The POMPHUIS BIKERS CHRONICLES

[Crazy Horse]

More photos to come, just getting Month-end out of the way!

You an accountant by any chance?


Fantastic ride guys. Awesome does not even begin to describe it.   :thumleft: :drif:
What was the total distance?


I nominate this report for the Hall of Fame.  8)

Hi K

No not an accountant, but a Vet so need some extra concentration for admin.

The total distance in the end on my GPS was 15780km so can add a bit on top of that.  Only problem with a trip like this is you never want it to stop.

Will post rest of photos this weekend

[/quote]

 

[Crazy Horse]

We had a good rest for a couple of days at Ten Degrees South and we had a long stretch left to Tunduru.  The road surprised us all, mixture of fesh-fesh, sand and rocks.  Was 160km of intense concentration with some bad luck on top of that.

Mtwara sorting out third party insurance

I stopped next to a gathering place of blind and lame people.  Sad sight but the most unbelievable thing was, not one of them came begging for money.  There was a couple of kids leading the blind people around and the lame woman had trikes with hand peddles for transport.

The road between Mtwara and Tunduru.

For all the KTM riders out there:  My bike starting giving problems on this road.  I stopped at a town, switched off and as soon as I fell pulled away again I couldn't go over 5000rpm.  Not the ideal situation to get you through that long stretches of sand.  It got worse and worse and it seemed to be better when I switched off my bike and let it cool down a bit.  The heat gauge didn't go over 5 bars once so it was hot but not overheated.  We eventually got to Tunduru after some frustration.  The bike didn't give any error codes at all.  We stripped my bike, cleaned the air filter and the pre-fuel filter as good as we could and it carried on for almost 2000km without any problems after that.  I even unplugged the brown wire for low octane fuel, but except for much better fuel consumption, this was not the problem.  I phoned KTM for some advice, but they couldn't help me much.  Later on in the trip my bike showed an error code once for the Lambda Probes but the KTM Windhoek's diagnostic tool didn't pick up anything.  More about this later....

The Bishop and Father Martin who looked after us.  These people were really amazing.  The Bishop a well educated and pleasant guy and Father Martin who just loved leading the bike convoy through Tunduru

Tunduru is well known for their Alexandra Gemstones, and some people try to sell us some with the lowest price being $500. 

It is times like these that you wish you had one of these local's Japenese bikes for the fesh-fesh and the sand.  The Bishop told us that they have a bike accident or two weekly.  These bikes are really cheap so more and more people buy themselves bikes, get on it without any skills and ride like maniacs through that fesh-fesh and sand.

 

[Crazy Horse]

Tunduru to Songea

Garrick just too happy to ride tar again with his foot and groin injuries.

Songea

On the road to Songea we were stopped by some police guys.  My tip for encounters with police -  They were very impressed when I showed them there town's name on the GPS screen, took there email addresses to mail them, there phone numbers to sms them(and phone them if we were to get any trouble) and sometimes even a photo - use it, don't use it.

Garrick's way of getting on his bike with his injuries

Just before we entered Malawi Ryan had a flat

A couple of locals at the border started carrying on about how we are killing their people with these Xenophobic attacks and why are we doing it.  Nothing you say can convince them and after a bit of an argument they left me alone.

First night at Ngara Malawi

Off we went to my favourite place - Kande Beach
We spent 3w at Kande waiting for spares and just living the dream.  I phoned KTM and asked them if it possible to send me fuel filter or whatever was need to solve my problem.  They told me that you don't get a fuel filter sit ( ??? ???) and that they do not advise me to do it myself.  Obviously not to happy I at least organised for a air filter to be sent up.  Up to this stage my bike didn't give any trouble again even with some hard riding through the rubber tree plantations to Mzuzu.

