Southern Africa on a Honda CTX200 Bushlander

[katana]

Hi Jim

I am glad you are well.  I have started to get the GS ready for Nam in December and your trip is great inspiration  :thumleft:

Enjoy man!

 

[TechnomadicJim]

Hi Jim

I am glad you are well.  I have started to get the GS ready for Nam in December and your trip is great inspiration   :thumleft:

Enjoy man!

Cool man! I will still be here so let me know if you happen to be going near Swakopmund

---

So I took chrisL's advice and drove Remhoogte and Streetshoogte passes. Spectacular. One of the bends caught me off guard and I nearly came off which was quite a sobering experience. I calmed my riding down a bit after that. heh. I also hit a few small rivers unexpectedly. Those signs that indicate a river I had been ignoring as they never have water. I also spotted a Jackal on whilst taking a rest. The first I've seen in the wild.

On the way back I popped into camp Gecko for some lunch and had a nice chat with the farm manager.









Coming over the top and seeing the panorama of Streetshoogte pass was amazing. The descent was surprisingly steep too!



I'm probably going to drive to Swakopmund tomorrow and use it as a base until after Christmas and the new year. I'm due my 8k service soon so will be popping in to Windhoek at some point for a day or two.

I'm pretty excited to drive Keiseb pass on the C14 as I'm reading The Sheltering Desert and thats the area where they were hiding out. Pretty cool!

 

[Chrisl]

Jim have you left yet?
Just thinking you might go to Windhoek today via Gamsbergpass and then to
Swakopmund via Bossua Pass.(C28) Have the bike serviced tomorrow or Tuesday.
I guess I should have posted that last night. :eek7:

 

[Piston Pete]

Jim the joke about the Land Rovers goes like this.

When the last prisoners of the Boer war were rowing accross Cape Town harbour back
to their ship one of them stood up in the little dingy and shouted " your **** will come"!!!!!

Fourty years later they offloaded the first Land Rovers in that same harbour.

They were not known to be very reliable.

Revenge of the Rooinekke!  :laughing4:

Go well Jim me Lad!  :thumleft:

 

[TechnomadicJim]

Jim have you left yet?
Just thinking you might go to Windhoek today via Gamsbergpass and then to
Swakopmund via Bossua Pass.(C28) Have the bike serviced tomorrow or Tuesday.
I guess I should have posted that last night. :eek7:

Made it to Swakopmund this afternoon. I did consider Windhoek first but I'm probably going to hang around in the Swakop area for Christmas / New Year (I've heard its the place to be!). I want to get the proper Honda service done at just over 8k so I wouldn't have been close enough if I went to Windhoek early. Thank's for the advice though. I will definitely be taking the C28 when I do go. Looks awesome!

---

50 km's on the C14 after leaving Solitaire I came to the Tropic of Capricorn for the obligatory photo :



I spotted a cave (called "The Grotto") and decided to go investigate. It was pretty steep and with all my luggage and yet to be acquired off road skills I came off. I chose the wrong line and started using the brakes which wasn't a good combination. heh.

Bike was fine. I am fine. Lesson learned!



The Kuiseb Pass was break taking. It was made even more spectacular for me as I'm most of the way through "The Sheltering Desert" by Henno Martin which took place in this same area.





Solitaire to Swakupmond was around 270 km's which was out of range for the meagre 8.5 litre tank on the CTX. This is only the second time I have had to use my 10L. I never have it full but fill it with an 5-8L's depending on what I think I will need. There's no point in lugging 10L's around all the time if it's not needed.

Its nice the amount of people who enquired whether I was OK when I stop for photo's or refuelling etc.. Gives me confidence that if I did have a problem someone would be there to help. I met an Italian guy (who lives in Nairobi)  on holiday with his family at this stop. He had a blow out and rolled his 4x4 a couple weeks earlier. He even showed me his scars! Nice guy... He rides a Honda XR125 back at home.



After the Kuiseb Pass there's over 100 km's of plains before you get to the coast.



I'm currently staying at Villa Wiese Backpackers. It looked pretty nice from the website but now I'm here you can tell its been neglected for a while. The kitchen is filthy. I'm going to try a different backpackers the day after tomorrow. Find somewhere cool to hole up.

 

[gwild]

Keep them coming  :thumleft: thx for sharing

 

[jimjim]

Excellent!

Only once one has taken a smaller-engined motorcycle on an proper adv ride will one understand the attraction. Or, as Mark of bigdogadventures says, "it takes 12 horsepower to ride around the world and the rest is wheelspin."

 

[TechnomadicJim]

Excellent!

Only once one has taken a smaller-engined motorcycle on an proper adv ride will one understand the attraction. Or, as Mark of bigdogadventures says, "it takes 12 horsepower to ride around the world and the rest is wheelspin."

For sure! hah Excellent. I love this quote. I shall be using it whenever I'm questioned about my choice of engine size. Cheers!

Keep them coming  :thumleft: thx for sharing

You're welcome! Here's my next instalment :

I moved hostels to Desert Sky Backpackers which is much nicer. I plan on spending Christmas and the New Year in Swakopmund as I have heard its the place to be with plenty of parties and people. I booked a bed from the 23rd to 3rd so will have 10 nights of a proper bed and a break from the bike which is a good idea on this sort of long trip. I also met some cool people there including someone I met in Cape Town and Mat and Jaap on two KTM 990's :



I haven't been feeling too well since Luderitz. I suspect that the fresh oysters I ate at the Oyster bar there were bad. I was getting stomach cramps and a pain down my right side especially when I took a deep breath. I thought it was getting better slowly but it had been nearly 2 weeks so I decided to go to the doctors to be sure. I got prescribed some anti-biotics which sorted it out straight away. The doctor reckoned it was some kind of colon infection.

I was looking for a 10 day mini trip before Christmas and decided to head up to the Brandberg (burnt) mountains. A Malaysian guy I met at the hostel called Yien was planning on a few days up there too. He was also a biker and decided to hire a Yamaha XT 250 from the local dealership. They have a pretty funny "wall of shame" in there :



So we both set off around 10:30 and drove through Henties Bay and soon came across one of the ship wrecks that the Skeleton coast is famous for :



Wanna buy some salt ?



We carried on as far as Cape Cross which has a massive seal colony. There must have been 10,000's there and loads of seal pups.



One of them wanted to use my bike as shade

 

After Cape Cross we headed inland taking a 4x4 dirt track towards Messum crater. It was quite easy going at first with fairly solid rocky ground and we make it to the crater without seeing any vehicles. We didn't see anyone else for the rest of the day.



After a while though we hit some increaing longer stretches of sand and both Yien and I fell off but fortunately only at low speeds without injury.





We didn't quite know where we were going and the lack of any other vehicles did have me slightly worried at times but we eventually made it to a not much better "D" road where we came across this burned out bakkie. Pretty mad max!



I also spotted my first wild Zebra. They were running quite near us beside the road :



With the Brandberg mountain on our left side we made our way into Uis where we set up camp at the Brandberg rest camp.

 

[DeepBass9]

Awesome trip! Enjoying the RR!

 

[oldmannorman]

Awesome read. Keep it coming. Enjoy the festive season in Nam

 

[TechnomadicJim]

Here's our camp :



The next day Yien and I headed up to Twyfelfontein to see some of the bushman art. Before heading in we stopped for lunch at the lodge. This little fellow was scrambling about on the rocks :



For 50 NAB$ each we got a guide called Dion who showed us around the bushman art for an hour.





The circles represent water holes and their location relative to each other.



After our tour we visited the "Organ Pipes" :



Next the not so impressive "Burn't Mountain" :



We were relying on filling up to get back to Uis but unfortunately the new owner of the pumps decided he didn't want to operate them any more. It looked like we had enough fuel to get to Khorixas but it would mean a 70 km detour



Fortunately after hanging around for 10 minutes debating what to do and trying to gauge how much fuel we actually had a worked there took pity on us and offered to sell us 5 litres each. Result!



We didn't see any but I do love this sign. Beats road works!



A bump in the road provided a nice opportunity for some air

 

[Keith Barbier]

Really enjoying your RR. Can't wait to read some more :thumleft: :thumleft:

 

[westfrogger]

Awesome.  :thumleft:

 

[YamaV]

Nice meeting you at Brandberg rest camp and the 360 around the mountain, that was awesome riding! Looking fw to your RR of that! I went south past spitzkoppe, then usakos,karib, then south from there to gamsberg pas where i camped at Hakos. Yesterday down spreetshoogte,solitaire,maltahohe,mariental and to a farm outside Koës which is on the edge of the Kalahari. Safe travels  :thumleft:

 

[YamaV]

sub

 

[Chrisl]

Nice meeting you at Brandberg rest camp and the 360 around the mountain, that was awesome riding! Looking fw to your RR of that! I went south past spitzkoppe, then usakos,karib, then south from there to gamsberg pas where i camped at Hakos. Yesterday down spreetshoogte,solitaire,maltahohe,mariental and to a farm outside Koës which is on the edge of the Kalahari. Safe travels  :thumleft:

@YamaV go and say hi to Rickus and his brother in Koës. They are the two WDs there. :deal:
Just ask at the fuelpumps where Rickus is.

 

[YamaV]

Nice meeting you at Brandberg rest camp and the 360 around the mountain, that was awesome riding! Looking fw to your RR of that! I went south past spitzkoppe, then usakos,karib, then south from there to gamsberg pas where i camped at Hakos. Yesterday down spreetshoogte,solitaire,maltahohe,mariental and to a farm outside Koës which is on the edge of the Kalahari. Safe travels  :thumleft:

@YamaV go and say hi to Rickus and his brother in Koës. They are the two WDs there. :deal:
Just ask at the fuelpumps where Rickus is.

Thanks for the suggestion Chris. Stopped there this morning and had a quick chat with Rickus (Dankie vir die geselsie, koeldrank en geld ruil Rickus!). The Koës pan has a good amount of water after a bit of rain Thursday and 2 weeks before. Wil post a photo or 2 later.

Sorry for the hi-jack TechnomadicJim!

 

[Chrisl]

Nice meeting you at Brandberg rest camp and the 360 around the mountain, that was awesome riding! Looking fw to your RR of that! I went south past spitzkoppe, then usakos,karib, then south from there to gamsberg pas where i camped at Hakos. Yesterday down spreetshoogte,solitaire,maltahohe,mariental and to a farm outside Koës which is on the edge of the Kalahari. Safe travels  :thumleft:

@YamaV go and say hi to Rickus and his brother in Koës. They are the two WDs there. :deal:
Just ask at the fuelpumps where Rickus is.

Thanks for the suggestion Chris. Stopped there this morning and had a quick chat with Rickus (Dankie vir die geselsie, koeldrank en geld ruil Rickus!). The Koës pan has a good amount of water after a bit of rain Thursday and 2 weeks before. Wil post a photo or 2 later.

Sorry for the hi-jack TechnomadicJim!

Good to hear they had some rain. :thumleft:

 

[TechnomadicJim]

Nice meeting you at Brandberg rest camp and the 360 around the mountain, that was awesome riding! Looking fw to your RR of that! I went south past spitzkoppe, then usakos,karib, then south from there to gamsberg pas where i camped at Hakos. Yesterday down spreetshoogte,solitaire,maltahohe,mariental and to a farm outside Koës which is on the edge of the Kalahari. Safe travels  :thumleft:

You too man! Was a great day's riding with you and Basil. I also made it down to Spitzkoppe on my way back to Swakopmund, Cool place! Safe Travels too. On with the ride report :

I met Basil the owner of Brandberg Rest Camp who rides a Honda Africa Twin and also gives discounts to bikers who stay at his place (50 N$ for camping). He had just returned from a trip down to Langebaan and introduced himself as soon as he clocked my bike. Next thing I know he announces another biker has arrived so we went to introduce ourselves to YamaV who also recognised me from my planning a ride post on here and even remembered my name. I'm famous now apparently! hehe

Later that evening we were having dinner and Basil kindly offered to take us on a loop around the Brandberg so naturally YamaV and I jumped at the chance. The next morning we set out. I found it quite a technical ride with lots of varying terrain from loose rocks to sand. Probably one of the most challenging days of my trip. I'm definitely getting better!

Quick rest stop :


I'm getting better at sand riding and this stretch of sand was quite tough. Keep the power on and let the bike do its thing. Turning was tough whilst trying to maintain your speed.



We all made it through without stopping which was great :



We stopped for a spot of lunch :



Onwards!



Basil pointed out this rock which is used my the Rhino's as a kind of rubbing stone :



Another rest before we went fo visit the waterfall which was unfortunately not flowing.



We were running low on water so we stopped at this small farm and topped up.


We came across the native Namibian meat tree. No wonder they eat so much meat here!



You can download the GPS Trace of the trip (in GPX format) here :


Thanks again to Basil for an awesome day out. I really recommend you stay with him if you are in the area.

Here's a short video I edited too : https://vimeo.com/82489136

 

[gwild]

:thumleft: awesome keep it coming  :thumleft: