Jo, who we had met in late January at the Old Farm House and arranged to meet up in Dar Es Salaam was at the table next to us but behind a small wall, we heard her talking to the manageress, both of us shot out of our chairs when we heard her voice, she joined us for a very pleasant evening, what a co-incidence! It is amazing how small the world can be, and how fate brings people together!!

The next morning everything was very wet from the dew, including our newly washed sleeping bags! But we packed everything away and after a goodbye to Jo we started for the border post just other side of Mbeya. Easy roads with relatively light traffic and then we were caught doing 65km in a 50km zone, we only had about TS20 000 with us which we had saved to put fuel into the bikes before crossing the border, after much apologizing from our side they let us go with a warning, most of the vehicles coming into the town were caught speeding. As we reached the border town the traffic became completely chaotic and stopped completely about 2km away from the actual border post, mainly huge trucks trying to cross, we drove in between vehicles and on pavements, on the wrong side of the road and eventually got into the gates of the border control. While trying to get into the gates the touts start shouting and running next to the bikes, when we stopped I could not put my feet down without putting them onto their feet. We eventually had to use a tout and it still took us very close to 4 hours to get through the border, the place where you paid the road tax was closed for lunch so a wait of an hour in the boiling sun was fun. This was the worst border crossing that we have had. Carbon tax and road tax cost us about 90USD!

Immediately the roads had changed from fair to shocking, huge pot holes, sometimes right across the road and for about 100m, and to make matters worse the trucks that had been in the queue waiting to through the border were streaming across and in front of us. We had been warned that there was no fuel between the border and Mkushi, so we bought 10l of black market fuel at Isoka. We were charged 8000 Zam Kwatcha, which we thought was very expensive, only to find that it costs 8670 ZK at the fuel stations, about 1.80 USD per litre!!

With nowhere in mind to stay, and the sun starting to get low, we continued, while looking out for somewhere to spend the night. Just before sunset we pulled off the road, at a small local school, and asked if the teacher was around. He happily agreed to let us camp in one of the two classrooms, which worked out well, as our tent and gear had a chance to dry. Lots of kids watched us unpack with big eyes, until the teacher asked them to move off, close to dark. Fortunately we had a bit of stale bread, salami and cheese for supper! (Sandy we are looking forward to that sweet and sour pork!) 550 km covered!

18 June

The next morning we set off early, as we had woken very early and were expecting crowds again. We needed to do 630 km, to a lodge near Mkushi, that Wayne had told us about. The riding through Zambia was very nice, with beautiful un-spoilt countryside, not many villages, and great scenery. The roads were initially very bad, with lots of huge potholes, sometimes right across the road. One long sandy stretch almost threw Larry off, as the sand was very unexpected. Then the roads got better, and we were able to average a better speed. The 630 km still took us nearly 8 hours. When we got to Forest Inn, we decided to take a room, to catch up on laundry, and have a good rest. After the last few long days in the saddle, our backsides are starting to feel decidedly tender! Larry even told me that my backside had calluses on like the baboons next to the road!!

19 – 20 June

We had a good breakfast at Forest Inn and left there at about 8.30 heading to south of Lusaka, the ride was easy and as we approached Lusaka the traffic was very bad on a small single lane going into the city, but once we managed to pass some of the big trucks the traffic was light going through the city as it was a Sunday. We were unsure of where we were going to spend the night and we decided to start looking after we had done about 100km from Lusaka. We were lucky to find a very nice camp site by the name of Moorings, we were the only people in camp and it was wonderfully quite, just don’t order any food there!! We had a steak and rice with tomato gravy, just about the only thing available and the steak was the toughest that we have ever had!! 450 km.

The next morning we were heading for Livingstone and the border between Zambia and Botswana. When we reached Livingstone we decided to pop in and see Brian Fitzhenry, a friend of Ralph’s who is flying helicopters and microlights over Victoria Falls. I think he was very surprised to see us and is looking forward to getting back to the Eastern Cape in the next short while. We then stopped at the local Steers for lunch, the first time that we have seen a South African take away in a long while and then headed for the border and ferry at Kazungula. Getting out of Zambia was simple and the ferry crossing just as simple, getting into Botswana, expensive but very easy and we could use SA rands again for the first time.

We arrived late afternoon at the Chobe Safari Lodge and set up our tent in a very pleasant camp site (very noisy elephants and hippo next door all during the night), we met up with a fellow biker from Austria who we had last seen in Jungle Junction, Nairobi in March. Even the campers were the noisiest we had encountered in the last 6 months – but this seems to be common where South Africans camp. Most tourists that we meet are not impressed with South African behavior in campsites. Shame on us!!!

Today we will rest our weary butts, after pushing hard for the last week, and tomorrow we will do the 600 odd km to Maun, to meet Ralph. We heard this morning that Johan had to cancel at the last minute, so Ralph will fly up to meet us, visit his girlfriend, and look into the job market.

Internet very expensive here, so text only, will post pics when possible.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Pics

Larry in front riding towards Mt Meru

Start of the bad gravel road to Dodoma

Outside the New Dodoma Hotel just as it was getting dark

Lots of sand on the 'gravel road'

Mt Meru as seen from Wayne and Birgit's garden

Fesh fesh - lovely stuff!

