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.