Christmas Safari 3 - Mozambique & Zimbabwe

[SchalkL]

Hijack on :
This makes me think back of my brave days. I was at Ponta de Macaneta in 2002 with a bit of different bike  :snorting:
Went across the ferry and it took me around 2 hours to get to the beach. (No 690's those days  )
Is that shipwreck still on the beach somewhere?

 

[Xpat]

All right, I can play this game  O0. Not Macaneta, but on heavier bike without proper suspension (that telelever/paralever doesn't qualify as real suspension for this):

Back on topic - I haven't seen the wreck, now or 4 years ago. But to be honest I'm not sure I ever was on the Macaneta beach. The Jay's lodge is about 5 km to the north from where I believe the main tourist centre is. When you are coming from the ferry and reach the dunes, most people turn right where most lodges are. For Jay's you need to turn left on little double track, which then crosses the dunes - that is the tough section, getting to Macaneta itself nowadays is non-event.

 

[Xpat]

Day 3

I woke up before 5:00 am keen to start early while the temperature was still bearable. Still on my Sandton inner clock, it took me a whole hour to get ready to go.

As I’ve said in the intro I spent a lot of time planning this trip. By that I mean squinting for hours at the Googlemaps satellite images zoomed in to the max, and clicking every 20-30 meters at anything that resembled some kind of track going more or less in the desired direction. I didn’t spent any time planning where to stay as that seemed pretty obvious: Day 1 – still fresh for a nice ride from Jay’s lodge to Zavora, day 2 from Zavora to Tofu beach, a day of rest and ride up to Vilanculos on day 4. To put it differently, 350 km for day 1, 100 km for day 2 and about 250 km on day 4. Navigating winding double (and single as it turned out) tracks across one big coastal dune field all the way to Vilanculos, in the middle of one of the hottest recorded summers. Somehow I missed that in the plan.

So the objective for the day was Zavora 350 km away, most of the route following the sandy coastal tracks, with the exception of about 30 km in Xai Xai where I had to hit tar to cross the Limpopo river bridge. Delusional, of course, but I didn’t grasp it yet. Buoyed by yesterday’s good form I set-off, realizing very soon that it wasn’t a mojo I found yesterday, but the luggage I lost that made all the difference. Fully loaded I was battling from the get go - the bike front end was very flighty and unpredictable throwing me off the balance – I just couldn’t get into the rhythm. To make things worse, unlike yesterday when the morning was nicely overcast and cold, today the sky was clear. As soon as the sun was up it was getting unpleasantly hot even though it was still before 7:00 am. It took me undue long time to backtrack 3 km back to the village on the verge of the dune field, where I turned right onto  the sandy double track running between the coastal dunes and inland flat fields heading north towards Bilene.

I’m quite used to having to find my foot in sand after a long break, so I pushed on. The problem was by now very evident lack of fitness.I was losing my clearly small energy reserves way faster than recovering those forgotten sand riding muscle memories. Lacking the energy I was riding tentatively which inevitably led to the bike/sand bossing me around, rather than the other way around, sapping my energy further.  I had to stop every km or two to recover, losing precious early morning riding time, getting hotter and hotter, losing more energy, resulting in more frequent stops … the usual snowball.  

I’ve ridden this particular trek before and  knew within about 10 km from the village I will have to cross another 10-15 km of a dune field. By the time I made it to the entrance to the dunes I was more or less wasted - about 13 km into the 350 km planned route. A bit delirious I have made half-hearted tentative attempt at the dunes - never good in sand which requires nothing less than total commitment. Within few 100 meters I was defeated, not having an energy even to attempt the duck walk. I laid down in the shade of the bush contemplating the situation. It was exceedingly clear that I will not see Zavora that day and the chances of making it at least to Bilene 80 km away seemed very remote. What was worse, this whole trip was in balance as I seemed not been able to make it even through the very first dune field (Jay’s approach excluded) I faced – there were 100s of kms more ahead. What made it especially depressing was that I have ridden this very same track 4 years ago on TE630 and it was a joll - admittedly after heavy rain though.

