Out of Africa

Since leaving the picturesque town of Swakopmund a few days ago, I've circled back through northern Namibia, ventured across Botswana and completed my whistlestop tour of Southern Africa. I've covered 5000km in 8 days in what can only be described as an iron-butt tour. Happily, I can report that the Phoenix has coped well with the testing journey.


Since leaving the Skeleton Coast I've also left behind the exciting dirt roads and barren desert scenery of southern Namibia. I've crossed into the Tropics and as I've travelled further north the land has become increasingly lush and hospitable.


Northern Namibia and Botswana remind me of the Africa I got used to on my last trip. The roads are busy, not with traffic but with people, dogs, donkeys, and all manner of livestock that use the highways as thoroughfares. I've lost track of the number of times I've had to slam on my brakes in order to avoid ploughing into a stubborn mule, dopey dog, or daft cow standing in the middle of the road.

Having spent a few days on the busier smooth roads of northern Namibia, the final few miles to the border were on tranquil dirt - a fitting end to a great wilderness country. Crossing into Botswana I was immediately greeted with a thunderstorm and a soaking. As way of a small apology, Mother Nature treated me to a glimpse of a glorious rainbow before hiding the sun behind a thick sheet of cloud for the rest of the day. Unbeknownst to me it is the wet season in Southern Africa.


With the light fading and no sign of a campsite or lodge I mulled over my options. Either ride on in my sodden state to the next big town while playing 'chicken' with the suicidal livestock, or call it a night and bush camp in the brush of the Okavango Delta. I cautiously went for the bush camping option.

As Wikipedia will tell you, the Okavango is the world's largest inland delta and home to a huge variety of wildlife including lions, elephants, crocodiles and many, many creepy crawlies. So it was with some sense of trepidation that I pitched my tent in the eerie dusk of the Delta.

Having drifted off to sleep I awoke with a start as I heard something big rustling outside. I lay still for a minute trying to work out what it might be. More rustling sounds on the other side of my tent indicated that whatever it was, there was more than one of them. Then there was the unmistakable, blood curdling sound of a .... cow mooing. A herd of cattle, not content with trying to block the roads during the day, had decided to wonder through my makeshift campsite at night. The buggers.

Of course I was relieved they were cows and not lions, but I was still irritated. I spent a few unsuccessful minutes trying to shoo them away but only managed to generate a few quizzical stares before they went back to chewing the cud. The following day I found a nice restaurant and enjoyed a big steak as revenge.


Other than bush camping, the majority of my time in Botswana was spent on long straight roads. At one point my GPS indicated I should go straight for 180 miles, then take the second exit at the roundabout, and continue straight for another 100 miles. Fun.

Keen to get the monotony out of the way, I pressed on quickly and made good progress. But as I cruised around a corner in one of the tiny towns, I got nabbed by the police. Two officers with a camera clocked me travelling at 102kph in a 60 zone. Clearly I was speeding, so there wasn't any point in denying it. Instead, I put on my best diplomatic accent and apologised in the hope of getting away with a caution. Unfortunately the officers diligently explained I would have to pay a fine because I wasn't just going a bit over the speed limit - I was booking it.

According to the official police fine book (which they showed me), anyone travelling at 102kph should pay 1340 pula (which is about £120). Shocked at the amount, I continued with my apologetic English gentleman routine and managed to talk the officer down to 200 pula. I paid the fine and rode off without too much bitterness. No one likes paying fines, but I had deserved this one. And, unlike in other parts of Africa, I didn't get a sense of being cheated by a corrupt police force. These cops were honest and genuine - I left with a receipt for my fine.

Back on the tar I soon came to the Sowa salt pan - site of so much fun from the last trip. But the pan was different from how I remembered it. Far from being dry and barren the area was filled with lush vegetation and grazing animals. Given my limited time in Africa I knew I couldn't afford to cross the pan again (it took a full day of hard riding last time). But as a small reward for the countless hours I'd spent on the tar, I gave myself an hour of playtime, pulled off the highway and headed into the brush.

The sandy track that led to the pan was tricky. Heavily rutted and with prickly bushes blocking the way I had to frequently hop the bike from one sandy rut to the other. To make matters worse, some burrowing animal had decided to make its home on the path by digging countless large holes in it, many of which were hidden from view. My wildlife knowledge isn't what it should be, so I cant tell you what animal actually made those holes, but I blame badgers. Crafty buggers.


Despite the badgers' best efforts the Phoenix coped well with the track and we emerged from the brush triumphantly onto the glorious pan.


The glinting surface looked much as I remembered it - seemingly unaffected by the wet season. Keen to have some fun, I gunned the engine and headed off onto the flats. But, after just ten metres, I felt the bike begin to bog down. Last time this happened Tyson and I got stuck in the mud for almost an hour. Fearing the same thing happening again, I pulled on the throttle and tried to power my way out of trouble. This almost worked but Mother Nature was determined to stop my fun, and after twenty metres of fishtailing I ran into a patch of slippery mud and went down hard.


I crawled out from under the bike covered in mud. Other than a slight strain in my knee from an aggravated old injury, I was fine. But the Phoenix had fallen awkwardly on one of her panniers. I needed to get her upright and assess the damage.

After five minutes of huffing and puffing with my feet constantly slipping, I managed to make a big mess but made no progress at all. With no one around for miles, the only option was to begin the arduous task of unloading all of my gear, and pickup the unladen bike and walk it to the side of the pan. So that's what I did.

After about half an hour of heavy lifting, I was repacked and ready to go again. The damage to the Phoenix had proved light, but my 'hour of fun' was almost over and I needed to get back to the road. I found my way back to the same path I had come in on and soon began dodging prickly bushes again. I was making steady progress when I spotted a badger hole up ahead. I hopped the bike out of the way to avoid it, only to encounter two hidden holes on the other side. The second of these caught my back wheel awkwardly - dethroning me for the second time in an hour. Bloody badgers.

A day later I crossed back into South Africa for the final time and enjoyed a fantastic evening ride on country roads into Johannesburg. Namibia may have the best night skies, Botswana the Sowa salt pan, but South Africa is the jewel in Africa's crown - a motorbiker's paradise. I'll certainly be back. But, with so many places still to explore it's time to get out of Africa for the time being. Onwards to South America.

Back in the saddle

I jumped the gun a bit in my last blog entry by saying it was time to get back in the saddle for another adventure. I was willing, but my bike has had other ideas. Far from being ready to ride, she’s taken several days to get back to adventure-ready status.

Evidently her main problem – a seized engine - has been fixed. But a whole host of other minor problems ranging from a sticking choke cable, leaking coolant and a stripped oil drain plug (that last one was my fault), kept me in Johannesburg for five days. But, thanks to the advice and help from Andre - the master mechanic - and his extensive range of tools (including the magnificent crane shown below) – my bike is back in order, and I’ve been on the road since Thursday.


Many of you will already know that I’ve managed to wangle another three months off work to go adventure riding again. I’m spending the first two weeks of that in Africa - finishing off the bits that I didn’t get to see on the last trip (mainly Namibia). For the remaining two and a half months I’ll be retracing Che Guevara’s route around Latin America. More on that in future blogs - for now: Africa.

One big difference from the London to Cape Town adventure (and indeed all of my previous bike trips) is this time I’m going solo. It’s an invigorating experience riding alone as you get a sense of freedom and independence quite different from group riding. But I’ll miss my teammates and so will you, as the quality of this blog will deteriorate from an amusing trip account filled with interesting characters, to an egotistical monologue. For that I apologise in advance.

The Phoenix Rises
I’m slightly superstitious when it comes to my bikes, so like a good ship I always give them a name. Previously my bike was “The Odyssey” on account of the epic trips we’ve taken together. But due to the extensive repairs she’s undergone, it seems fitting to give her a new name. So, having risen out of the ashes of the Odyssey’s burnt out engine, she’s now christened “The Phoenix” - may she voyage far and wide.

Despite her difficult birth, the Phoenix has already carried me 2200km in just four days. That’s one tenth of the distance from London to Cape Town and about twice the distance from Land’s End to John O’Groats (as the crow flies).


My first butt-numbing day was spent riding 890km on good roads from Johannesburg to Augrabies Falls, near the Namibian border. It was a nice re-introduction to the world of adventure touring, but not particularly interesting for you readers. The following day was better. It began at dawn with a visit to Augrabies Falls, which locally means “the place of big noises”. The Orange River, which flows over the falls had swelled from heavy rains earlier that week, so the falls were noisier than normal and an impressive sight (and sound) to behold.



Back on the road, I soon reached the ominously named town of Pofadder, where I filled up with petrol and kept a lookout for snakes. Fully gassed up, I turned off the main highway and headed for the Namibian border. To my surprise, the smooth tar road quickly gave way to a dirt track. Glancing at my map, it soon became clear that I’d be on this stuff for well over 100 miles. And, after 18 months away from dirt biking, I don’t mind telling you I was more than a little apprehensive about off-road riding, particularly with a fully laden bike.


It took me several miles of wild fishtailing before the memories started to come back. "Stand up, keep loose, and use the throttle to get you out of trouble", I kept repeating to myself. Drenched with sweat from the stifling heat (40 degrees plus) and the high octane drama, I eventually reached the frontier. And, with the formalities quickly taken care of, I spent the rest of the day relearning my dirt-biking skills. It was a tough day, but after about 500km I was rewarded with the spectacular vista of Fish River Canyon. I arrived just before sunset, and with the place deserted I was able to ride my bike right up to the edge of the Canyon.



The following day proved even more eventful. With my riding confidence starting to swell, I came across a big “Road Closed” sign early in the day. Seeing no sign of immediate trouble, I belligerently ignored the warning and rode on. A few miles later I came across the obstacle that had closed the road - a dried up river bed, which consisted of 50m of deep choppy sand with no obvious route through. Bugger. With back-tracking out of the question, I had two options - either gun the throttle and attempt to bounce my way across the uneven surface, or inch my way gradually across using my feet as paddles. I opted for the more foolhardy approach, gunned the throttle and bounced about 10m before the front wheel dug in and I came to an abrupt stop in the soft sand. My top heavy bike comically toppled over to complete the maneuver. With my riding confidence restored to a more fitting level, I heaved the bike back upright and humbly paddled the rest of the way across.

200km later I was getting worried about fuel. Namibia is a sparsely populated country and the major towns on maps are often nothing more than a collection of shanties. Having ridden through one well-signposted ghosttown I made my way to Bethanie, which was clearly marked as a town with a fuel pump on my map. Just on the outskirts I switched to reserve, and was relieved to pull into a petrol station just a few minutes later. That relief was short-lived though, as I was quickly informed that the whole town was out of gas. A knowledgeable gentleman informed me that the next town definitely had some petrol, ‘just’ 85km up the road. I tried explaining that with barely two litres of fuel left in my tank that it was very unlikely I’d be able to make it. I asked when the next petrol delivery was expected - “two days” was the uncertain reply I got from the petrol attendant. The knowledgeable gent then encouragingly said “if you go slow, you will make it” – by which I’m sure he meant, “if you ride at about 50mph, keep the revs at 4000rpm and tuck yourself into the most aerodynamic shape possible, there’s a chance you will get there”. And so, with little other option, that’s exactly what I did.

After a commendable 75km, my fuel starved bike finally conked out just 10km short of town - at least now I know the range of my tank, 435 km (272 miles). Having seen less than a hundred cars during my first two days in Namibia, I began preparing to trudge the final stretch into town. But, as luck would have it, a shiny new Land Cruiser came over the hill and I blagged a lift in the back of the air conditioned beast. Within an hour I was back at my bike, refueled and ready for another long stint.


A day later and I am sitting on the Skeleton Coast in a town called Swakopmund. It’s been a fun few days, but not quite what I expected. When I googled Namibia in preparation for my trip, most of the images that popped up were of stunning vistas of sand dunes and canyons. Namibia has many of these, and it has been a pleasure riding my bike through them. But the vast majority of Namibia, which is about four times the size of the UK, is made up of baron wilderness. Beautiful in its own way. There are very few countries where you can park your bike in the middle of an intercity highway and take a photo. But in Namibia you can stop and eat your lunch in the middle of the road without any fear of seeing another vehicle let alone being runover.


Those sorts of insights you can’t really get by reading Wikipedia or a guidebook, and that’s why it’s such a privilege to travel through these places. You get a sense of the country beyond the standard promotional guff. Needless to say, it's great to be back in the saddle.

PS. Despite what I’ve said it would be amiss of me not to show you some of the spectacles that Namibia has treated me to over the past few days. Below is a shot of some of the stunning landscapes I passed through yesterday evening, and below that is a shot of my bike next to some of the enormous sand dunes on the Skeleton Coast (I got my bike stuck getting that photo). But probably one of the greatest sights, which I can’t show you, is the night sky. Truly spectacular, and like nothing we get back home. I recommend a visit for that alone.

The swan song of an epic trip

It has been a full eighteen months since my last blog entry and much has happened in that time. The first decade of the 21st century has past; the world economy has fallen into (and is slowly emerging from) one of the biggest recessions in history; and space enthusiasts around the globe have celebrated the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. But one other much less significant thing also happened in that time - Team CanUK finished its London to Cape Town adventure.

For those loyal readers who have followed this blog since its inception, that final piece of news may come as a bit of a surprise. You'd be forgiven for thinking we never made it to Cape Town such has been the delay in my writing. But finish we did.

Why the delay then? Simply because the fate of one team member (my bike) and the story has only been concluded recently.


When I last signed off, the trip was on a bit of a cliffhanger. Jerry had lost one of his panniers in Tanzania and had boldly set off alone for Dar Es Salaam to replace his paperwork. My bike had ground to a halt in Malawi and was sitting in pieces waiting to be trucked to Johannesburg for repairs. And Tyson and I were setting off on the back of Rosa - west toward Zambia.

Even though it was over a year ago, the memory of sitting on the back of Tyson's bike as we rode out of Lilongwe is still with me. I remember glancing over my shoulder and watching my bike disappear into the haze behind us. The plan was to get it trucked to Johannesburg and repaired. That way we could reunite for the final triumphant stretch into Cape Town. But as I saw the Odyssey vanish into the distance, I couldn't help but think it would be a long time until I saw it again.

As it turned out it wasn't my bike that got me to Cape Town in the end. Instead it was the kindness of strangers, the help of a good friend, and the durability of his trusty bike. Those are the heroes of this final chapter of the London to Cape Town Adventure and to whom my attention turns now.

Jimmy - the South African ball buster
The first of the strangers that deserves a mention is Jimmy McDaniel - the hardy South African owner of the Dirt Bike Centre in Lilongwe, Malawi. Jimmy was easily one of the most interesting characters I met on the trip.

On a continent where waiting is to be expected, it's always nice to have someone around who can tell fascinating stories to pass the time. Jimmy is just such a fellow.

At 68, few people can convincingly say they've hunted sharks, raced dirtbikes, and ridden one handed into an enemy ambush while firing a machine gun. But Jimmy is one of those people.

Yet even though Jimmy may sound like the hero of a conventional action thriller that's not the reason I mention him here. Instead it's because of his trustworthiness, generosity and sheer bloody mindedness, without which I wouldn't have been able to abandon my beloved bike, confident in the knowledge that I would see it again (someday).

Jimmy's Dirt Bike centre is the closest thing to a Kawasaki dealership this side of the South African border. But that's not saying much. Far from a gleaming dealership full of expert mechanics and tools, Jimmy's business is relatively small, and gets most of its revenue by selling small bikes to the wealthier residents of Lilongwe. But what the Dirt Bike Centre lacks in parts, tools and equipment, it more than makes up for with character, knowledge and contacts. And that's all down to Jimmy. Having worked for Honda for the best part of his life, he knows his way around a motorbike and he knows when one is buggered beyond the repair skills and tools of his mechanics. And “buggered” was the unfortunate diagnosis that befell the Odyssey. But far from being defeated this spurred Jimmy on. And, after a few days of frantic phone calls and conversations, many of which ended with "well, you're bloody useless then", Jimmy seemed to have managed to organise safe passage of my bike to one of the few places on the continent that stood a decent chance of fixing it - South Africa.

Now if you're sitting back in the UK thinking - that doesn't sound particularly difficult - you're in good company. Tyson and I thought organising a truck to take a bike across a few borders would be a relatively simple and relatively cheap too. How naive we were.

Riding off into the distance we were blissfully unaware of the nightmarish logistical challenge that faced Jimmy. Truck driver after truck driver promised to transport the bike to Johannesburg, only to flake out days (sometimes weeks) later. A fuel shortage in Zimbabwe made matters worse by limiting the number of trucks crossing the border. So in the end, it took two and a half months, a 10,000 rand bribe (£700), and tireless efforts from Jimmy to get my bike to Johannesburg. How can you explain such bothers? Jimmy's simple answer was "TIA" - This Is Africa.

Heiko - The German living the dream
The next stranger worthy of a mention is Heiko, a friendly German who lives happily in Livingstone, Zambia with his four dogs.


Tyson and I met Heiko after being disappointed at Victoria Falls. We’d both been planning to do a bungee jump over the falls ever since we set off from London but such was our luck, the bungee was closed on the day we turned up. So, as a consolation prize, we decided to take a microlight flight.


Seeing Victoria Falls from the air was breathtaking - it allows you to really appreciate the scale of the vast fissures of rock over which the river flows. Add to that the thrill of flying in a microlight (which has to be the closest thing to riding a motorbike in the air) and the chance to see hippos, elephant and giraffe from the air, makes it definitely worth it.


But to seal the deal, Tyson's pilot - Heiko - was a keen rider and massive KLR fan. He had biked across Africa several years earlier and had fallen in love with the place. He now spends his days living the dream - riding his bike, playing with his dogs, and flying over Victoria Falls for most of the day. An enviable lifestyle if ever there was one.

Such is Heiko’s fondness of the KLR that he’d spotted us from the air several hours earlier. Such was his generosity that after the flight, he invited us to stay with him and his dogs. Happy to spend an evening swopping adventure stories and playing fetch, Tyson and I followed him back to his house and wittled the hours away talking bikes and getting advice.

Two things Heiko said made a big difference to my trip. The first was the revelation that many KLRs suffer the same fate as mine – apparently losing oil is a common fault. So common in fact that Heiko used to make a decent living rebuilding KLR engines back in Germany that had run out of oil. That gave me some comfort that my duffer’s negligence wasn’t entirely unique.

The other bit of advice was on route choice. Heiko recommended that we travel through the Sowa salt pan in Botswana on our way to Johannesburg. And that little off-road excursion turned out to be one of the most thrilling parts of our trip.

Getting to the pan was by no means trivial. We had to ride through sand for a few kilometres, which is challenging enough when you’re on your own, but all the more difficult when you’re riding two up. But after a bit of relay riding (one guy riding the other guy running) we made it to the pan.

Of all the places I visited on the trip, the Sowa salt plan was one of my favourites. I have always wanted to go to the moon, and the pan is the closest that I have been to experiencing it. Made from a dry lake bed, the salty crust cracks as you walk over it so you leave explorer-like footprints as Armstrong and Aldrin did forty years earlier.


The flat surface of the pan also provides the ideal setting for honing stunt riding skills. And for much of the afternoon, Tyson and I tried pulling off our best moves as well as recreating the famous cover shot from the ‘Motorcycle Diaries’.




But after several hours of tomfoolery we still had a hundred kilometres to cover before nightfall and decided to push on further south through the pan. Little did we know that the coming hours would be some of the most difficult riding of the trip.

The trials began at the southern end of the pan when Tyson noticed Rosa was beginning to overheat. His response was to stop and allow the bike to cool off. This was the sensible thing to do, but turned out to be a bad move. The reason Rosa was overheating was her rear tyre was slipping on a thick layer of mud, which was lying hidden just below the salty surface. As we stopped the bike sunk into this slick muddy layer, meaning we lost traction completely. The tried and tested technique of gunning the throttle only served to splatter mud everywhere and dig the bike deeper. So our only option was to tip the bike over, scrape off the mud with our bare hands and drag the bike to slightly firmer ground and attempt a restart. Three attempts later and we were back up and running. But now, anxious not to get bogged, we were travelling fast. And then it happened. Slowly at first, but the bike began to weave. Tyson did a good job of controlling the bike’s momentum, so we continued to travel in ever increasing weaves. But there was no stopping the inevitable and after two hundred metres or so, we crashed.

Crashing had become a regular part of the trip for me, but this was the first time I had experienced it as a passenger. It was an odd experience. You know the bike is going to go down, but there is nothing you can do about it. So you just accept your fate, shield your camera, and brace for impact.


In the end, it was a fairly minor high speed slide out – the main result of which was to cover us both in stick muddy. But fair’s fair and Tyson relinquished the driving seat only for me to repeat the favour about an hour later when we ploughed into some deep sand. And with darkness falling we proceeded to plough on into the night through some of the most challenging deep sandy ruts that we had seen. Relay riding was required for a couple of hours, and by the end of it, we emerged from the pan knackered, humbled (as we weren’t the riding masters that we though), but overall relieved. An unforgettable experience.



Andre - Gatekeeper of Johannesburg
Several days later on the freeway just on the outskirts of Johannesburg, a shiny green sports bike sped past us. Strangely, instead of blasting off into the distance, the rider slowed down to our more modest speed, and beckoned us to pullover. And that’s how we came across Andre who, like Heiko, was another KLR enthusiast interested in finding out where we’d come from and where we were going. We went through the usual story, and Andre responded with the generosity that must come naturally to South Africans – offering us his house and workshop (he was an electrical engineer and part-time master mechanic) as a safe haven from the mean streets of Johannesburg. We hadn’t decided our plans yet, as they were conditional on whether my bike had arrived and been fixed, but we thanked him graciously and agreed to call him later.

At Russell Campbell Motorcycles – the Kawasaki dealership that were expecting delivery of my bike - we learned the sad truth. Not only was my bike not fixed, but it still hadn’t left Lilongwe. This was a heavy blow, as it was now clear that I wouldn’t get to finish the trip on the Odyssey. News from Jerry, who had been making fantastic progress in catching us up, was similarly downbeat – as he was stuck at Victoria Falls waiting for his replacement documents to arrive. And so sadly, the three amigos didn’t get to ride triumphantly into Cape Town on our trusty steeds together. A massive shame, but then it wouldn’t be an adventure if everything went to plan would it?

And so we did our best to cobble together a happy ending. With copious amounts of help from the folks at Russell Campbell’s and Andre, we managed to: organise a few repairs on trusty old Rosa (to ensure she made the final leg); hired me a showroom fresh BMW bike (a farcical off-road machine, but fast and fun); and even recruited Andre to join us for the final leg of the trip. And so, a different three amigos on a different set of bikes did set off from Johannesburg, and a week later, after riding through a snowstorm, experiencing another terrifying crash (this time involving Andre, a reckless driver and another lucky escape), jumping off the world’s highest commercial bungee jump (it was very high), and getting our name in the paper (see here) we reached Cape Aghulas – the most southerly point in Africa – and a little later, Cape Town. We had made it. And it was a good feeling.


Two weeks later, after his own epic adventure, Jerry triumphantly rolled into Cape Town on his battered bike. And 18 months after that, following extensive repairs, my bike has been lovingly restored by Andre and Co. It is now ready for the next big adventure, and I am back in Johannesburg. Time to saddle up.