Angola, it's not like they said.

[Gravelmad]

FAAAARKKEEN A.... Thats a REAL storie

 

[KTM BIGGER]

Brilliant stuff!!!!

Bring on the rest.

 

[Welsh]

All them rocks, I heard there was only a few BIG rocks before the Gunners went up there, now there are lots of smaller rocks  : : :

 

[GIDEON]

Baie nice BAIE nice.
Makes you wonder about LONG trips with big bikes in remote country's

Better not tell the Legen about the rocks in Angola other wise she will never go

 

[Metaljockey]

good stuff helping that kid out !!!! Who has the fisrt aid training?  did you have a stiching kit to sort out the wound?

No-one has any training. We didn't want to close the wound either for fear of infection.


As far as my fuel "strategy" goes:

I decided to go this way.

My reasoning was that we were going to need to carry the extra fuel for the first 2-3 days. The route we wanted to take would also require us to carry extra fuel on the last two days. I wasn't keen on carting around 30 litre containers for the whole trip. With these wine bags it would not be a problem as they can fold up small and be packed away until needed again.

I couldn't find any reference to some-one else having tried this. So what I did was to do a test by filling one with fuel and leaving it for two weeks. There appeared to be no deterioration in the bag and the fuel was still clear. I also had my daughter jump up and down on one to test the strength, no problem there either. All I needed to do was to make sure that they are packed properly so that they don't chafe.

This is where the Kappa soft panniers came in. This would also be the first trip that I would do with panniers.

Each side carried 3 x 5 litre bags even though the manufacturer specifies only 5kg carrying capacity per bag. To assist the bags I put a strap around them as can be seen in this pic. (Also notice how it brings the weight low and in front of the rear axle)

Well, as it turns out it was a bad idea. The bags expand from the excessive heat and the foil part cannot contain the pressure. Luckily the plastic inner lining can expand so I never lost any fuel.

At least I learned something new. If anyone should come up with such a hare brained scheme again, I will be able to crap all over them.

As for the Kappa bags, I'm a convert now. Gets the weight exactly where you want it and it laughs in the face of adversity. I washed them two days ago and they look like new.

 

[Leo]

Hey MJ, Isn't it a moerse job to get the fuel through that little small hole when filling.  ???

BTW why aren't you out celebrating your biffday?? Happy happy 

 

[Metaljockey]

Hey MJ, Isn't it a moerse job to get the fuel through that little small hole when filling.  ???

BTW why aren't you out celebrating your biffday?? Happy happy 

No, flat screwdriver and the whole tap comes off.

Thanks, don't know why I'm not out. Must be getting old.

 

[michnus]

GS to add what MJ said, we were planning on taking a satellite phone, but that got to nothing days before we left. We had an emergency kit but you can't do open heart surgery with it.
Looking back, even if we had a satellite phone it will take days before people will reach you. I doubt a 4x4 can drive faster than 15-20km/h on those roads. In the end it's all part of the experience, the best we can do is recommend a headache pill, more than that, well bite on a piece of wood. 8)


Some more pics of the route to Iona.

These rocks are still young and light brown, if you look closely you can see them grow.

I really like this picture

 

[Lootch67]

With apologies to the movie of almost the same name: "The dogs must be crazy!" Awesome stuff!

 

[Metaljockey]

The next morning the coffee gets made early because that's the last of the water. We are wanting to use the cool morning to get to Iona.

Deja vu.

Luckily it turns out to be only a scare. Once we hit the main road to Iona things improve markedly.

So much so that we start seeing the beauty in nature again.

And it's always enjoyable to breathe the morning air from the seat of a bike.

Here and there a bit of a climb, but it is just entertainment.

We even get to use third gear! What a joy.

We run into a frenchman doing Africa solo. He's done over 300 000km in this Land Rover. All in Africa. Talk about hardcore!

This was to be the only vehicle we saw in 6 days of riding. It was in fact the longest I have ever ridden without coming across any other vehicles.




We get to Iona and find that we seriously overestimated the place. It is one school building.
Nothing else.
No shop to buy food, no nothing. Not even a hut. Just veldt, and this school. Unbelievably, the school is operating.