Rubber tree plantations

Our home for 3 weeks.  Thanks to all the people at Kande, we probably took up three campsites with our bikes and kit and no one complained.  Thanks to Andy, Timbo(for your workshop), Adilla and Johnny(the nice supper and beers) and Maisie(for the nice horse ride and for some hands-on with the animals just to keep the mind working)

Lake Malawi

Roy and Michelle - Mundo por Terra, they are currently going through the DRC

Roy preparing the pork the Brazillian way

Like I said, the Brazillian way

If you like horse riding and get to Kande, I would highly recommend going on one of Kande Horse's trails

 

[Crazy Horse]

The one day we were sitting in the shade and the bar and we saw this cloud coming over the lake.  There was actually three of them and were moving quite fast.  We asked some of the locals and they told us that it was lake flies.  To our surprise the locals got very excited and as they reached land they started catching these flies with baskets.  It is apparently a very nutritious meal and a gift from above.  I was very glad for them, but riding through them on a bike with an open vizor was not much fun - it happened to me twice

This is a picture you see a lot in Malawi, malnourished children with Kwashiorkor all over.  This is due to the amount of Cassava they eat without any other proper variations in their daily meals

Finally we had to leave Malawi for Zambia, a very sad day......
We pushed on into Zambia, spend the night at Mamas Rulas and from there to Lusaka.

 

[Crazy Horse]

We decided to push through Zambia as quick as possible, it was way too expensive to spent time there.  In Lusaka I got hold of a guy that is starting a KTM shop.  He agreed to strip my bike and see if he can find anything.  We cleaned the filter again and checked the Lambda probes, no abnormalities found.  The bike went on again without any trouble just to start again in northern Namibia.

Pete covered most of the detail up into Namibia but here is some pictures

Ryan with ANOTHER puncture

And another one

Lala Panzi

On our way to the Brandberg my bike started again after taking it to KTM Windhoek.  The other guys carried on and done some reading and relaxing next to the pool at Uis.

My plan was to leave the next morning early and go to Swakopmund.  The next morning I was greeted by a nice front wheel puncture.  I fixed it up and to my surprise met the other three on the road.  Garrick had a bad fall and Ryan's battery was all dead.  Me and Garrick went to Swakop where we had a nice party with one of the overland trucks we met at Kande.

Pete and Ryan joined us in Swakop and on the third day I left for Windhoek again to see if KTM can sort out my problem.  Nothing was done and I started dropping down to SA.  I slept in Keetmanshoop where I waited for the rest of the gang.  We joined up and went to the Fish River Canyon.  This was our last night together, so we thoroughly enjoyed it.
We entered SA the next day where Garrick joined me to Malmesbury and the other two went to Queenstown.

 

[Crazy Horse]

The total distance I covered on my bike was just under 16000km and returned to Malmesbury after 3 months on the road.  I went through 3 tyres in the back(2xTKC 140's and 1xScorpion) and 1 front tyre(TKC).  I took my bike to KTM Cape Town to sort out, it is still a mystery and they can't tell me what is/was wrong but they replaced the fuel pump and since then, nothing so far but will keep you up to date.
I organised with Kwik Fit to send tyres to Mzuzu with on of their runners.  This helped us a lot and if anyone wants more details on that pleas PM me as they are more than willing to help out.
The aim of the trip was to have a holiday, spent some time with the local people and go ride some dirt and sand.  We also kept it as cheap as possible and there were some days that we had three meals between the 4/5 of us for less than R10 for all of us.  You can go a long way with tomatoes and onions.  The cheapest accomodation, except for the times we slept for free, was in Tunduru at R17/4people/night.  Most expensive, probably the campsites at Sossus.
We used two ways to sent up the spares, one was via PostNet Malmesbury and the other via our national post office.  PostNet's package was in Mzuzu within 3 days and the post office took 2w which was very frustrating.
I gained new respect for all the bikes we used, and even though my bike gave me a bit of problems it brought me home.  If all goes well she will take me into Angola and the DRC in August 09.

After the incident at Inhassoro where a child was run over by a truck in front of us, we always asked the question for what reason it happened and what can we do about it.  We got together and decided on countries we are going to cover next and decide on Angola and the DRC.  We also decided not just to travel through the countries but leave a mark.  That incident at Inhassoro inspired us to go and try educate the kids about street safety.  One of the first things we were taught at school was look left-right-left.  The target group being children are not very hard to find as they are the first ones to come to the motorbikes when you stop.  We are looking for sponsorship and ideas so I call on to the Wild Dogs if they have any ideas or if they can help us in any way.  This will be an experiment as we only have 2-3months to organise everything and we only have a month to cover both countries.
Please PM me if you got some advise or can contribute in any way on our 'Streetwise' project.

