krazy-eyes
Race Dog
first off, let me say, these pics can never justify the sheer SCALE of namibia. the feeling of space and insignificance one gets is totally overwhelming and you have to be there to fully appreciate it. these pics have also been narrowed down from 196 to 60, and they cannot tell the whole story, but if i have to choose (and i did have to choose), i would choose these to best represent what i experienced.
enjoy!
here is a map of the route i did. i say I, because told the guys to not wait for me as i like to do it slowly, we only met up in the evenings in the respective campsites. sometimes we would only see each other again after 2 days, and in the end i came back a different route from them.
i did a figure-of-eight from windhoek to the coast, up to epupa, and back down to brandberg and back via winhoek:
here is what i ate over 2 weeks. needless to say i came back hungry!:
i took a detour enroute to zeerust where i was to spend the night. it was -1 that night:
the next morning the cavalry arrived. having left centurion at 4 am, they were frozen to the bone:
petrol stop at Jwaneng in Botswana:
eddie, dewaldt and richard turned out to be midgets on pocket-bikes:
how to make a BMW fly:
a bokkie at zelda's game farm:
the road to freedom:
a fellow DS'er (from germany) in windhoek. note his specially made 40l tank:
finally deflating the tyres for gravel after +-1500km of tar:
the petrified forest:
epic dunes:
refilling in the middle of nowhere at Palmwag (now things are getting really remote and spectacularly beautifull:
the grass turns golden every afternoon at dusk:
awesome ablutions at palmwag. one has a view of nature when nature calls:
the shower:
a moment to take it in:
the road to oblivion:
some hot chicks:
an unexpected river crossing in the desert:
lunch in the cool shade of a thorn tree just before Sesfontein:
the shop at Sesfontein:
interesting rock layers:
fools gold:
"bobejaan-klim-die-berg..." i took this from a mountain top, my bike is the spec at bottom centre:
riding on marbles!:
sand, anybody?
every few metres i could see evidence of the guys before me falling over, and trying to find routes around the worst of it:
a lone KTM:
a lone gemsbok:
more sand...:
the seldom seen desert elephant:
sitting around the fire at Puros. me, brothers richard& eddie (fortyZA), and dewaldt (zonkelnut) who had a flat which i helped him change in record time!:
the alien starship cast a strange light on the KTM, giving it superior powers:
the next morning:
the tree-shower:
zonkelnut going for gold!:
the desert adjacent the skeleton coast. the sea can be seen on the horizon (below the layer of fog), a mere 20km distant at this point:
martin who rode down from the checz republic over the past 9 months. he endured 600km of thick sand in the sahara!:
posing with the local women:
some italians arrived on scramblers (being chased by 2 back-up trucks):
shack-chic:
talcum powder dust:
running repairs in Opuwo. i had lost a bolt on the home made rack. it was quickly fixed:
the KTM taking a nap in the mid-day sun. this was a VERY wide dry river bed near epupa:
local kids, they wanted water - i told them to sodd-off!.......just kidding:
epupa falls:
swirling:
the campsite on the Kunene river with angola in the background:
from here i headed down to brandberg in one day - quite far:
the next morning at the awesome brandberg campsite:
my poor-a-tech seat - my butt was taking strain on the way back through the endless kalahari of botswana :
almost 5500km later, the bike was dirty, but still willing:
many innocent bugs were killed during the making of this:
safely home:
all i can say is "WHAT AN ADVENTURE!"
i averaged between 60 and 80kph on the gravel, and 120 on tar. i stopped more times than i can remember, sometimes to merely switch off and take in the silence. i met interesting people (and animals), and got stuck in the sand. i dropped the bike once, and nearly lost it a few times going at speed on gravel on the way back.
my ass is raw.
the cross winds on the way there and on the way back klapped me hard, sometimes pulling my helmet over my eyes and almost blowing me off the road. i drank some good german beers, and met some adventurers on bikes making us look soft. i learned volumes in terms of bike controll on gravel, but also decided that a steering damper is on the cards (headshake at 120 on gravel is too scary).
i wish i had 3-4 weeks to do this route, 13 days is too little.
at times i stood in awe of the creation, and other times i cursed in dispair, but i would do it again in a heartbeat!
richard, eddie, and dewaldt made awseome company in the evenings and i will do a trip like this with them any day.
anyone contemplating doing this kind of thing should just do it without blinking :lol:
:shock:
enjoy!
here is a map of the route i did. i say I, because told the guys to not wait for me as i like to do it slowly, we only met up in the evenings in the respective campsites. sometimes we would only see each other again after 2 days, and in the end i came back a different route from them.
i did a figure-of-eight from windhoek to the coast, up to epupa, and back down to brandberg and back via winhoek:
here is what i ate over 2 weeks. needless to say i came back hungry!:
i took a detour enroute to zeerust where i was to spend the night. it was -1 that night:
the next morning the cavalry arrived. having left centurion at 4 am, they were frozen to the bone:
petrol stop at Jwaneng in Botswana:
eddie, dewaldt and richard turned out to be midgets on pocket-bikes:
how to make a BMW fly:
a bokkie at zelda's game farm:
the road to freedom:
a fellow DS'er (from germany) in windhoek. note his specially made 40l tank:
finally deflating the tyres for gravel after +-1500km of tar:
the petrified forest:
epic dunes:
refilling in the middle of nowhere at Palmwag (now things are getting really remote and spectacularly beautifull:
the grass turns golden every afternoon at dusk:
awesome ablutions at palmwag. one has a view of nature when nature calls:
the shower:
a moment to take it in:
the road to oblivion:
some hot chicks:
an unexpected river crossing in the desert:
lunch in the cool shade of a thorn tree just before Sesfontein:
the shop at Sesfontein:
interesting rock layers:
fools gold:
"bobejaan-klim-die-berg..." i took this from a mountain top, my bike is the spec at bottom centre:
riding on marbles!:
sand, anybody?
every few metres i could see evidence of the guys before me falling over, and trying to find routes around the worst of it:
a lone KTM:
a lone gemsbok:
more sand...:
the seldom seen desert elephant:
sitting around the fire at Puros. me, brothers richard& eddie (fortyZA), and dewaldt (zonkelnut) who had a flat which i helped him change in record time!:
the alien starship cast a strange light on the KTM, giving it superior powers:
the next morning:
the tree-shower:
zonkelnut going for gold!:
the desert adjacent the skeleton coast. the sea can be seen on the horizon (below the layer of fog), a mere 20km distant at this point:
martin who rode down from the checz republic over the past 9 months. he endured 600km of thick sand in the sahara!:
posing with the local women:
some italians arrived on scramblers (being chased by 2 back-up trucks):
shack-chic:
talcum powder dust:
running repairs in Opuwo. i had lost a bolt on the home made rack. it was quickly fixed:
the KTM taking a nap in the mid-day sun. this was a VERY wide dry river bed near epupa:
local kids, they wanted water - i told them to sodd-off!.......just kidding:
epupa falls:
swirling:
the campsite on the Kunene river with angola in the background:
from here i headed down to brandberg in one day - quite far:
the next morning at the awesome brandberg campsite:
my poor-a-tech seat - my butt was taking strain on the way back through the endless kalahari of botswana :
almost 5500km later, the bike was dirty, but still willing:
many innocent bugs were killed during the making of this:
safely home:
all i can say is "WHAT AN ADVENTURE!"
i averaged between 60 and 80kph on the gravel, and 120 on tar. i stopped more times than i can remember, sometimes to merely switch off and take in the silence. i met interesting people (and animals), and got stuck in the sand. i dropped the bike once, and nearly lost it a few times going at speed on gravel on the way back.
my ass is raw.
the cross winds on the way there and on the way back klapped me hard, sometimes pulling my helmet over my eyes and almost blowing me off the road. i drank some good german beers, and met some adventurers on bikes making us look soft. i learned volumes in terms of bike controll on gravel, but also decided that a steering damper is on the cards (headshake at 120 on gravel is too scary).
i wish i had 3-4 weeks to do this route, 13 days is too little.
at times i stood in awe of the creation, and other times i cursed in dispair, but i would do it again in a heartbeat!
richard, eddie, and dewaldt made awseome company in the evenings and i will do a trip like this with them any day.
anyone contemplating doing this kind of thing should just do it without blinking :lol:
:shock:
