Kings of the Delta toer 2008 . Bots and Nam

[IceCreamMan]

Right ee o ... difficult to put into words the amazing toer we did. To the toer hoers thanX for an awesome toer. I did not take many photos but crazy porra an Il Duce did so i look forward to their reports to fill in the bits and pieces and better pics.

Day 1 :   25th of April


Home to Platjan Lodge - 2 km's from Platjan border post. Total km's about 550 Km's.

I had a meeting to to first thing in the morning so i left home a bit later and hooked up with rest of the ouens at the Hammanskraal offramp at about 10:30 or so. From there we went to Settlers and had a beer in the Settlars hotel ...  and criss crossed the country to Polokwane... damn Polokwane on a friday afternoon is the pits ...traffic jams , taxi's etc etc ....generally a crap place of note.

Went to Alldays hotel, fuelled up , bought beer and coke and made our way to the platjan lodge. From Alldays it was about 50km's of dirt. I went slowly but eventually we got to the lodge at sunset and relaxed, made a braai , drank rum an spoke kaka as one does on toer. no photos sorry.

Day 2 26 April

Platjan Lodge to Francisstown  +- 350 km's

The daily ritual , packing the bikes. After a great evening around the fire consuming copious amounts of rum it was time to move on. WE were to cross at the Zanzibar border post but due to the high level of the limpopo we went via platjjan.  After crossing the mighty limpopo we rode dirt thru the Tulli block. I did see a herd of elephents crossign the road but camera was in top box...great experience that they crossed les than 30 metres in front of me. Francistown is fairly big ,grown a lot since i was there last. We stayed in the Marang casino camping grounds, great enough place.

Pic 1 :Il Duce loading his bike at platjan lodge


Pic 2 :Wilhelmpiel packing his GS1150

Pic 3: Fully Laden Strom - notice the pooratech fuel container

Pic 4 : Border Crossing

 

[SuperJuice]

Oh look Porrapiel is already packed, fancy that!

 

[IceCreamMan]

Day 3   Francistown to Chobe +- 550 km's

Got up early in Francistown , the rush was on to get to Kasane and to the Chobe national park lodge by 2 PM so i could watch the F1 race of Spain.  A beautful day in Botswana as were all the days. We camped at the Chobe lodge camping ground. Cost was 65 pula per person per night. Excellent facilities.

We went via Nata , road from Francistown to Nata is 100% , from Nata to Kasane there is a stretch of about 160km's which is severely potholed. In some places the potholes are the same colour as the road making it difficulkt to see them. WE managed to get thru unscathed though. Unfortunately we got to the lodge to find no TV's so we drank beer instead. Lovely place the lodge , recommended to all . We saw a bull elephant and giraffe on this leg.

Day 4 

Day 4 was a rest day and we relaxed at Chobe. Went into town , did shopping , relaxed ,checked out the talent. Met a group of guys from Durban doing a 4 week toer through africa. Mentioned the sitre to them , i want to see their ride report.2 650 Dakars and a GS1150 which had developed a fault and was on the backup vehicle.

Pic 1: Lunch stop between Nata and Chobe. WE always ate well on toer. Lunch was normally crackers or bread and tobasco sauce with either mussels or oysters or bully beef ....

Pic 2 : a pic opf the river from the pub on the river.

Pic 3 : The toer ouens

Pic 4 : our campsite at night.

 

[et]

nICE ONE

 

[IceCreamMan]

Day 5    Chobe to Popa (Ngepi camp) +- 400km's.

Departed from Chobe and rode through the Chobe national park to the Namibia border post. On the trip we saw more game on the national roads than in the game reserves. The trans caprivi is a kark road...miles an miles of buggerall and straight as an arrow. The border must be one of the most scenic border crossings in the world though. Rode through Katima Mullilo (sp) and onto Popa to Ngepi camp. Ngepi camp is about 5 km's of sand road away and in the heat of the day was not to much fun. The camp itself was 75 Namibian dollars per day which was ok i guess. They were expensive on beer and food but we had our own food an drank only a few of their beers. Beuatiful location as the pics below show.

Pic 1: Border crossing

Pic 2 : Border crossing

Pic 3 No mans land

Pic 4 : Pic of the bar at Ngepi camp  ;D

Pic 5 : Kovango river from Ngepi camp

 

[IceCreamMan]

More pics of Ngepi Camp

Pic 1 : Swimming pool Ngepi camp style

Pic 2 The throne

Pics 3,4,5 - View from the throne whilst .......

 

[iep_kruger]

great pics,,,looks very nice,,,hope theres more

 

[IceCreamMan]

Day 6   Ngepi to Maun (+- 350 km's)

Left Ngepi and did the 5km's sand back to the road aqnd headed back into Botswana on dirt through a game reserve which claimed to have lion etc. Game viewing on a bike is a different experience but we did not see any game. In Maun we stayed in the old bridge backpackers in their tented accomodation. Cost us each 60 pula for the night which was money well spent as we did not have to pitch our own tents which by this stage was becoming a ball ache. Watched the first half of the Liverpool - Chelsea game but the st louis and cpatain were talking loudly and went to sleep. Pity cos the game turned to be a cracker in the end. I developed a liking for the St Louis stuff, after a good days ride it is a great refreshing beer Pics of Maun as follows: 

Pic 1 : Pic of the tented accomodation with crazyporra's Katoom in front. they had 2 smaller tents an one large tent availale so Willie an i shared the large tent an Crazy andIl Duce each had a tent. For 60 pula it was a bargain.