But there weren’t many options left – yes I could turn back, but even in my state it was still too early to throw the towel in, I had almost 3 weeks to kill. Once my body temperature and associated monkey-mind settled back to operable levels, I checked GPS and noticed that there was an alternative track on T4A swerving inland and then back looking like it may be bypassing the dune field. As far as I remembered from the last trip, the track became much easier on the other side of the dune field, so it seemed like a plausible solution. So when I was able to muster enough energy to turn the bike back I backtracked to the start of the dune and turned right following the GPS track inland. It was sand of course but more manageable as the track was flat and mostly straight, with no bushes trying to fight with. I was able to ride again, and didn’t have to stop all the time.

Eastern European thrilled by the unlimited sand riding opportunities:

The point where the T4A track turned back to the ocean – which I assumed was on the other side of the dune field – turned out to be just another entry point in the dunes, albeit at least few km further up. This one was less steep and better-trodden, I could see tracks of heavy truck which conveniently flattened the track a bit. By now I didn’t care anymore, so I hit it with reckless abandon resulting in my first wipe out about 200 meters up the dune – no biggie, soft sand is nice to fall into. I took a breather waiting for the radiator fan to switch off. So far, KTM was taking it in its stride. I had to stop regularly to let it cool down, and when hot it did hesitate to start – took usually two tries, but otherwise OK. But I had an uneasy feeling in my gut as it had to take a lot of abuse to compensate for my lack of talent. One thing that didn’t help was that stupid close ratio gearbox I have moaned about yesterday. So far due to  the lack of talent I have spent most of the time winding my way through the bush lugging in 2nd and way too much time in wound up 1st in dunes. Only occasionally I managed to lug it in 3rd as it was just way too fast for comfort on the tightly wound track. And I had to clutch my way through many tight spots adding to my fatigue and worries about possible clutch burnout. I cursed myself for not swapping the 15 front sprocket for the 14 in Jay’s lodge – I considered it, but got complacent after the false success of the prior day’s round trip to Marracuene. And I couldn’t help to ponder how much easier this would be on the TE630 – partially due to its wide ratio gearbox and partially due to its Enduro form, better suited for this **** than rally IMO. But then I may have been just delusional.

Anyway, without many options left I have resigned myself to the fact that I have to make it through the bloody dunes one way or another, and as it usually happens I finally got my mojo back and started making good progress (funny that the surrender so popular in religions seem to work really well for sand riding too). I moved on gear up and managed to swerve around bushes most of the time in 2nd and 3rd. I had one scare when I came too fast into a right corner, and the momentum thrown me straight in the air, narrowly missing a tree and landing in somebody’s garden.

The breakpoint came on the other side of the dunes. I have fully expected the track to ease up significantly and was very unpleasantly surprised that it didn’t. If anything it got worse, turning into the bottomless powder pit. Funny how much difference a rain or rather lack of can make here. I still had about 60 km of possibly same sand to Bilene, and my heart was not in it anymore - especially as I there was a much easier alternative (no not crossing the dunes back). There is a mud road heading inland across the fields in one of the villages ahead, crossing a bridge over Inkomati in the middle of sugarcane plantation and then joining the main tar road in Manhica.

Refreshment stop in the village where I was to turn inland for a dash to tar. Not in my best shape I first laughed at this pretentious guy clad out all in white - unitil I realized that he indeed is a doctor:

But I still had to navigate about 10-15 of deep powder to get to the village, which took me with one long pause about an hour/hour and a half. From there it is easy10-20 km on compacted mud roads to tar in Manhica, where I stopped at a garage for drink and a brainstorm. Initially, feeling defeated I just wanted to give up on this whole sand riding and just ride up to Zavora about 300 km away on tar – it was about lunch time, so it was perfectly doable. Few cold Cokes later some of my original resolve cropped up again and I decided to head for Bilene about 100 km away (tar loops inland so it’s much longer than the sandy track), recuperate on the beach for the rest of the day and pick the track up again from there tomorrow morning.  

