Day 5 – Solitaire to Swakopmund
The next morning it’s like a zoo, with springbuck eating books and meerkat using our tent as a playpen.
Cute little nippers.
It’s a most beautiful setting on the grasslands with the mountains as backdrop. The kid also wants to take pictures but we think it best to ease her into it with the tripod only.
This here is a Rosy Faced Love Bird. They occur naturally from the Southern Border Right up to the Northern Border of Namibia.
Our first order of business is to do a loop up the Spreetshoogte pass and down the Remhoogte pass. The Spreetshoogte pass is not open to vehicles that are towing anything. It turns out to be not that extreme at all but it also turns out to be really beautiful. One should descend it if you have a choice. Tharina’s downhill phobia that I referred to before, is the reason we chose to go up.
When we finish the loop, we are back at Solitaire and it is close to mid day. When Tharina met me in Vioolsdrif she brought the flu with her. Today is the day that the flu peaks, she is coughing and her eyes are so sensitive to light that water just streams out of them wetting her helmet foam. She just feels like crap and the better thing would be to get her into a proper bed for the rest of the day. So we try to get a room at the lodge we camped at last night – sorry, rooms fully booked, camping too. We check the lodge at Solitaire – sorry fully booked. Now and then when your girl really needs you to step up and organize some luxury, one likes to perform. I really want to, but it is not to be.
So after having had lunch and wasting time to try to get accommodation, when we finally decide to hit the road to Swakopmund, it is late. I am not too happy with the decision. We have already done 150km this morning doing the passes loop. The C14 is one shitty piece of road. It is as wide as 4- 5 lanes of traffic. Now that sounds quite lekker but it isn’t. It is probably one of the most used C-roads and therefor in a bad condition. A narrower road would have had clear tracks, but because this thing is so wide, cars and trucks go all over to avoid corrugation and holes. So you cannot pick a line because there is none. Just corrugation, ruts, sandy ridges and then extended sandy parts full of tracks, all at high speed because the thing is so wide and we are late.
I have modified the DRZ quite a bit to allow Tharina to get her feet on the ground; this includes changed rear suspension linkages and dropping all preload. It gets the job done but unfortunately messes up the geometry and consequently the handling.
I ride at her 4 o’clock and I get too clear a view of the DRZ repeatedly getting out of shape at 100km/h. When it starts going ape shit she jumps up on the pegs and gasses it. That’s right and that’s how I taught her but it’s not a good thing to watch in real time. I pull her over and we turn the damper up. It looks like it is a little better but this road is not nice, and Tharina is not fresh and perky. When she hits those sand ridges combined with heavy corrugation especially, the bike just gets violently out of shape.
Watching her ride turns into an ordeal for me. I know that if she goes down at this speed on this road, she’s gonna get hurt properly, braking bones and shit. Twice I feel the adrenaline shooting into my scalp when I think she's going down, but she rides the throttle hard and long, and she pulls it through.
But the reality of it is, that this is what I expect of her every time I go away on a trip. She sits at home not knowing if I’m going to come back happy, broken or not at all. And this is her choice, she wanted to do this trip, she is a grown woman who knows the risk and accepts it. I should respect that. So for my own sanity I fall back a kilometer or two. Not having to see it makes it easier.
When the C 14 finally leaves the plains and turn into the Kuiseb canyon I feel really relieved. Slower speeds and better surface.
Out of the canyon and onto the desert plain and it is easy fast riding, and beautiful, I can feel her enjoying it as much as I am now. I love this country, testing you and rewarding you, always and in so many ways.
As always , the coastal strip is foggy and cold as we hit the 40km tar between Walvisbaai and Swakop. When we pull into Swakopmund half frozen, we get a nice self catering unit at Alte Brücke and take off our filthy clothes and have a hot shower and get into bed – for two days.
We talk about the day’s riding and how crap the C14 was. I am taken aback when Tharina says that she never felt that the bike was out of control, never thought that she may lose it. And here I was having one panic attack after another watching her. Probably one of those things that just looks a lot worse than it is.
One noteworthy thing. There is a pizza called a Napolitana at the Napolitana restaurant in Swakopmund with springbuck, chili, garlic, mint, etc. in a calzone. This is the best pizza in the world. The best pizza in the world. If you are ever in Swakopmund, remember, Napolitana.
Oh yeah, another thing, there is a bar right on the beach at the south end of town called Tiger Reef. Also recommended.