Close to where we saw the black mamba

Mikumi Game Reserve

Friendly Lioness stalking buff

Baobab Forest

Lots of onions for sale

16 June 2011

15 June – Tan Swiss Mikumi Tanzania

We left Jungle Junction early Sunday 12^th June, heading South to Arusha, It had rained hard the night before and our tent had leaked a little so made packing very interesting. Getting out of Nairobi was a breeze, one large traffic circle with lots of traffic and then straight into the country side, village after village. The travelling was fairly slow and eventually we were on very bad (even for Kenya) potholed section of road where we had to slow down to about 20km per hour. This section was for about 50km and suddenly we got to a junction and there was a brand new road, the GPS didn’t know that it was there!!

We arrived at the border post between Kenya and Tanzania at about lunch time and it was really a breeze on both sides and we were through in about half an hour, a good time and day to go through a border post in Africa.

We arrived with Wayne and Birgit Hendry just outside of Arusha and we had last been there at the beginning of February and it felt like we had never been away. We spent two nights there and woke early Tuesday morning to the sound of rain, the whole area is looking very dry and Wayne had told us that the rains had failed there completely, maybe SA got a bit of the rain instead?? Birgit assured us that the rain would not be there for long and sure enough just after breakfast we left in dry conditions.

We rode for about 170km on good tar, to the gravel road leading to Dodoma, then we had about 270km of gravel to do before we got to Dodoma as well. The first section of road they are working on and we had to make small detours around the storm water drains which are being built for the tar road. The road eventually opened up and wound up the side of a mountain range, this section was fine and we managed to keep our speed up to about 40km per hour. As we descended into the valley, Larry, riding in front, suddenly hit a very bad sand patch and very nearly fell, this was what is known as fesh fesh, a liquid type sand which is powder, fine and not fun to ride in. These patches got more and more frequent and the sand in some of the ruts and holes was fairly deep. Our speed slowed right down and we were crawling along, eventually the gravel without sand started again and we picked up speed. I tried to cross the middle mannetjie at one stage and the bike went one way and I went the other way, locals gathered very quickly and this time they wanted to pick me and the bike up, I had to keep shouting at them to leave the bike as one had already tried to pick it up by the mirror. Somehow or other the bike had just connected my left heel and although I was not under the bike, I was not keen to stand up either, when Larry arrived and he and one of the locals picked the bike up I hobbled off to the side of the road.

We left there fairly quickly and travelled for about 10km and stopped to have a lunch of mandazi and salami and a bottle of water. Once again the traffic seemed to come in groups and one bus in particular was travelling extremely fast and did not slow down at all, the road was extremely narrow and the dust cloud drowned us, we both had to stop and wait for it to clear. The road would get better and then the corrugations would start and so it would go, sometimes our speed was reasonable and sometimes we were down to a crawl because of the size of the pot holes. There were lots of road works on the road and at one stage we had to pull off into the very soft sand and mud to make way for the grader, just before this section a very fancy Land Cruiser overtook us and very nearly rolled just in front of Larry when he hit a large pot hole right across the road, unfortunately did nothing to slow him down, just had to stop for a cigarette alongside the road. We saw a bit of game – a pair of dik-dik, and Larry saw a black mamba, about 8 ft long, which moved off rapidly, when he stopped about 10 m away!

We eventually arrived in Dodoma as it was getting dark and headed for the New Dodoma Hotel, I waited outside with the bikes while Larry went in to see if they had a room, no such luck they had a conference on the go and everything was booked up. Larry asked if we could put our tent up in the garden and while they were away discussing this they managed to move people around and we got a bedroom with an en suite bathroom, I needed to wash the mud pack off my face! Too tired to move far we went to the Chinese Restaurant at the hotel and had a very nice dinner. We climbed into our bed at 8.30pm and slept until the noise of the city woke us at 6.15am.

We left Dodoma just after 9am heading for Iringa, we decided to go via tar even if it would add about 250km onto our trip, we travelled on good roads through some wonderful scenic areas until we eventually entered the Mikumi Game Reserve, we slowed right down and we were watching a large herd of impala when I said to Larry that there was something up ahead on the road, we moved forward and there was a lioness in the road in front of us. She was making her way across the road towards a large herd of buffalo, a large yellow bus came past and the occupants all hung out of the window telling us to be careful there was a lion. Larry said not to worry, its only a little one! We spent a very pleasant 10 minutes on the side of the road watching her until she moved into the trees. At one stage she was no more than 10m away from us. The next bit of excitement was a small Toyota car that had overtaken us just minutes before travelling way too fast for the road conditions had landed up in the trees about 20m into the veld. Game guards arrived to make sure the occupants did not get eaten!! We arrived at the camp site that we stayed at in February called Tan Swiss and the mosquitoes are just as bad as then, they clearly don’t know that it is winter yet.

Monday, June 13, 2011

13 June, Arusha

Yesterday we rode 290 km, from Nairobi to Arusha. Straight forward, down new tar road - apart from about 50 km of badly potholed tar, when the gps thought it knew better!
The border post into Tanzania was a breeze!
Tomorrow we leave for Dodoma, about 425 km South, on some bad gravel. Next day will be Iringa, then into Northern Zambia - so not sure when we will have internet again, and might be offline for a while!
Africa calls!