Cape Town to Kaokoland - preparation and FARKing the 500.

It's been a year since I bought my KTM 500 and I still haven't seen it or ridden it. All that will change next week when I land in Cape Town.

Hi guys. I'm planning to ride my 500 from Cape Town to Kaokoland in mid November. It's a dream trip that I had planned to do a year ago, and then COVID hit.

My wife and I were riding our bikes around South America when I discovered [member=9492]Xpat[/member]'s ride report about his Kaokoland trip. I was hooked on the idea immediately. I'd also just finished reading Aaron Steinman's ride report detailing his around the world trip on his KTM 500.

By that point, I had convinced myself that there was no better bike than the 500 for lightweight hard ADV. I had to have one. Riding through Ecuador (at the time) wasn't going to stop me, so I loaded up my Gumtree app and typed in "KTM 500".

After reading a few ads, I felt my heartbeat rising. Could this be correct??? A 2016 KTM 500 with only 18 hours on the clock R80000? It looked brand new.

So, I loaded up Skype and called the guy. The conversation went something like this:

ME: Howzit! I'm Bruce. I'd like to buy your bike.
HIM: OK, come and see it.
ME: Well, it's a little more complicated than that... I'm in Ecuador.
HIM: Where's that?
ME: In South America.
HIM: Jirrre!
ME: I'll deposit the money in your bank account and send a courier for the bike, OK?
HIM: Mmmmmm. If you say so. (in a skeptical tone).

After some back and forth negotiating, we agreed on R72000 and he would register the bike in my name for me.

A few days later, I was the proud owner of a KTM 500 that I'd never seen. But that was just the beginning of the drama. I made the mistake of using Bike Freight Transport (and Peter Baker) to transport the bike to my boet's place in Hout Bay. After quoting me 7 days, it took 6 weeks of me chasing them weekly for the bike to arrive. Never even got an apology. Stay away from Peter Baker. Anyhow, I digress...

The plan was to get to Cape Town within a few months and ride Kaokoland. But then COVID hit and we got locked down in Chile for 7 months. It's been a year since I bought my bike and I sill haven't seen it or ridden it. All that will change next week when I land in Cape Town (unless they quarantine at the airport).

So, this is the beginning of the beginning of my journey.

I was hoping to do the trip with my wife or with my boet, but neither of them could make it, so it's just me. If anyone else is planning a trip in that direction in November, let me know and maybe our paths can cross. I'll start a ride report closer to the time and do my best to update it from my tent at the end of each day.

I've got a moerse big bag of parts sitting next to me to begin farkling the bike with, including a long range tank. I'm going to be so overweight on the plane! I'll post pics as the farkling progresses.


Join me for the ride.

Bruce

Here are some of the tracks I'm considering exploring... The part I'm missing  are dirt tracks from the Namibian border up to Windhoek. If anyone has some, I'd be grateful for some direction.