Around Southern Africa on 2 small bikes

[Dragonfly-XC]

:sip:

 

[Vis Arend]

:sip:

 

[Bliknêrs]

Loving this, Maria you write very well.
:thumleft:

 

[katana]

Thank you for sharing. 

 

[Hinksding]

Sipskraaaipt!

 

[NoRush]

:sip: really enjoying the trip with you two. The small bikes are great furn. Enjoy Africa  :thumleft:

 

[jlr]

so cool, keep it coming.

 

[shark_za]

Interesting to see how other react to the culture we take for granted as normal. Keep it coming.

 

[Chrisl]

The surprising thing was the “village” on the other side. It was only small shacks with tin roofs. We assumed it had to be the vineyards workers there. The contrast between the well build commercial buildings and living quarters was quite surprising.

Those reed shacks are built by the seasonal pickers and packers that arrived every year to do the picking and packing of the export grapes for about two to three months. About 7- 8000 every year.
They get on taxi's in Ovamboland in the far north to move there for the duration of the picking season.

The Spar was built there for the workers and their families. Their nearest Spar was 100 kms away in Rosh Pinah via a dirt road.
They also have a clinic there for the workers and daycare for small children all run and funded by the farms.
The Namibian government also have farms in Aussenkehr.

https://www.wecanchange.co.za/Editors/Articles/tabid/55/itemid/198/amid/376/praise-for-much-needed-aussenkehr-centre.aspx

 

[woody1]

:ricky:

 

[GIDEON]

:sip:

 

[P.K.]

Awesome...Namibia is fantastic and I love your reasoning ito bike size. Too many guys ride bikes way too big for them to handle if it gets vaguely technical.

Quite a few peeps could take your packing advice too...The average Joe takes way too much shit. It is quite clear this is not you first trip.

Looking forward to the rest.

 

[Oom Foe-rie]

I am also in on this ride .................  :sip:

 

[Fransw]

Lekker!!

Small light bikes are the best!! :thumleft:

 

[J-dog]

:sip:

 

[Poenabul]

This sounds like a proper RR.

 

[maria41]

Loving this, Maria you write very well.
:thumleft:

Thanks, despite all my bad typos and spelling  :ricky:

 

[maria41]

The surprising thing was the “village” on the other side. It was only small shacks with tin roofs. We assumed it had to be the vineyards workers there. The contrast between the well build commercial buildings and living quarters was quite surprising.

Those reed shacks are built by the seasonal pickers and packers that arrived every year to do the picking and packing of the export grapes for about two to three months. About 7- 8000 every year.
They get on taxi's in Ovamboland in the far north to move there for the duration of the picking season.

The Spar was built there for the workers and their families. Their nearest Spar was 100 kms away in Rosh Pinah via a dirt road.
They also have a clinic there for the workers and daycare for small children all run and funded by the farms.
The Namibian government also have farms in Aussenkehr.

https://www.wecanchange.co.za/Editors/Articles/tabid/55/itemid/198/amid/376/praise-for-much-needed-aussenkehr-centre.aspx

Thanks Chris that is interesting to know! This has been a voyage of discovery for me!

 

[maria41]

Awesome...Namibia is fantastic and I love your reasoning ito bike size. Too many guys ride bikes way too big for them to handle if it gets vaguely technical.

Quite a few peeps could take your packing advice too...The average Joe takes way too much shit. It is quite clear this is not you first trip.

Looking forward to the rest.

Hi Pete,

I think everybody starts the same way: big bike (BMW 'cause that is THE adventure bike!), big all boxes and too much luggage. Then if you are wise, you learn the hard way and modify.

Our 1st one year trip around South America we went that way:  big BMW F650GS with tons of crap we did not really need. My bike was a dog and it was So hard to find a place to fix it. I can list every BMW dealer over there. There are very few. IF you need help in Patagonia, Bolivia or the mountains in the Andes: Good luck!  And then it was so heavy!

For our trip across Europe, Central Asia to Mongolia and back, we went to the other extreme. We got a couple of Honda XR125. We bought them on eBay for next to nothing. Although it cost us a bit to revive them. But they made it to Mongolia and back in 2014. 12,000 miles we put on those little bikes. We had our challenges.

We learned from that more valuable lessons:
1 - Minimal luggage rocks once you run out of tarmac
2 - A 125 was too slow, you need speed to get away from trucks in Russia!

For me, finding an Enduro bike I could ride (I am small) was the big thing. We found an XT250 in 2015 and at 108kg is ideal. It was amazing when we went back across Russia and Central Asia in 2016. I could not ask for a better bike. Sure a 350 or 450 Enduro would be better in terms of speed. But where can i find one as low as my XT (84cm max) and as light????? And affordable?
And I can still cruise happily at 90 km/h and push beyond 100 if I need, with my little Xt250.

 

[maria41]

Day 8 – Keetmanshoop – 250kms – Tuesday 5th June

Packing camp in Ai  – Ais took a long time because one of us needed to keep watch on the very clever and organized raiding baboons.

We did not see any around that morning. Were they gone, or hiding cleverly?

In any case, we knew, from the previous day events, that they were lightening fast and very cunning, using distraction technics to get what they want.

After packing most of our stuff we got ready to sit for some breakfast. With our cups of coffee, bread and jam ready on the campsite table, I was still packing some stuff near the tent. Alistair just walked to the bikes, only few metres away. Just few seconds inattention, that is all it took!

In the blink of an eye, a female baboon, which had been obviously spying on us hidden somewhere, came at the speed of light, out of nowhere, jumped into the picnic table and stole our bag of bread! Before any of us could react, it was gone!

So this is how a baboon stole our breakfast!

Luckily, the tiny shop in the campsite had a bag of bread rolls left, so we ate our breakfast and finished packing very carefully.


We finally left, later than we wanted.

We rode to the Fish River canyon viewpoint, which was ok but nothing out of this world I thought! Sometime guidebooks and tourist websites make something such a big deal, building expectations, and when you get there it can be underwhelming. I mean it is beautiful but maybe not the best stuff in Namibia!? Still, it was a nice ride.