Bilene, overseeing postcard lagoon, turned out to be this beach resort kind of place with one strip surrounded by lodges, restaurants and souvenir shops. After being rejected in two different backpackers that were full I resigned myself to stay in something called Complexo Palmeiras. I thought it to be one of those pompous beach resorts, but it actually turned out all right with good restaurant and relaxed non-pretentious atmosphere. I have settled in one of the chalets and spent most of the afternoon in the lagoon cooling down. Sufficiently soaked I went for dinner in the restaurant full of family holidaymakers (it was Christmas Eve) and then headed back to the chalet to prep for the next day.

I decided to make few changes, to give myself a chance after today’s fiasco: I swapped the front sprocket from 15 to 14 to get more manageable gearing and lowered the front end in the triple clamps about half a centimetre. Now it may seem counterintuitive as that would normally make the bike less stable, but I felt that my front end was just too light (especially with about 35 kg of luggage at the back) and therefore lacking traction and unpredictably flighty. The theory was more weight upfront equates more traction. We’ll see.

Good rest and food did miracle for my mood and I felt cautiously confident that with the better gearing and traction I might be still able to salvage this trip. Universe also seemed to agree, as it started raining. I was probably the only one in that resort who really rejoiced at that.

Bilene - Complexo Palmeiras:

Route for the day:

 

[DirtyTeNeReLess]

tuning into an epic tale, as sad as it makes me the tenere would have been murder and under powered in that sand. good choice.

 

[SchalkL]

Can't wait for the rest, tx again for sharing XPat.
(This is how a ride report should be done ! )

 

[hondsekierie]

Waiting in anticipation!!!!  Thanks for sharing

That Jay's Lodge most likely same road to El Paso (Western theme).  If so you need to carry a lot of speed to ride that **** - respect for doing it with a loaded 690

That section between Macaneta and Bilene is quite well known as extremely tuff - doing it with a 35kg load makes it almost undo able.  Lotsa respect

Can't wait for the rest, tx again for sharing XPat.
(This is how a ride report should be done ! )

Schalk - awesome to see that you have been such a real adventure rider for such a long time -  jy's n yster en die volgende dop is op my :thumleft:

 

[Xpat]

Day 4

I woke up to the heavily overcast sky. My heart has flooded with joy and hope - the weather gods were clearly on my side. A beautiful grey gloom - none of that stupid turquoise blue sky with the bloody sun trying to boil you alive! Yep, riding a deep sand in Moz in the middle of summer leaves one somewhat at odds with the rest of the humanity.

The track headed from Bilene north east along the coast and then about halfway turned north following Limpopo to Chicumbane where it joined tar on EN1 tar about 80 km away, just ahead of the bridge over the Limpopo river and Xai Xai (I couldn’t find any other way to cross Limpopo so had to take tar for 20-30 km here). The track was bit of a mystery. No one, including locals in Macaneta and Bilene, seemed to have heard about it, yet it was clearly visible and routable on Googlemaps – I didn’t have to plot this one myself. Well I was about to find out if it really exists.

The objective for the day was simple, yet crucial for the fate of this trip: try to ride the whole track all the way to Chicumbane. Once there, I would figure out where to next depending on the daylight left. However, if the yesterday’s fiasco happens again and I wouldn’t be able to make it, I would have to rethink seriously this whole trip.
I didn’t bother to raise too early as  I found yesterday that the bikes/quads are not allowed to enter my track before 7:00 am. The track initially passes by few upscale private beach properties and the fat cats clearly don’t enjoy sound of a four stroke in the morning. Bloody private investors screwing it up for us, adv riders! (Should I own one of those properties I can assure nothing would be allowed past at least till 8:00!)

