Mozambique coast line adventure

[CrazyPorra]

The ride report is old, but maybe people will find it entertaining and some members on the forum might be after my blood showing pics that are 21 years old. And no comments on my overloading, it was my first trip into the unknown, I have learned since then.

Day 1 (14/12/2002)

John (Dakar 650 GS) and myself (Africa Twin) woke up at 04:00 and left home at 05:30 to meet Bob (Africa Twin) at Mc Ginty’s in Benoni, where we had a photo shoot for the beginning of the trip.

We left Benoni at 06:00 and had an uneventful ride to Machadodorp, missing the Middelburg Toll Gate (honest citizens), we managed to maintain a cruising speed of 115-125 km/h on the Speedo’s, we stopped at the Caltex one stop for a well deserved cup of coffee.

From here I decided that there being no alternate route around the Machado Toll Gate that I wasn’t going to pay the +/- R35 fees, so I proceeded to break the law by not paying, this according to Bob and John caused quite a stir of excitement at the Toll Gate.

In Nelspruit Bob had to do some banking while John and myself went to the Wimpy for brunch and were later joined by Bob.

Due to some misplacing of disk lock keys, John had to purchase a new disk lock with a price tag of R250, not bad considering that the same costs +/- R130 in Jhb.

I was testing a newly acquired Africa Twin (old one had been taken for distribution to the Wealth Redistribution Program of South Africa) for consumption and decided not to fill up in Nelspruit, not bad it went onto reserve at 345km and when I finally filled up it had done 398km on 21,55l of fuel, I nearly forgot there is another toll gate at Malelane which I again did not pay for, I must admit that I was starting to feel guilty about this but this guilt quickly disappeared when I thought of how much damage the heavily loaded taxi and trailers where causing to the road every time one rolled, I counted six accident scenes.

Here follows a sequence of events that I witnessed just outside Malelane, an overloaded taxi with an overloaded double axle venter trailer with its wheels running at about 45 degrees was pulled over by traffic officials and he was allowed to proceed with his journey even though he only had 3 wheels on the trailer, the fourth didn’t exist, wonder what Christmas present the traffic officials received from the driver.

We arrived at Komatipoort only to find a queue of 4 wheeled cages backed up to the BP garage, we thought about skipping the queue but it would still take us about 2 hours to clear the congested border post, so we to headed towards Swaziland with an added bonus of cheap petrol. This was a good decision as we found a pleasant border post with officials too match and an air conditioner what a pleasure, John was even getting a few smiles from two international lady tourists, but I am sure they took a liking to his Dakar rather than him.

Through Swaziland and onto the Namaacha border post where we spent +/- 45 min. We left and arrived at my brother’s pad in Matola at 16:45 where we carried out some minor repairs to my aftermarket crash bars, before making our way to Maputo in a 4 wheel cage for supper at the Costa do Sol Restaurant, great meal and view.

We were later joined by Chris from Botswana(GS Adventure), Hein from Pretoria(Varadero), Johan and girlfriend from Eastern Transvaal(Africa Twin).

At around 21:00 we retired to a good nights sleep.

 

[CrazyPorra]

Day 2 (15/12/2002)

Up at 06:00 and re-arranged Bob’s carrier system. John helped out the local population, to be exact it was my brother’s neighbors who had locked themselves in their house as there was a python sliding around in their chicken run eating their chickens, John finally to their delight removed the unwanted pet, earning himself the nickname “Johnny Python”.

We finally left Maputo for Inhambane at 09:00, miraculously myself, Bob and John managed to stay together through the city traffic, the only problem facing us was to stay within the speed limits and having the locals overtake us with overloaded bus while going through the towns, 2 radar traps in the first 2 towns out of Maputo.

We arrived in Macia at about 10:45 and decided to head towards Bilene(San Martino) for brunch, not a bad omelet for the price. We were soon on our way again, but not before John had a go at his bartering skills for cashew nuts, price was 50 000 mets for a tin, but he could have the whole bowl of +/- 6 tins for 100 000 mets.

We carried on riding and by now we had still not come across the other group who had opted to spend some time sightseeing some of Maputo’s heritage. At Xai-Xai we filled up and as we were about to leave the other group arrived.

We left them and rode towards Inhambane (Praia do Tofo), stopping at the lakes and the well renown Bar Babalaza for a beer, we left for Tofo and true to Mozambican hospitality we were stopped for the first time by a traffic official, who had seen us coming from a long distance away and got off his chair in the pub, most probably run out of money, but true to my beliefs no bribes where paid.