Thanks for reading and wish you all could experience it.

 

[redtiger]

Thanks guys an epic trip enjoyed the report.  :thumleft:

 

[ktmrules]

Some of us only dream of trips like these!! :drif:

As I said before: RESPECT x 1000!!!

Definitely one for the MODS to consider for "Hall of Fame"  :mwink:

 

[BoJangels]

absolutely stunning report  :thumleft:
thanks...

 

[chalsam]

Extremely entertaining reading ... thanks for posting guys.  Each one of you are so fortunate to have had each other to do a trip like this with.  Well done.

 

[Blackballl]

excellent RR

 

[BlueBull2007]

Fantastic trip, well done guys.

If you get back to Zambia, there is some awesome dirt in the NE and NW sides of the country, with amazing waterfalls to check out.

BB

 

[bonova]

Ja BB -
we really keen on those tracks and waterfalls in Zambia - heard many good things about it there  :thumleft:

Thanks for all the comments dudes!

 

[Bernoulli]

:thumleft: :thumleft: :thumleft:

 

[stevgh0]

Befok jong!

Right,,

So what bike ended up being the most reliable of the bunch?


Estimated cash/cost for this HOLIDAY?


yet again.. very very very nice1

 

[SwannieBraai]

AWESOME!  :thumleft:

 

[bonova]

Stevo...
mmm, all the bikes gave trouble.. but i would reccomend all of them, cause it wasn't brand/bike specific trouble - just really bad luck....
My x challenge- only really a snapped bolt, and i guess that was expected with the weight? no other issues (it was the newest, but also a demo...) fuel octane was a bit of an issue to take note of.
Dakars - jeepers those are hard bikes! The rear shock that blew was almost brand new, so must have been deffective.
              The issues with the injector were probaly crash or operator (after stripping it) related.
              The most falls belong to this bike, and it just kept running - well
KTM 990 A S: prob an issue with the fuel pump due to poor fuel. It's running 100% now after a replacement.
                    To be honest, i think all our fuel filters took a beating, and none of them are super cleverly designed           
                       

Cost - that's a guess. 
Unfortunately, we didn't keep accurate track, especially of the costs before the trip.
we budgeted R30 000 each Including alot of the pretrip costs - equip, carnets, visas etc.
The rear shock was R12000 (with courrier) alone tho 
My x-challenge was a fair bit over budget too  :imaposer: but in the end, alot of that was covered by the insurance when i got back.
Garrick's 1st fall cost a little in repairs too. Fortunately, mirrors are cheap further North  ;D

Our day to day costs were VERY low. Fuel (The BM's got about 20-23KM/L the KTM a bit less -  Claude can maybe give an idea of his fuel costs, cause i think he kept better track) and a little for the cheap food and accom. Booze was one of the big spenders  :laughing4:
We each took about 1000 US dollars -  and that was about the right amount, with some left for bungee jumping etc.
I took R4000 cash, and that saved my US dollars in many places.
I probably drew R5000-R7000 on my debit card, but that's a bit of a guess. I can get out the statements if you want 
So that's approx R20000 once we left. - for 3 months... :biggrin:
The others can give an idea too.

In the end, i think we came in a fair bit under budget (those that had all the equip for their bikes already - deffinately)
Gearing the bikes is the most expensive thing - after that it's peanuts really. Alot cheaper than day to day living in 'real' life.

 

[Ian]

Just read your okes report. Very very nice. Had me day dreaming of my trip to Namibia that I am planning. :ricky:

 

[Crazy Horse]

Well in the end it must have been the fuel pump giving me problems, but at least the bikes brought us home.  As all know KTM loves its fuel, the best consumption I got was about 17-18km/l and on average about 14-15km/l.  This was the biggest expense, didn't keep track that well but one thing I can tell you is that fuel in Zambia is redulously expensive.
Like Pete said, the culprit for most of the problems was the bad quality of fuel in definitely Northern Mozambique, but what a place.

 

[MrBig]

I only stumbled upon this report today - can't believe I missed it!
Devoured it in a single sitting.

All I can say is WOW!
What a great journey and experience!
You guys sure pulled off an extremely ambitious route regardless of some serious setbacks.
Good luck with the next one!