To Rundu and Ngepi

(475kms)

S 18 º 07’ 13” – E 21º 40’ 32”

We woke early, and made our way to the spacious kitchen where we were served a full English breakfast with all the trimmings… Our host called a friend in Katima Mulilo who confirmed that the town was still knee-deep in water, and that the crossing into Zambia had been temporarily suspended… Our decision to detour through Botswana was therefore confirmed…

After a few unsuccessful calls to the Windhoek Post Office to try and trace a package sent to him from the States, Allan and I finally got onto our heavily laden bikes, had a quick photo taken by the landlady (who had hurried out with her own camera when she heard our bikes start-up) and headed into town to refuel before hitting the road to Rundu…

The first road sign on exiting Grootfontein….It was going to be a long day….

The ride to Rundu was made in glorious sunshine, and we stopped just after the Mururani Foot and Mouth Control Gate to re-hydrate. This was the border into the Kavango Region of Namibia. Allan’s bike was a lot slower than mine, so I took the lead… (After grumbles by the “Big Fella” that he was not letting a 650 lead him all the way to the Caprivi…) I had wanted to reach Ngepi Camp by mid afternoon if possible, and we had almost 500km to travel that day. I noticed that while the skies ahead of us were clear and a brilliant blue, to the east of us, huge clouds were building up, and moving to the north east, exactly in the direction we were heading….I opened the throttle, expecting Allan to have seen the danger and follow suit… It was not to be…. I passed Kafinakatji and Mile 30, small settlements that did not amount to much, but were deemed worthy enough to have road signs erected in their honour…

Northern Namibia where Allan applies sun-screen to an already sun-burnt face…

The last portion of my ride to Grootfontein a few days previously had been dominated by clouds of White butterflies, along this stretch there were thousands of the African Monarch butterflies…their orange and black markings making an interesting collage on my windshield and pants… Also, the Game and Safari lodges prior to Grootfontein were now given up to cattle ranches… Beautiful Brahman cattle, kept within very well maintained and fenced off farms, lifted their heads as we roared past…

The 650 Dakar trundled along at about 110km/h, and I spent most of the time out of sight of Allan, who I discovered when we reached Rundu, had stopped on a few occasions to chat to the locals… I had also stopped to take a few photos, and still arrived in Rundu about 20 minutes before he did… Clearly our riding styles were very different. I preferred to cover about 100km in any given hour, this included stops to drink water or take the odd photograph… Allan seemed to be happy with covering between 75 and 80 km in an hour, and if he found someone to talk to along the road, this could drop to anything from 25 to 40 km in an hour!! I could see that I would have to ride with my gum-guard in my mouth to stop me from grinding my teeth down to stumps…

I had refuelled before he arrived, and when he finally did, he spent another frustrating half hour, calling the Windhoek post office about his package… We finally left Rundu, still travelling along the B8, at about 1.30pm, bound for Divundu in the Caprivi… We were not going to arrive there in the early afternoon after all…

The Cunene river flowed just a short distance to the north of our position. We could see it clearly from the highway, as it flowed east towards Ruacana and the Atlantic Ocean beyond that. Angola stretched out to the horizon on our left as we headed out of town and made our way eastwards towards the gathering storm clouds. We had ridden for about 40km when the first drops of rain appeared on our visors. We pressed on for a few more minutes and then when the rain got heavier, decided to pull over and get into our wet weather gear… Cell phones and wallets went into zip-lock bags, and were then stowed in the depths of our tank bags… I had learned my lesson from that wet ride to Port Elizabeth…!!

Allan kits up in pouring rain outside Rundu, Western Caprivi…

The rain came down in buckets, I could not see Allan, even though he was only a short distance behind me, and wondered how well he was doing in this weather… I accelerated away, hoping to find a gap in the weather up ahead. A kudu leapt across the road a short distance in front of me… I’m not sure who got the biggest fright!! A few kilometres further on, I narrowly missed a herd of cows that were being chased home by a herd boy… I was that tense, that I briefly considered stopping to give him a piece of my mind…

After about 50km of this, we broke out into bright sunshine, I slowed down and waited for Allan to catch up, and after getting the thumbs up from him, we chivvied down the highway at better speeds than before, Allan having realised that we needed to get to our destination as quickly as possible before even worse weather arrived… We began averaging about 125km/h and for the next 45km the road was dry and we made good time…..

Dark clouds gather ahead as I drop back to take a photo of Allan….

All good things come to an end they say, and so it did…. About 80kms short of Divundu, a huge storm washed over us, the raindrops hitting my arm and thighs felt like hailstones. Wind whipped water off the road and up at us in a fury… Trees were bending alongside the road, and at one point I thought that it would be safer to stop… A massive bolt of lightning struck some trees to the left of us; the sound came clearly to me even though I had my helmet on, as well as the raincoat hood over my ears!

I slowed down and rode in the middle of the road, to let Allan catch up. I did this in case he drove into the back of me….. Visibility was down to about 30 metres at this point. It was tricky watching the road ahead for oncoming traffic, as well as keeping an eye on my mirrors to watch out for Allan….Oh, and there were also the cattle, goats and donkeys to look out for!! They did not seem to mind the weather conditions at all, and stood patiently, heads into the wind, waiting for the storm to pass over them…

Allan duly hove into view, crouched over his tank, hanging on for dear life, and looking for all the world like a drowned rat! He signalled that he was O.K., and we hammered on through the storm until it abated about ten minutes later. From there we rode through light rain and drizzle, until we entered Divundu, where Allan planned to refuel…  

I had earlier called Ngepi Lodge on my Bluetooth, (amazed that after all the rain that it still worked), and spoke to Duncan (later christened Drunken!) and asked if they had received any of the rain we had driven through, and if the road down to the lodge was still passable… At that point we were about 20km short of the settlement of Divundu. We were advised to be careful on the road to the camp, as there were large puddles of water and thick sand to contend with… I decided not to refuel, as another 20kgs of fuel would only make things more difficult than they were already bound to be… I checked the map while Allan refuelled to see where the next petrol was available, and saw that there was a town about 30km inside the Botswana border where I could refuel… I had more than 100km left in the tank, so I was happy with my decision not to refuel in Divundu…

We turned south on the C48 and made our way along the shores of the Kavango River, which was flowing strongly. We passed the resort of Popa Falls, and decided that if the road to Ngepi was too difficult for us to make with the heavily loaded bikes; we would rather come back and stay there…

We reached the turnoff to Ngepi, my heart beating loudly at the thought of what might lay ahead, and parked the bikes while Allan walked ahead to judge the condition of the narrow, waterlogged track. We let air out of our tyres, mounted up, wished each other luck, and with Allan leading, set off for the camp… Thick sand covered most of the route, with puddles of water that we mostly managed to dodge, but sometimes had to go through….

Een, twee, drie…. Dis a kak pad die !!! Sizing up the challenge……

At one point Allan stopped and walked back to me, proclaiming, “Hey Ronnie, the going here is a bit “squirrelly”, we’re gonna have to keep our shit together…” I sat for a while thinking about that, having watched him sliding around a bit and correcting slides when they occurred. My sphincter had been tightly clenched since we left the tar road and I was pretty sure that I would have no problem taking his advice… Still, I said a silent prayer that I could “keep my shit together”, let the clutch out and went ahead, splashing through deep puddles and “squirreling” my way forward… We rode through a little village, the children running out to shout, “One dollar, one dollar…!” I muttered something unprintable to them, as just ahead was another big patch of sand, and their shouting had disturbed my intense concentration…

Allan stopped to take a few more photos, saying that this was not nearly as bad as some of the roads he had ridden on since he broke his leg in Bolivia, and had to be airlifted back to the USA for surgery. It took him eight months to recover…. “I sure ain’t gonna have that happen again, nosirree…!” he shouted back at me… I wished him good luck with that, and we pressed on… This had not featured in my plans when I left Johannesburg…but the heavy rain and subsequent flooding taking place in Katima Mulilo where I had planned to cross into Zambia, had forced us to ride through Botswana… Allan was delighted with this plan, as it gave him an opportunity to see the Okavango Swamps, and add another “Country Visited” to his list…

We stopped a few times to confer as to which was the best line through the water and sand, and sometimes we went off the road and through the bush before rejoining it at a safer point. My GPS counted down the kilometres…3,2km….2.6km and finally, as we entered an open plain, covered in thick sand, it said 1.3km…. I started feeling as if we had made it….then a string of rather deep puddles had us squirming in our seats to stay upright, front tyres washing away, and the rear of the bikes doing their best to dislodge us…

Deep breaths and then we were off again, to tackle another section…..

We came to a section where the track crossed a marshy area, and a deep, dark puddle of water stood between us and the gate to the camp, which we could see about 100 metres ahead of us… We stopped side by side to discuss our tactics for this the last hurdle…. Allan advised that it was my turn to go first, and we argued about this for a while, before I aimed my bike for the left hand side, opened the throttle and powered through the mud, the bike sinking down and for an instant feeling as though it would bog down! The “Big Fella” shook his head and with a burst we climbed out and onto the opposite side, stalling as we did so….but we were through!!

Allan wasn’t so lucky and stalled the bike in the middle of the muddy patch, his bike sinking up to its axles!! He sat there for a while, and I was just about to kick my stand out to go and help him, when he fired “Doc” up again, and with much spraying of mud and screaming revs, he came up and out of the marsh…. He stopped next to me, mud covering his bike and helmet and shook his head as if to say, “What in God’s name are we doing here?” I smiled at him, but what I wanted to say was “You see Allan, if you hadn’t cocked about in Windhoek ‘till mid-morning yesterday, we would have slept in Rundu last night, and been over the border into Botswana today, instead of attempting to do the Caprivi Dakar down this bloody road!!”

We sat there for a while, taking in our surroundings… Low scrub and thorn tress dotted the sandy areas around the marsh which we had just ridden through. Hippo spoor criss-crossed the open area in front of us, which I found interesting… in a scary sort of way!!! I explained to Allan that apart from Elephant, Hippo were next on my list of animals not to be messing with… He nodded at me, his helmet open… “So they’re dangerous, are they??” “Mmmm…,” I mumbled, looking over my shoulder… It was late afternoon, and the buggers could conceivably be ambling about in the marsh behind us… I kicked the bike into gear and said, “Shall we..?” To which he replied, “After you, Sir…”

We rode on through the gate and down the path towards the lodge… We covered the last 300 metres to the parking area in front of the lodge very carefully, as there was just as much water there as we had encountered on the previous 4kms…

Once we had dismounted, we high-fived each other, then rushed to the bar to down a celebratory drink…refusing to sign in until we had finished it…. We had made it!! That morning before leaving Grootfontein, we had jokingly shouted “Ngepi or bust”, and it had on occasion so nearly been the later… Our boots and pants were covered in mud, and I did not relish the thought of the cleaning operation which was bound to follow…

One of the smaller puddles the “Big Fella” and I had to go through to get to Ngepi….

No mention of what two-wheel vehicles should do, so we just crossed our fingers… This was a difficult thing to do when you’re using them on the throttle and brake lever…

We rode our bikes down the footpath between the camp sites, much to the staff’s disgust, and finally parked them close to our tree-houses. It had been a “massive” day and we were happy that it was behind us…

Allan snaps away at hippo in the Kavango River, Caprivi Strip, Namibia…

We went for a sun-downer river cruise with a six other guests, to see hippos and crocodiles… The bird life along the river’s banks had me in raptures… I enjoyed reeling off their names as we passed them, and before long, our guide had fallen silent… At some point he opened the huge cooler-box we had helped lug onto the boat and began handing out beers to all on board… After we had quaffed a number of these beers, the boat was steered into the current and we floated back towards the lodge… Allan and I kept the guests entertained with our plans to rope a few Mokoros together and float our bikes down to Maun… We could see that our “plan” had the desired effect on the guide, as he wore a worried look all the way back… We resolved to get up to as much mischief as we could back in camp… Clearly our minds had been cleansed of the previous few hours’ tension, and our spirits had once again been lifted by the tranquillity of the river and effects of the beer…and a camp full of apparently gullible staff…

Tree-house 2, Ngepi Lodge, and a proud 1200GS, parked for the night…

Interesting sign… We would have reason to report to reception in due course…

© 2008 TBMH