When I finally got to Windhoek after crossing the boring Kalahari, I felt exhausted and both me and the gear were in need of some recovery. It being Good Friday, all the shops were closed which forced me to take a long break. And for the better, because if not, I would have been on the bike again after two days or so. Now, I was enjoying one braai (BBQ) after the other and countless beers with new-made friends. One of them, Ben from Germany, had ridden his motorbike for 24.000 km through Africa and I helped him packing it to ship back.
The camera and laptop charger were broken and I needed some bicycle spares. The Brooks saddle was now so out of shape that I was not sitting upright on the bicycle and that I had a lot of irritation. This was actually already a problem since day 1, because the B17 standard is too wide for the 8 cm drop I have between the saddle and the handlebars. Oh well! It got me to Namibia! Leon from Cycles Wholesale sorted me out with a narrow mtb saddle and was very generous charging me close to nothing for it. Apart from that, the front derailleur had given me problems since West Africa. It was now finally changed with a new one making me not have to kick it anymore to change to the smallest chainring.
Then time to hit the road! There was about 1.000 km of dirt road awaiting. 5 km out of Windhoek the tar ended and the first 200 km went over good gravel roads going over the Spreetshoogte pass to Solitaire. A slight tailwind was helping me cross the endless road with superb vistas.
Not knowing what to expect, I was carrying 10l of water, 1kg of oats and food for 2 days. When I was just about to wildcamp the first day, I saw a farm laying a bit in the distance. Two workers on horses got to the gate at the same time and I explained in Flemish/Afrikaans that I was looking for a place to pitch my tent. They went to ask “meneer” who obviously accepted me.
Then the most exciting part of Namibia started: the wildlife. An oryx suddenly appeared on the road. It being scared of a fully loaded bicycle, it ran along the road, on the wrong side of the fence, and it took a big effort to overtake it. The first of many bicycle – Oryx races.
I pass the Tropic of Capricorn during a heavy rain shower. There being absolutely no shelter, I just put some music in, put a smile on and continued cycling. Also when reaching the Spreetshoogte pass, the rain was so bad that one could only see for 20m. I knew the view was worth it, so I waited the rain out while sheltering next to a rock. And then! The view slowly appeared and the transition was fascinating. Water was vaporizing, the sun was slowly getting through the clouds and the Namib Naukluft desert made it’s appearance creating a very diverse landscape. So nice, I camped just a bit down the steep downhill. By constantly braking though, the rim heated up making the bad-quality inner tubes burst.
Waking up to such a worldclass view is not bad, but I saw I had failed to repair the puncture. The second attempt failed as well and I didn’t even want to check if the 3rd would last. 500m down the road, the same thing happened again. With the heat from the rim, the patch came off. After another fix, I walked down the rest of the 15% downhill. 1km later, again. 10km later, again. 7km later, again. After most of the repairs and after strapping all of the luggage back on, it would deflate again. What caused it were bad, Chinese quality, inner tubes and patches, a broken valve and a difficult to patch hole at the side of the rim.
After one year in Africa I learned to stay calm at all times and not to get frustrated. But it was starting to get ridiculous and by now I was running out of water and food. Every 30 mins or so, a car passed and I ended hitching a ride to Solitaire, 10km down the road.
Namibia offers some world-class scenery and spectacles so it’s no wonder that there are relatively a lot of tourists. Let’s say 80% of the cars passing were tourists, so it was never difficult to stop a car and ask for water or to hitch a ride.
Being the first town after Windhoek, one would expect Solitaire being a reasonable sized town, but there are about 50 people living there! There is a campsite, restaurant, shop, bakery, petrol station and tire boot. That’s it.
One of them was mtb’ing and sold me “slime” to put in the tire which would seal the tire. Belgian travellers at the campsite invited me over for a braai and beer and helped me fix it with their compressor. But the valve being broken, it failed and when the spanner also snapped of the front wheel, it was sure I had to hitchhike back to Windhoek.
That wasn’t too bad, because my friends were still there and hitchhiking turned out to be very easy.
Once back in Solitaire, I mounted the 4mm thick “thorn resistent” inner tubes that I had bought together with a new mtb front tire to cope with the soft gravel.
I woke up with a sore back though and cycling was fine, but it was very painful to stretch it after cycling. While having lunch under a tree, a car stopped spontaneously to give me a cold beer. I asked randomly if one of them was a physiotherapist and we all cracked up when one of them said “yes!”. She had a look at my back, said it was probably a problem with a muscle and gave me some exercises. Cycling was still fine, but dragging it through sand was very painful. I was just hoping it would heal itself.
I got to Sesriem which acts as the base to Sossusvlei and was again invited for dinner and beer. One could wildcamp in Namibia to save money, but during the day, you don’t meet anyone so staying at a campsite and getting invited all the time is very very nice. I also joined the group that hosted me in their safari vehicle to visit Sossusvlei.
Everyone was struggling to pack their tents as the wind was blowing with an incredible power. When facing it head-on and pushing hard, I was going 6km/h. The average that day was 11. Just another loooooong day in the saddle…
It was 150 km to Betta, the next ‘village’. I crossed a beautiful nature reserve and could camp at the warden’s house. The fake flat road across the valley was 30km and took ages. While thinking of enjoying my favorite drink at home, I felt emotional. It was obvious that I was running low on moral.
It took two long days to reach Betta and it was very hard work to plough through the soft gravel roads with strong wind slowing me down. After being on the road for so long, I actually broke at one stage being very homesick. What the hell am I doing here?
At the camping I met a German couple that offered to give me a ride over another 100km of soft dirt with many sandy sections. I gladly accepted. Like this my route also changed a bit and I ended up going to Aus. The road going straight south towards Rosh Pinah, I was now only at a couple of days from South Africa! I was so excited to be back on the tar that I continued a bit after sunset. To camp, I put the bike over the fence, went 200m off the road and pitched the tent. With the winter slowly approaching, I had to wear everything I had at night.
Next day was very uneventful on the tar main road and the 170 km left to Roshpinah were a bit too much for one day. After dark, I passed a farm where I saw light burning. Asked to pitch the tent, but he would have none of that. Instead, he showed me the hunters room to stay in, where to take a hot shower, put a cold beer in my hand and invited me for lamb poitjie and told me to stay for as long as I wanted. His wife washed my clothes, we visited the mine where he worked and we had an amazing braai. Such hospitality!
Totally rejuvenated I was ready for the last stretch of Namibia along the stunning Orange River. A river with water in! That had been quite a while. I met Wesley and Carolin with their baby Josh again (they had stopped earlier to give me water and food) on the road and they invited me to come camp with them at Aussenkehr. Again, I arrived at dark, but the steak that they had prepared definitely made up for it.
Then to Noordoewer, to cross the border to South Africa! How exciting to be in the final country of my trip!
Photos:
The camera and laptop charger were broken and I needed some bicycle spares. The Brooks saddle was now so out of shape that I was not sitting upright on the bicycle and that I had a lot of irritation. This was actually already a problem since day 1, because the B17 standard is too wide for the 8 cm drop I have between the saddle and the handlebars. Oh well! It got me to Namibia! Leon from Cycles Wholesale sorted me out with a narrow mtb saddle and was very generous charging me close to nothing for it. Apart from that, the front derailleur had given me problems since West Africa. It was now finally changed with a new one making me not have to kick it anymore to change to the smallest chainring.
Then time to hit the road! There was about 1.000 km of dirt road awaiting. 5 km out of Windhoek the tar ended and the first 200 km went over good gravel roads going over the Spreetshoogte pass to Solitaire. A slight tailwind was helping me cross the endless road with superb vistas.
Not knowing what to expect, I was carrying 10l of water, 1kg of oats and food for 2 days. When I was just about to wildcamp the first day, I saw a farm laying a bit in the distance. Two workers on horses got to the gate at the same time and I explained in Flemish/Afrikaans that I was looking for a place to pitch my tent. They went to ask “meneer” who obviously accepted me.
Then the most exciting part of Namibia started: the wildlife. An oryx suddenly appeared on the road. It being scared of a fully loaded bicycle, it ran along the road, on the wrong side of the fence, and it took a big effort to overtake it. The first of many bicycle – Oryx races.
I pass the Tropic of Capricorn during a heavy rain shower. There being absolutely no shelter, I just put some music in, put a smile on and continued cycling. Also when reaching the Spreetshoogte pass, the rain was so bad that one could only see for 20m. I knew the view was worth it, so I waited the rain out while sheltering next to a rock. And then! The view slowly appeared and the transition was fascinating. Water was vaporizing, the sun was slowly getting through the clouds and the Namib Naukluft desert made it’s appearance creating a very diverse landscape. So nice, I camped just a bit down the steep downhill. By constantly braking though, the rim heated up making the bad-quality inner tubes burst.
Waking up to such a worldclass view is not bad, but I saw I had failed to repair the puncture. The second attempt failed as well and I didn’t even want to check if the 3rd would last. 500m down the road, the same thing happened again. With the heat from the rim, the patch came off. After another fix, I walked down the rest of the 15% downhill. 1km later, again. 10km later, again. 7km later, again. After most of the repairs and after strapping all of the luggage back on, it would deflate again. What caused it were bad, Chinese quality, inner tubes and patches, a broken valve and a difficult to patch hole at the side of the rim.
After one year in Africa I learned to stay calm at all times and not to get frustrated. But it was starting to get ridiculous and by now I was running out of water and food. Every 30 mins or so, a car passed and I ended hitching a ride to Solitaire, 10km down the road.
Namibia offers some world-class scenery and spectacles so it’s no wonder that there are relatively a lot of tourists. Let’s say 80% of the cars passing were tourists, so it was never difficult to stop a car and ask for water or to hitch a ride.
Being the first town after Windhoek, one would expect Solitaire being a reasonable sized town, but there are about 50 people living there! There is a campsite, restaurant, shop, bakery, petrol station and tire boot. That’s it.
One of them was mtb’ing and sold me “slime” to put in the tire which would seal the tire. Belgian travellers at the campsite invited me over for a braai and beer and helped me fix it with their compressor. But the valve being broken, it failed and when the spanner also snapped of the front wheel, it was sure I had to hitchhike back to Windhoek.
That wasn’t too bad, because my friends were still there and hitchhiking turned out to be very easy.
Once back in Solitaire, I mounted the 4mm thick “thorn resistent” inner tubes that I had bought together with a new mtb front tire to cope with the soft gravel.
I woke up with a sore back though and cycling was fine, but it was very painful to stretch it after cycling. While having lunch under a tree, a car stopped spontaneously to give me a cold beer. I asked randomly if one of them was a physiotherapist and we all cracked up when one of them said “yes!”. She had a look at my back, said it was probably a problem with a muscle and gave me some exercises. Cycling was still fine, but dragging it through sand was very painful. I was just hoping it would heal itself.
I got to Sesriem which acts as the base to Sossusvlei and was again invited for dinner and beer. One could wildcamp in Namibia to save money, but during the day, you don’t meet anyone so staying at a campsite and getting invited all the time is very very nice. I also joined the group that hosted me in their safari vehicle to visit Sossusvlei.
Everyone was struggling to pack their tents as the wind was blowing with an incredible power. When facing it head-on and pushing hard, I was going 6km/h. The average that day was 11. Just another loooooong day in the saddle…
It was 150 km to Betta, the next ‘village’. I crossed a beautiful nature reserve and could camp at the warden’s house. The fake flat road across the valley was 30km and took ages. While thinking of enjoying my favorite drink at home, I felt emotional. It was obvious that I was running low on moral.
It took two long days to reach Betta and it was very hard work to plough through the soft gravel roads with strong wind slowing me down. After being on the road for so long, I actually broke at one stage being very homesick. What the hell am I doing here?
At the camping I met a German couple that offered to give me a ride over another 100km of soft dirt with many sandy sections. I gladly accepted. Like this my route also changed a bit and I ended up going to Aus. The road going straight south towards Rosh Pinah, I was now only at a couple of days from South Africa! I was so excited to be back on the tar that I continued a bit after sunset. To camp, I put the bike over the fence, went 200m off the road and pitched the tent. With the winter slowly approaching, I had to wear everything I had at night.
Next day was very uneventful on the tar main road and the 170 km left to Roshpinah were a bit too much for one day. After dark, I passed a farm where I saw light burning. Asked to pitch the tent, but he would have none of that. Instead, he showed me the hunters room to stay in, where to take a hot shower, put a cold beer in my hand and invited me for lamb poitjie and told me to stay for as long as I wanted. His wife washed my clothes, we visited the mine where he worked and we had an amazing braai. Such hospitality!
Totally rejuvenated I was ready for the last stretch of Namibia along the stunning Orange River. A river with water in! That had been quite a while. I met Wesley and Carolin with their baby Josh again (they had stopped earlier to give me water and food) on the road and they invited me to come camp with them at Aussenkehr. Again, I arrived at dark, but the steak that they had prepared definitely made up for it.
Then to Noordoewer, to cross the border to South Africa! How exciting to be in the final country of my trip!
Photos: