The SAND Route Segment 4 – part 1
We left South Africa late on a drizzly morning and crossed into Namibia on a pontoon across the Orange River. Namibia is presently 7 years into a drought- meanwhile Cape Town is presently experiencing exceptional rainfall events.
It was a smooth ride to Bo Plaas, a riverside camping area up the river. 10km before the camp a 4WD pulled over and we were greeted with ‘kia ora’. The Auckland Kiwi couple saw our names in the Park HQ and were on the lookout for us. We enjoyed each other’s company that night.
Next morning as we neared the farming town of Aussenkehr we passed many locals carrying piles of firewood back to town. We stopped and talked to 3 women and heard that they work in the vineyards during the week and on Saturday they might walk 5-10km to collect firewood alongside the river. Tough lives.
In Aussenkehr the huge informal settlement of tiny corrugate clad boxes wrapped in bamboo lattice to keep them cooler in summer was quite confronting. Primarily it is worker accommodation for the extensive vineyards next to the river so one would hope that they are not occupied year round. In summer the temperatures here reach high 40’s.
The community focal point on a Saturday morning was the Spar supermarket where we were headed as well for a big shop up. We couldn’t get meths there and the Agrimart that did sell it was closed for the weekend so we had an enforced day off and 2 nights at a tourist lodge 7km up the river. The rest day was restful and productive and by the time we left the weather was looking pretty good chiefly with regards the winds.
Over the next 2 days we broke our daily distance records for the trip primarily because we were moving smoothly in one direction instead of bouncing around and zigzagging all over the road, and there was little wind. There were long straights and if you were driving it you would feel sorry for those on a bicycle but there was sufficient immediate detail and distant features to keep us happy. Biking in Australia had prepared us for this.
Some of the highlights were seeing a herd of zebras cross our path, watching a glorious sunrise over the Fish River Canyon as we were riding and hitting a cafe that we weren’t expecting.
This first section is on the Namibian tourist route because of the Fish River Canyon and Ai Ais hot springs (in the canyon) and most of the traffic we saw were tourists in 4WD’s with roof top camping setups. The Fish River Canyon is the Grand Canyon of Africa and one of the most visited sites in Namibia. We heard that the hot springs resort is struggling because of lack of cold water to cool down the natural springs.
On the third day we hit some blacktop and following Alan I noticed his back tyre wobbling. We turned off on a gravel road to have lunch at the Seeheim hotel and the tyre went down after hitting a bump. We pumped it up and carried on. Over lunch it went down again. Then on closer inspection we discovered another shredded bead on the Maxxis tyre. It was yet to split as mine had 6 weeks ago but it was close and not safe to use anymore. We were both devastated and couldn’t believe it had happened again. Then, the lovely manager got on the blower to an auto parts store (that sold a few bikes on the side) 40 km away in Keetmanshoop. They managed to track down the last 27.5 plus tyre in Namibia in the capital of Windhoek (500km away). Via an overnight courier it could be in Keetmans’ in the morning. We were astounded at the turn of events. The flat tyre could not have happened at a better place. Unlucky then very lucky.
Next morning we hitched in the back of a truck to town and a few hours later were back on the side of the road with a new Maxxis Rekon bedded in on Alan’s wheel. The trip back to the hotel was crammed in the back of a bakkie (Ute) with bags of potatoes.
By 2pm we were back on the road enjoying a southerly tail wind somewhat stunned that we had been able to sort a new tyre at all, let alone so quickly. By 5 we were setting up camp on the side of the road overlooking the plains and old volcanic cones and ridges we had driven through earlier in the day. The almost full moon was high in the extensive night scape we had at this camp.
We were cycling early and the effects of the drought were obvious. The farmers have destocked, the few goats we see have little to eat and the dams are empty. The last rain was in December and they don’t expect any more till November. We had turned off the B4 paved road not far from the hotel the day previous onto the D432 gravel road and saw no vehicles at all till we got to Bethanie. Fears that D series roads would be slow were eased.
At the small town of Bethanie we restocked as there are no sources of food for the next 260km. We should be able to get water from a farmhouse halfway through so will only be needing to carry 2 days water at a time.
We have 800km left – while Alan is counting down the km’s I am trying to deny the inevitability of the end of the road..