I set-off soon after 7:00 and straight away had to get up a big dune raising inland from the lagoon. It turned out the whole section from Bilene to Limpopo river about halfway through, was one big dune field. The dunes were very different from the ones I rode from Macaneta. Macaneta dunes were low white sand heaps, overgrown with thick coastal bush and the track had to weave in-between the heaps and bushes. The dunes today were much bigger - more like small mountains of thicker reddish sand, with some grass but very little bush and the track crossed them more or less in the straight line.

The clouds, kept the temperature bearable, sand was nicely compacted by the rain yesterday, short gearing and straight faster track definitely helped and I was able to stick to the 3rd for relatively long sections. Yet, I still couldn’t get into the flow and was constantly finding myself on the wrong foot when the bike bucked underneath me. Again I was losing way too much energy way too quickly and had to stop for a breather every km or two. It was kind of like trying to swim 50 pool lengths under water: Psyche yourself up, set off, hold on for dear life until the things are more or less out of your control (almost drowning in the water to stick with the analogy) and then stop within km or two exhausted trying to regain your breath for next few minutes. Repeat.

It was depressing business realizing how useless I became, and after about 10 km I was ready to throw the towel in. The fact that that I haven’t made it yet out of the gravitational reach of comforts of Complexo Palmeiras aircon chalets and restaurant didn’t help. Few cigarettes later I calmed down sufficiently to be able to see that it was way too early to give up – I had plenty of time left, the sky was still nicely overcast, the sand was still much easier than yesterday. Remembering advice from Bill the Bong on WD I have lowered the pressures in my E09 Dakars to about 0.8 bar. That sounded quite radical - I have used these tyres on most of my prior trips and usually run them at about 1.3 front / 1.5 back, admittedly on much heavier Tenere (well, and on about the same weight TE630). But who am I to argue with someone who spent few Amageza’s figuring this out, so I just followed the advice. I wasn’t riding any rocks so the risk of snakebite seemed pretty low.

Those mountains on the horizon are just bigger dunes:

It seemed to help and things eventually started to come together. I was able to ride more consistently, conserving energy, extending the stops to about every 4 – 5 km. Finally I was actually riding, rather than just trying to  make it through, which really did helped to raise my mood melting the snowball that seemed to build up again earlier.

First about 20 km were running more or less straight across red dunes following telephone cable  with relatively little growth and  no settlements or villages - probably just a service road for the cable:

To be continued.

 

[Xpat]

Day 4 - part 2

Eventually I came upon a first village on the  other side of the sand dune - Novela. It was sitting next to a lake in the middle of the dunes and from there on the track has changed and there was even occasional car - clearly this was the connection with the civilisation and Novela sit at the end of it. It was still mostly sandy double track, but was running through a dense bush and through frequent little hamlets and villages, with attendant foot traffic.

Novela spaza shop:

And on the other side of Novela remnants of a dirt road:

That just reverted back to a sandy double track, albeit much more inhabited one:

Turn-off to Chicumbane

Eventually, for last 30 km or so the track turned into a road - still sandy but one where two cars could pass each other without one of them getting off the road.

I knew from the map that the road will pass through a village called Vladimire Lenine so I had to stop for a picture. Now I had a vague idea that the current Moz government has some kind of commie association - they have an AK47 on their national flag at the end of the day, but as someone who grew up in communism/socialism or whatever that crap was called, I still find it bizarre that today there are still places called after a cretin who inspired some of the biggest mass killings ever. Even Russians have by now renamed Leningrad and Stalingrad to something more palatable (though I have no doubt many of them still consider those c&#ts heros).
 

I have reached Chicumbane elated to make it through, turned right on EN1 and headed 20 km or so to Xai Xai, where I’ve stopped at the garage for re-fill. I went through by now standard routine of closing up all the taps, watching closely attendant to not overfill and slamming the bike against ground watched by two carloads of local lovelies while trying to tighten one strap or another. That sidestand will need attention.

I had a burger and coke for lunch and contemplated my next move. By now it was close to 2 pm. The original plan was to head for Xai Xai beach about 10 km away where I would reconnect with the GPS track I plotted up to Zavora. But Zavora was about 200 km away, which even at my today’s top form will take me at least 2 days to ride. More probably 3, as today I have  ridden  just about 80 km off tar, with last 30 km being easy sandy road - and while elated, I was also pretty tired. It would just take too much time - I could have done it if I was to stick to Moz only, but I still had plans for Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana, however unrealistic they were beginning to look. Just for the kicks: you might recall that in my original plan I expected to make it from Macaneta to Zavora - 350 km of sandy tracks - in one day. Just shows how delusional one can get in the comfort of his Gauteng living room.

So I decided to get up to Zavora on tar and pick-up my track from there next day. The ride up there was the typical boring tar chore - well with Moz rural scenery  and human/animal traffic for entertainment. I was interested how the shorter gearing will do on tar, and was surprised to like it actually. It kind of naturally kept me at about 100 kmh, with very lively bursts above it when overtaking - which is just fine as that is the speed limit outside of villages anyway and I was still the fastest moving vehicle (with exception of few bus driving crack-heads). The main annoyance are frequent and long villages with 60 kmh speed limit and underpaid police gangsta’s hiding in the bush behind a speed camera eager to subsidise their meagre income. My speedometer wasn’t working since Joburg and I couldn’t be bothered to try to figure out how to set-up GPS to show map and the speed at the same time. So I just went with the flow of the traffic and made it through most of the traps undetected. I’ve got nailed eventually by a jolly plump lady officer in riding about 85 kmh in a village. She asked for 2000 Meticais, which I laughed of - in a friendly winking kind of way - and offered half without doing the math first. She took it beaming and I realized too late that I overpaid. Well next I’ll try harder.

I’ve made it to Zavora in the late afternoon and managed to get a room at Zavora lodge. The beach was very busy with the locals from the nearby villages having their end of year celebrations and the beach, watched by the ****** holidaymakers from the lodge deck.

Route of the day:

 

[Xpat]

tuning into an epic tale, as sad as it makes me the tenere would have been murder and under powered in that sand. good choice.

I have ridden bits and pieces of this route (one still coming between Zavora and Inhambane about 60 km long) on Tenere. But that wasn't in December and was after rain, which made it easier.

Overall I agree, Tenere would be way too heavy for this, at least for average bimbo like me.

 

[popipants]

Wow, this is great.

Interesting to read your opinion on the 690. I thought it would  be a dream in the sand 

 

[Xpat]

To be fair, you cannot blame the bike for my lack of talent/fitness. And I have eventually managed most of the sand I intended.

The thing is - without the luggage I would probably be fine, on that quick round ride in Macaneta I was riding like a champ. Next day with luggage I was toast. The added problem of 690 is that due to the rear tank-subframe combo it is pretty wide at the back and the luggage was hanging way too far out, compared to 630 or Tenere where it is much more snug. Later on I started to strap it with additional strap just to keep it closer to the bike.

 

[Xpat]

Day 5

Next morning I woke up stiff from the prior days' heroics, and called a rest day straight away. I've spent most of the day fine tuning this mean machine by protein and carbo loading, drinking a lot of sugary stuff (both fermented and not) and smoking.

The only real extertion was raising the front end of 690 back up - I have lowered it initially in Bilene to get more planted feeling up front and now raised it back half way up  as the bike seemed to be digging a bit too much. We'll see tomorrow how that will work.

Gods still seemed to be with me as it rained both nights in Zavora hopefully making for much more enjoyable ride up the coast to Inhambane and Tofu beach next day.

Not much to report, so here are the pics of the Zavora lodge and surrounds:

The lodge:

The locals and I were similarly perplexed by this woman's strange behaviour - what's wrong with just chilling in the shade? Ah, these white people...

Like so:

I got a bit bored, so I even got intereted in an artso-fartso stuff - I'm sure you will appreciate break from 690 ****:

Not sure what this is, but I'm sure glad that it is small:

Other sea stuff:

 

[DirtyTeNeReLess]

nice story cant wait to see how the rest of your trip panned out. can only be better once you leave the sand behind.

 

[AJN]

Can only imagine how tricky even a mid weight bike with luggage must be on a hot day in that sand.

My TW was too easy and so much fun but it weighs 110kg, no luggage and fat tyres...

 

[Xpat]

@dirtyXT: this trip ended up being mostly sand, but I got better at it so it become enjoyable at the end.

@andrew: I like that you call 690 mid-weight bike, which is what it exactly is IMO. Some (majority) of people for some reason think that 220 kg Tiger is middle weight. I'm sure TW with those huge tyres and no luggage would be much easier, but to be honest so would be 690 without luggage. Did you ride those tracks up the coast to Vilanculos?

 

[Xpat]

Day 6

Objective for the day was Tofo beach about 100 km north of Zavora. Again I wanted to follow the sandy tracks along the coast up to Inhambane from where I would do the last 20 or so km on tar. Like so:

It was raining whole night, but by the time I got up in the morning the rain stopped. The sky remained nicely overcast though - score! I backtracked about 10 km on a dirt road heading back to EN1, and then connected with my track in a small village, where I turned right on the usual sandy double track heading up north.

The scenery was alternating between bush and palm tree forrests (is that the right word) and the track has crossed many villages and little hamlets with quite a log of foot traffic moving on the track. The locals were clearly in a jovial holiday mood, many of them in their best clothes on the way to meet up with families in other villages. I have seen number of gatherings in bigger villages with people milling around and music booming from the speakers wired up to the car batteries.

As I hit the double track straight away I knew the spell was broken. Not sure what did it - wet sand, better weight distribution in tripple clamps or something completely different, but I was immediately in the flow, riding relaxed in 3rd and 4rd most of the time sitting which helped greatly with energy conservation. The stops now were to smell the flowers and admire the scenery, rather than just to catch my breath and get my heartbeat out of the red zone.

Now people were generally very friendly and replied enthusiastically to my Bon Dia in passing - this is why an open face helmet IMO is a must for adventure riding, much better rapport with the locals.

That said, there was something ominous about this bunch - they resembled very much a lynch mog in the waiting. Group of guys in their good clothes clutching machettes each side of the track. And they weren't all smiles either. No, I wasn't thinking they were waiting for me, but it seemed like they expected somebody to make their day helluva lot of worse. There wasn't much I could do about that so I just smiled broadly, hollered 'Bon Dia' and opened up the get some momentum going through the group:

I was hopefully just imagining stuff and they were local Scouts waiting for their transport to take them to help old lady clean up her garden or something. As I said other people seemed generally friendly and glad to see me, even with my Wings exhaust.

One of the coastal lakes with the ocean behind:

About 30 km into the ride I had to reconnect with my track using a dirt road going to Ligogo village and lodge:

Back on track:

Ligogo village:

In Ligogo my track ended up on the footbal stadium and I had to find way around:

Back on the main road:

To be continued.

 

[AJN]

@andrew: I like that you call 690 mid-weight bike, which is what it exactly is IMO. Some (majority) of people for some reason think that 220 kg Tiger is middle weight. I'm sure TW with those huge tyres and no luggage would be much easier, but to be honest so would be 690 without luggage. Did you ride those tracks up the coast to Vilanculos?

Only around Ponta Do Ouro and up to the Elephant Reserve but in mid December on hot days so I can feel your pain haha.

But I agree, any bike over 170kg or so is huge to me! That's why I sold my 640 - was too big and heavy for what I use a bike at this stage of my life and if I want to go on a long trip I drive - bike just for day trips.

 

[sidetrack]

Would have attempted this with my 610, Z I think not. Great pics  :thumleft:

 

[popipants]

tick tock tick tock....where's the rest

 

[Xpat]

.