We met up with Marco and Graham in their Colt 4x4, earning them the name of the Rodeo boys, and we finally arrived in Tofo where we decided to try out our individual beach sand riding skills with ridiculously overloaded motorcycles, needless to say, the 3 of us failed miserably each dropping the bikes.

After all the laughs and exercise of picking the bikes up we arrived at Bamboozi Camp Site, not a bad set up, great pub on top of the dune overlooking the sea.

We set up camp and all sat down to locally prepared chicken and lots of beer at the pub with a view.

Accommodation: 100 000 mets
Coke : 10 000 mets
½ Chicken : 80 000 mets
Beer Local (500ml) : 20 000 mets

 

[Welsh]

you farkers were young back then.

 

[Goingnowherekwickly]

Great start! I did a big one up moz in 2009, must try upload.. looking forward to the next installment

 

[Gumba]

Brilliant, wish life these days was full of laughter, and fun ( beers) . Good times
Everyone so serious these days and controlled by society, and forget life too short not to enjoy with friends

 

[Grootseun]

Lekker OG adv trip.

 

[Tabasco]

I only recognize John in the pics, where are you ?
F@k you forgot to mention you took the kitchen zink wirh......and I bet you still managed that no prblm in the sand.

 

[BullSmit]

Lekkers José!

Brilliant to see these faces again!

I probably won't recognise you (or you, me for that matter) when I see you again.

 

[AfriqueDS]

Great adventure . thnx for sharing.

 

[CrazyPorra]

Day 3 (16/12/2002)

Up at 06:00 and packed up camp before it got to hot.

Went for a refreshing swim followed by a welcomed shower and by 10:00 we left camp for Inhambane to fill up with petrol and be ready to leave at about 11:15.

Another taste of Mozambique at Christmas time, no petrol in Inhambane, we would have to make it to Maxixe where we would be guaranteed to find petrol.

In Inhambane we decided to have a light early lunch and where offered a choice of, prego roll, cheese roll, ham roll and egg roll we choose 3 prego rolls each, only to find out they had run out of steak, well we will take second best, one of each (cheese, ham, egg rolls), this order apparently totally confused the waiter who then choose to ignore us, at least the coke and fanta was chilled. After about 40 min we finally received some of what we had ordered, we ate it, paid for it and left.

At Maxixe we discussed the original plan of spending the night at Pomene Camp Site and took into consideration the road conditions and our experiences the night before into account and decided to head straight for Vilankulos. The Rodeo boys did make a turn at Pomene and confirmed that the road conditions where indeed bad.

We finally arrived at Vilankulos Camp Site and set up camp for two days, as we would be having our first rest day. What a place to spend a rest day, campsite is right on the beach, a pity that the only place your personal belongings are safe is inside the site, outside you open yourself up to pity thieves.

With the amount of South Africans camping here, you would have thought we were on a Natal coast and all the Gautengers had joined us.

Accommodation : R75 per night (has to be said that this was the most expensive camp site that we stayed at by at least double)

 

[CrazyPorra]

Day 4 (17/12/2002)

Up at 05:00, very bad nights sleep, the Rodeo boys and Hein had decided to shift into top gear and proceed to keep the whole campsite awake with there conversation and music, and to top it all up, Hein decides at 06:00 that it is now time to sleep, I unfortunately had other plans for him and proceeded in reversing my motorcycle into is tent and put my aftermarket “Air Age” exhaust to test on our much noise it could make, much to the delight of the rest of the campsite residents, he only managed 5min sleep.

While I vegetated at the camp, swimming and walking around, the rest of the mob took a dhow ride to the islands for the day. They came back mid afternoon, some feeling not so good and others in high spirits. Apparently an official wanted to charge them $10US each to walk along the beach on Bazaruto Island, what a rip-off, I had done it 5 years ago for free.

The rest of the day was spent organizing the bikes so that we could leave early in the morning, has from now onwards I had never ventured and conditions would be new and not much written info was available.

We found a butcher in Town and decided to have a meat braai after the disastrous fish braai of the night before.

 

[Bike_Buddies]

How many came home with Malaria Infection ???

 

[CrazyPorra]

How many came home with Malaria Infection ???

No one caught the dreaded disease.Guess I have to say we were lucky and sure everyone was taking tablets.

 

[Colin Kaapschehoop]

Those were the days my friend……..!

 

[CrazyPorra]

Day 5 (18/12/2002)

Up at 05:30 and we left Vilankulos at 07:30.

We made good time, has there wasn’t much scenery along the way, apart from some old Portuguese architecture in building of bridges. As luck would have it we managed to find petrol just before crossing the Sena River, this was luck, as we would later find out that Inchope is nothing but a run down village not at all what we had expected.

Hein managed to pick up a puncture about 50km from Inchope, which was efficiently repaired and in a short period of time we were back on the road to Beira. As I mentioned that we were unable to find petrol at Inchope it was decided that we would slow the pace down as the only bikes that would make the 135km to Beira at the present speed would be my Africa Twin with backup petrol, John’s Dakar with Touratech long range tanks and Chris with the 30L GS Adventure tank. Luck struck again +/- 70km before Beira we found a petrol station with petrol and most filled up, I rode all the way to Beira where I filled up with 22,3L after doing 425km, but even more impressive was John’s Dakar, he took about 18L for the same distance.

We made our way to Biques Camp Site on the beach and set up camp, what a view, beach sand and sea. We decided to have supper at the restaurant next to where we were camping and had one of the tastiest meals ever (Crab&Prawn Curry) for a price of R32.

Nearly forgot, the Rodeo boys decided to stay in Vilankulos as they had met some willing mates of the opposite *** to share in their interests of parting all night long and keeping the whole campsite awake, I was definitely in high spirits due to this decision, poor Vilankulos Camp Site campers.

Accommodation : 75 000 mets
Crab & Prawn Curry : 80 000 mets
Beer Local : 20 000 mets
Mineral Water : 20 000 mets
Coke : 10 000 mets
Rissoies (Prawn Cakes): 10 000 mets each

 

[CrazyPorra]

Day 6 (19/12/2002)

Up at 04:45 has we wanted to take some photos of Beira and still get an early start, we left camp at about 06:45 and organized to meet Chris, Hein and Johan at the petrol station at about 07:30, Chris had also decided that they would go up to Quelimane and then head off to Lake Malawi.

We rode around Beira taking photos, this town must have been beautiful in its day, now very run down and lacking lots of maintenance.

Just after 07:30 we were on our way out of Beira, we had also discussed that we would be taking the newly built Gorongosa route which was 200km longer than the Dondo route, and according to local knowledge was in much better condition. When we arrived in Dondo it was democratically voted that we would change the plan and take the dreaded Dondo to Caia road.

We agreed that we would re-group every 30km, but after the first 30km the road was in good condition that a decision was taken that we would all ride to our abilities and meet in Caia.

Funny thing about Africa and Coca-Cola, the smallest hut in the middle of nowhere and yet they have ice cold cokes. We all stopped and enjoyed a refreshment and some even had some boiled eggs for a snack.

It was about +/- 40km from the end of this road, when disaster struck, Ihad noticed that the earlier hard packed gravel had changed to 2 track loose sand road causing myself and some of the others to lose control and drop the bikes without sustaining much damage to bike or body, unluckily this is where Johnny Python lost control of his Dakar at about +/- 70km/h and managed to completely bend the front rim into a pretzel shape and the frame so that the Dakar now had a Mozambique look about it, it rode in a straight line with a crab likeness much the same as their buses, luckily no bodily harm was done to John besides to his pride.

We carried out some roadside repairs using trees and passing trucks and managed to straighten the rim so that John could ride back to Beira. Chris, Hein and Johan then carried on to Caia and Bob, John and myself returned to Beira, covering a total of +/-130km at a speed of 30-50km/h. Once in Beira we headed off to Biques Camp Site, and you guessed it we had prawn curry for supper.

Accommodation : 75 000 mets
Prawn Curry : 115 000 mets
Beer Local : 20 000 mets
Mineral Water : 20 000 mets
Coke : 10 000 mets
Rissoies (Prawn Cakes): 10 000 mets each

 

[uyster]

Bef@kte trip/memories ! was involved in rebuilding the Coca Cola factory outside Maputo 1993

 

[CrazyPorra]

Day 7 (20/12/2002)

Woke up at about 06:00, can’t seem to sleep any later as the heat becomes unbearable. We strolled to the restaurant for an English breakfast and discussed what choices to take to try to get John and bike back to South Africa.

John made a few phone calls to South Africa, Bryanston BMW for a new front rim and guess what, they had one in stock in their warehouse, this is where I said to myself, luckily John didn’t buy a Honda, as Honda don’t carry any spares they would have had to order it from Japan and that alone takes + 3 weeks to arrive in the country, I am sure they haven’t heard of air freight yet.

By early afternoon John had the DHL Airway Bill Number and with luck the parcel would arrive on Saturday or the latest on Monday. With this news we relaxed a bit at the restaurant at Biques and had a few local beers with lots of Rissoies (prawn pies).

Later in the afternoon Bob and myself went to the market to purchase prawns and supplies for supper, we planned on having a prawn braai, which ended up being a success, and was enjoyed by us all.

Bob and myself discussed with John that we would carry on with our journey up North on Saturday, and John agreed and mentioned that once his front rim arrived he would ride the bike to test it, and then he would make up his mind of whether he would return to South Africa or join us up north, difficult to keep a BMW motor biker down.

 

[CrazyPorra]

Day 8 (21/12/2002)

Up at 05:00 and packed up camp in between a few good downpours of rain. We said our goodbyes to John and left for the petrol stations. Here we filled up our tanks and the jerry cans with petrol has we knew that there wasn’t going to be any petrol for the next +/- 650km as we were taking the Garangosa route to Caia. About 70km out of Beira we again found petrol and filled up again, keeping too the rule of fill up everywhere you find petrol.

Bob and myself made good time in the rain, we didn’t even bother to put our rain suits on, has 10 minutes after the rain we would be dry.

We turned onto the newly built road from Inchope to Caia, what a road being built by South African companies, at about 11:30 we stopped for a break and worked out that we still had about 120km left to get to the Zambezi River. It wasn’t 10km later when we arrived at the section of road where they had not yet started repairing, and we were forced to take a detour (temporary road running next to the main road), as it was still raining this proved to be a very slippery experience, so we decided to get back onto the main road and tackle each obstacle as they presented themselves to us.

Funnily I managed to get myself stuck on top of one of these man made obstacles, front and back wheel up in the air, Bob on the other hand managed to drop his bike while attempting to get over one of the wet clay obstacles. Just outside Caia we stopped to fill our tanks with the jerry cans.

Due to these road works we only arrived in Caia at 15:00, where we had to cross the mighty Zambezi River by ferry. There was at least a km long queue of trucks and cars, but true to tradition we were ushered to the front and would be squeezed onto the next ferry run, what a luck, speaking to some of the other motorists some of them had been waiting there since 07:00 that morning.

Now when I first saw the ferry and its state of disrepair, I wondered if this was such a good idea, I had visions of my trip coming to an end in the middle of the Zambezi River. An hour later we were on the other side, and on our way to Quelimane, Praia do Zalala, for our overnight stop.

Firstly we bought a few supplies in Quelimane and then headed off to Zalala where we were welcomed by the owner of the Camp Site, again right on the beach.

We had covered a total of 700km for the day, so after a good meal we retired to a goodnight sleep.

Accommodation: 37 500 mets
Beer Local: 20 000 mets
Coke: 10 000 mets

 

[CrazyPorra]

Day 9 (22/12/2002)

Up at 06:00, and has we had decided the night before that we where only going to leave camp at 10:00, I went for a swim and took some photos.

From info that we had received from the locals, we where to experience tar roads all the way to Mucubela and then the last 60km would be gravel road that would seem like tar.

We packed up and left for Quelimane in search of petrol and good strong coffee. We left Quelimane at about 11:45, all tanked up and in high spirits until we reached the second town out of Quelimane – Namacurra, where we had a choice of left or right and according to the GPS it was left, and this is where we started to realize that the local info was as reliable as the Zim dollar, we hit gravel road that would make an old ladies teeth fall out from rattling in Mercedes Benz, luckily this only lasted for 40km when we turned right and drove for the next 55km on decent gravel road to Olinga, here we followed the road to Mucubela which was in good condition, and the only problem was that in one of the sections it had just rained and the gravel had turned to clay nearly causing me to drop the bike, once in Mucubela we still had 77km left to get to Pebane with decent gravel road which wasn’t bad.

Besides an old Fort in the middle of the dense bush there wasn’t much else to be seen, and on arrival in Pebane , we paddled our way through beach sand to the makeshift camp site on the beach, what a place and view , we even had our own private bath, made from a slow flowing river.

We found a very trustworthy local who took R40 and went into town to buy us bread and a few cokes, and he came back with the goods, we settled in and after a light supper and a few Captain’s organs we retired for the evening.

Accommodation: 35 000.00 mets