What you see here is a common theme through-out Africa. It still gets to me everytime though.




We now get to another of my concerns, mentioned at the start of this report. We are now in the middle of Parque Nacional do Iona. National Parks as a rule do not allow motorcycles. We had long discussions on this aspect when planning the trip. The consensus was that the odds that we would run into a patrol is remote enough for us to risk it.

Hennie and Nardus have been jailed in Botswana specifically for this reason. Angola is the very last place on my list of preferred places to be jailed.

The police post in Iona is a couple of kms up a dead end road into the mountains. We can very easily bypass them.

But, we need water. When you need it, you NEED it. So we pull into the police post. Once again, we find friendly, helpful folk that let us get water from their containers. I suck down a quick litre and fill again. Man I like this country.

And things just gets better, Iona is the last of the mountains and we ride into the soft velvet plains.

It is just fantastic to open up. Damn! It's the first opportunity on this whole trip.

I have no words to tell you how sweet it is.

Look Ma, no rocks!

And it's pretty.

We start seeing Welwitchias, in fact lots of Welwitchias. This means that we are entering the Namib desert.

The sign says it all. We should be fine.

As the desert starts to unfold we hit a horribly corrugated section. But we cannot let the tyres down as it is interspersed with embedded rocks. So we we just rattle on.

We cover a lot of distance.

And some more. Strange how the nothingness of a desert can be so beautiful.

We make up a lot of time lost over the previous days.

We make a detour to go and see what the Kunene looks like as it cuts through the desert.

Cooling off time. This trip has everything. We are very fortunate.

Ok, that's it for now. I need to get some sleep.








Here's a teaser for the next installment.

 

[KTM BIGGER]

Excellent report, Damn this is interesting. please keep it coming.

 

[Trailrider]

Excellent report, Damn this is interesting. please keep it coming.

+100 !!!

 

[Watty]

Hond se kierie .... dit is 'n lekker verslag hierdie!

 

[Grootseun]

you killed darth vader??????????????? 

looking forward to it...

 

[Gravelmad]

Ok here's the thing..... I'm not getting any FARKING WORK DONE HERE !!!! This story is just a tad riveting. Keep it coming MJ 

 

[dusty]

You have me glued to the PC, thanks for sharing and taking us there.

 

[Mark Hardy]

Stunning Guys stunning.......please keep it comming

 

[michnus]

I must share this story, like MJ's intro said, "Angola, it's not like they said" whatever you think, it will be something other that you made yourself to believe.

We slept 20 to 30km from Iona in the river bed, the reason? Well Hennie and Nardus was concerned that Iona would be a "hool" with too many people and noisy drunks. Well again we got rudely reminded that what we perceived to be the norm, here in Angola, it is just a small school mud and stick building.

Even on the maps it show Iona as a town, well as MJ showed this was the town, the outside of the school!

The only sign around, telling of your arrival in Iona.

A ghost town before you enter the park.

The route down to the Kunene is sand, proper desert sand, I had a whale of time getting myself stuck, and working like dog trying to get the bike out again. >

See the hard pack red sand? Well I didn't, moer!! And that basted 640 have no respect for sand.

But it's also great fun riding there, this road in particular looks smooth, it's not, the thing was badly corrugated, and I honestly though that one of the bikes are going to be badly damage by this road, your hands go numb from the vibrations.
You have to stand, otherwise your filling will donner out.

The only tree we could find. I don't have the vocabulary to describe the stunning beauty of Angola, I have tried to come up with descriptive words, as we rode, but I can only think of this!


DIS EENVOUDIG BEEEFOK!!

Gettit?

Just for the techno junkies, the guy with the landy travel without a GPS, only maps.

 

[MrBig]

Ok Michnus calmed me down a bit but I was just about to post:


sonofa.. can't believe you're making us wait like this!
That's just cruel man.

 

[IDR]

LEGEN.....DARY!!!!  Edge of the seat stuff (waiting for the next instalment that is).

Thanks for sharing :thumleft: