Namibia: Centurion - Luderitz - Keetmanshoop - Centurion in 5 days

[johanp]

Track log:

Long story short, this trip was supposed to happen in April but my buddy's wife had a pretty serious accident so her knee was not ready,s o we did a mostly tar EC trip instead. Fast forward a couple of months and she had another accident where somebody skipped a stop and T boned her. Foot slightly broken.

The Namibia trip wasn't going to be postponed again so it was me, my buddy, his wife, dad and his sister driving a bakkie so they could swap or load the wife's bike if she couldn't carry on.

Day 1 Centurion to Pofadder

We left at 5AM on the dot and were on our way via the N14
(F650GS single not in photo)

Lunch in Kathu. It started getting insanely hot from here on with temps reaching 38.5deg. It's amazing how you can feel teh temperatute dropping 0.5deg

1034.5km later we arived in Pofadder

Dinner at the local restaurant/bar. Service was horrible but we were hungry and tired so didn't care too much.

 

[johanp]

Day 2 Pofadder to Luderitz

The R358 to Onseepkans border. Quite a bit sandier than expected but we've managed.

RSA side:

The bridge to the Namibian side:

Namibian side:

Warmbad:

From here one we followed a very scenic route along the river. Weather was nice & cool mostly which made for a nice change from day 1

Fishriver bridge:

Filling up in Aus

We arrived at Rosh Pina at 5pm for a fuel fillup and it was pretty clear we were running out of time QUICKLY. The next 300km or so stretch was tar and we were trying to go as quickly as possible but ran out of light eventually and were met with insane crosswinds on the way to Luderitz. Not a nice experience, especially in the pitch dark.

We just made it in time for check in at the B&B.

And had a well deserved beer and dunner at a VERY VERY busy local restaurant. Food took forever but it was worth the wait.

The view from the lounge window at our accommodation

Some sight seeing in Luderitz

 

[johanp]

Day 3.1 Kolmanskop

 

[johanp]

Day 3.2 Some fun in the desert.

Day 3.3 Fish river canyon
This is an absolutely amazing place and definitely something worth making time for.

 

[johanp]

Day 3.4 Canyon Roadhouse -

Great food and amazing old cars and decorations.

 

[johanp]

Day 4.1 Keetmanshoop to Kathu
It got very hot again and it felt like the gravel was neverending.

Me and my buddy rode ahead and it was always difficult to see what's going on behind you with the dust. Stopped for a sip of water and realized everybody was gone and they're not coming. Turned around to go look for them and as it turns out, the orange bike was broken. Sounded like it was running on 1 cylinder and you could hear and smell petrol fumes from the top - I suspected a spark plug had come loose. No time to check or fix, it was on the back of the bakkie from there on and dropped at Bavarian when we were back in "civilization".

Turns out I was right, but there was quite a bit of damage - the thread on the head was badly damaged, as well as the coil. Head had to come off to be sent to engineering so it meant new head gasket, tappet cover gasket, coil, plugs, engineering, etc.

We eventually arrived at the border. The last piece from the fuel station to the border was pretty bad with pebbles but at that point it didn't matter too much anymore.

Day 4.2 Hakskeenpan

Had a LOT of fun here, and managed to pull a perfect drift in a big circle, but of course everybody was busy playing so nobody was taking pics. It's nice to play and learn a bit in a safe environment.

Day 4.3 Kathu

We found last minute accomodation which turned out to be very nice with a nice restaurant and food. Beer was of course properly cold as well.

 

[johanp]

Day 5 Kathu to Centurion
Not a very nice ride with lots of traffic as we got closer to Gauteng, a bit of a rude "welcome back to this sh*thole".
Bike was a bit dirty after the long ride. Overall consumption was 4.80L/100km for the trip.

It was an absolutely amazing trip and I'm really looking forward to the next one. It wasn't always easy but I wouldn't change a thing. Only when you're home and winding down do you start realizing how much you've actually seen and it's like your brain needs a bit of time to process it all. Some of it seems like it was spread over a couple of days but it was in fact all done in one day.

 

[woody1]

:ricky:

 

[Dwerg]

Watse saal het jy daar op jou fiets? Ek sweer my stock seat is slegter as my 690 sin

 

[johanp]

Watse saal het jy daar op jou fiets? Ek sweer my stock seat is slegter as my 690 sin

Yep, stock seat is 'n torture. Dit is 'n "Sergant World Sport Performance Seat" en bikegear.co.za is die agente as ek dit nie mis het nie.

https://www.sargentcycle.com/Seats-Accessories/World-Sport-Performance-Seat-BMW-F650GS-F800GS/

 

[Flouw]

bucket list...... :deal:

 

[johanp]

I forgot to mention...

I had every day planned out on my Garmin and also had the maps downloaded offline on Google Maps just in case. Consensus between the two systems was that we're going straight on the C10 from Onseepkans border, then eventually turn left towards Warmbad.

I was in front, dust behind me and after a fairly good while I saw one of our party next to me signaling something but it looked like he was pointing at his 360 helmet cam.
Then a minute later he was next to me again showing I must stop. Turns out I was on the wrong path, they had all turned left onto the D206 about 5km back. DOH!

Huge kudos to my buddy's dad who managed to catch me.  :ricky:

 

[johanp]

https://youtu.be/nJsxVchLPcQ

Stop motion of the whole trip - photo taken every 30 secs, so 1 sec of video = 50  "real" mins.

Enable closed captioning:

360 videos "coming soon" as well.

 

[BLK]

Great pics,thks.