Pic 2 : Tented accomodation

pic 3 : View from the tent ...cant go wrong

Pic 4: Pic of the bar...another great bar in Botswana

Pic 5: pic of the strom's business end

 

[Zeff Cowboy]

Nice trip...

Ek sê daai strom is gepimp huh

 

[IceCreamMan]

Day 7   Maun to Planet Boabab

Only 200km's or so but 200 km's in the heat is not always easy. Crazyporra decided to head off to the pans for the evening whilst the rest of us decided beer aqnd good food at planet boabab would be the way to go. We split at the makgagdidi pans (sp) and the 3 of us continued to planet boabab and what an amazing place that is ... an oasis in the middle of nowhere greeted by friendly staff and a cold beer...a beautiful bar and chilled swimming pool and great prices.

Pic 1 : Shortly after leaving Maun we came across what we assumed was a donkey which had been killed on the road.... loads of vultures were onto it but got scared by the bikes.

Pic 2 : Vultures

Pic 3 : Mighty strom next to a pan which still still has water in it...

Pic 4 : Entrance to Planet Boabab

Pic 5 : Entraqnce to planet Boabab

 

[IceCreamMan]

Day 7 Continued

More pics of planet boabab , pricing to camp was 49 pula and a 2 bed hut was 200 pula ... i was quite willing to sleep on a mattress on the floor to save not pitching my tent so we rented a hut instead. The upmarket family huts were 600 pula which is quite a difference. Planet boabab is a must visit place.

pic : Bar at Boabab

pic: Inside shot of hut

Pic Pool at boabab...amazing pool

 

[iep_kruger]

more !!!!!!!!!!!!!! more !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

she cried ???

 

[IceCreamMan]

Day 8   2 may

For me this was a long day ..... from planet boabab to Nata to Francistown to martinsdrift to potgieterus to home. a total of about 1100 km's . I wanted to get home as i had a problem with my son in london regarding nationwide's demise and i was missing my wife (eish is true and she is 8 months large) .... The others went to Ellis ras still a long day )

Left boabab early morning and was making good time, just after nata at a vetenary gate myself an willie stood to stretch our legs ...a policeman was not happy about this and promptly ordered us to pull over etc...now we had enough cash to basically buy us nando's in francistown an petrol to get out of bots an had no money for fines. He was the moerin with us but fortunatelly after putting on repentant faces he let us go. trip after that was fairly uneventful.

Conclusion:

Botswana is an amazing place to tour through, we each took 2000 pula ,we were in for a week and we each had a bit of cash left after all the beer, accomodation, petrol, food etc was bought. We did camp mostly and we did eat out of tins now an again but still 2000 pula for a whole week is a bargain and we did about 2500 km's in botswana. Petrol was 6.40 a litre which is cheaper than ours. Generally if you not to fussed about accomodation you can do it cheaply.

The people were incredibly friendly, we felt safe wherever we went and the locals only had smiles an thumbs up for us ...no hint of stone throwing or anything like that.

In total i had 2500 rand worth of pula and another 1000 rand in ZA currency for petrol here an in the caprivi strip where rands are accepted , i caqme home with change and did not deny myself anything. Border costs are as follows:

Botswana  :40 pula to get in an 20 pula 3rd party.
Namibia : 0 to get in but 100 N$ 3rd party.

I did 3661 km's aqnd averaged about 19km/l while fully laden at average speeds of about 130km.

Between the 4 of us we did +- 14500 km's an the only problem with the bikes is that the front brake hose on the gs1150 sprung a leak resulting in no front brakes. no other problems were experienced. A testimony to the modern motorcycle is that in all our toers with a combined mileage in excess of 100 000 km's we have never had a catastrophic failure on any of hte motorcycels ,we have always gotten home on them. We never toer with a backup vehicle which limits out ability to carry spares /tools or have the option of loading onto a trailer. The more toers we do the cleverer we become regarding what to carry an what not to take. we becoming quite good at the game.


A great trip , i heartily recommend Botswana to all as a trip well worth doing.

to the toer hoers , thanks ouens , next year Zim if all goes well.

 

[IceCreamMan]

Nice trip...

Ek sê daai strom is gepimp huh

touratech oil cooler cover
Touratech radiator cover
Headlight lenses , one clear one yellow
Givi panniers and racks
Hepco becker crash bars
Top box
Stickers to cover the scratches from my falls  ;D
i did have a higher screen but it did not help so i put back the standard one.
Bashplate - only thing i still need but so far so good

 

[IceCreamMan]

more !!!!!!!!!!!!!! more !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

she cried ???

sorry man .... up to Crazyporra an il duce now ...they took loads more pictures and crazy went into the pans for a night...we gotta get his report ...Crazy ...hurry up now

 

[r u talking to me]

Mooi guys. Like the camo GS, was thinking something similar for my katoem.

Beauty surroundings and wildlife!

 

[ballies]

After reading this I miss the Caprivi again  :'(

 

[Zeff Cowboy]

Nice trip...

Ek sê daai strom is gepimp huh

touratech oil cooler cover
Touratech radiator cover
Headlight lenses , one clear one yellow
Givi panniers and racks
Hepco becker crash bars
Top box
Stickers to cover the scratches from my falls  ;D
i did have a higher screen but it did not help so i put back the standard one.
Bashplate - only thing i still need but so far so good

I like the look of your bike.... it looks very rugged for a Strom ;D

 

[LeonDude]

Great riding and nice pics, thanks. For the kind of money we pay for holidays such as these, we're laughing.

 

[bmad]

Nice one ICM :thumleft: