Distant Tracks

After a week in Swakopmund, we were itching to hit the road again! But not too eager to skip out on a big breakfast in town. At a quaint German breakfast café, we guzzled coffee and packed away pancakes while perusing the dog menu on the back of the human menu. This was a dog friendly restaurant. Also of note was a KTM biker who took interest in our ride north. Familiar with the area, he warned against pushing too far out into the wilderness beyond Messum Crater. “Yeah, we had a go at that route and it was hell,” the man said, as he elaborated on the bottomless sand and extreme temperatures. Apparently, these guys had gotten in a tangle with some massive sand dunes blocking the route. They had ultimately been forced to retreat with a heat casualty.

Armed with that knowledge, we increased our water reserve and double checked the battery on the SPOT beacon. All I knew is that we’d need to source a route around those dunes and be prepared to back off if necessary. I do love a track that offers a little story and a lot of “what ifs”.  We rolled north from Swakopmund on salt roads to find our trailhead to the desert.

But shortly before arriving at our turn off for Messum Crater, we were stopped in our tracks by a most unexpected obstacle. The furriest baby seals ever!

 

Over 200,000 seals packed into the largest seal colony on the planet. Adventure comes in all forms…even in fields of furry, starry eyed, sun lounging fuzzballs.

Ever seen a picnic shelter overrun by drunken seals. This is happening at Cape Cross.

Of note also was a marker on the ground, initially emplaced by a Portuguese explorer in 1484. Be advised there is an alarmingly large snake living underneath the relic.

So, what began as an early start to an off road adventure route, turned into a late start following 3 hours of gaping wide mouthed at seals. Finally, we pulled ourselves away from the seal colony and continued on track towards Messum Crater. The salt road turned to dirt as it meandered away from the coast and whisked us over endless fields of yellow lichen. As we pushed deeper into the Namib desert, an incredible and captivating landscape began to unfold before us.

And it was here, that we found our first welwitschia! One of the very few plants in the world capable of surviving in this hyper-arid environment. Extraterrestrial is the first word that comes to mind when I try to describe it.

Wiki  suggests that some of these plants are possibly over 2,000 years old! These edible flora are not endangered species yet, because the greatest bunches of Welwitschia plants are up in Angola and safely protected by post conflict land mines.

The long jarring road to Messum Crater dissuades all but the most dedicated motorists, but those who endure the trip are rewarded with an unworldly geological wonder all to themselves.

Its not a meteorite crater, but rather the result of a colossal volcanic eruption 132 million years ago. Descending into the volcano, we pushed towards some rock outcroppings that marked the center of the 18km wide crater. The graded tracks ended here.

We parked the bikes, scrambled up some rocks and took shelter from the sun in a shallow cave. Perhaps as nomads had done thousands of years ago, we peered out of the cave at the crater floor below and scanned the possible route before us. The silence surrounding us was intense, with the only sound being the occasional crunch of gravel as I shifted my weight from one boot to the other. Nothing moved out there, not even the wind. The late afternoon light played across the desert floor, lighting up the crater as if the whole of it were a living being of its own.

The view of the wilderness foreshadowed a real need for good navigating and dialed in riding. There appeared to be three gaps in the towering black rocky ridge that surrounded the crater. One gap was the way in which we had come, the other was the giant sand dune to the East, the third option was a wadi that the whole crater seemed to drain into. We hadn’t forgotten the stories over breakfast regarding the huge dune, so we bet our cards on the wadi. I marked the cave on the gps in case we needed to retreat to it for the night. We then saddled up, picked some faint tracks leading to the North East and rolled out to squeeze out a few hours riding before dark.

Leaving the corrugated road behind and blasting on along hard pack desert floor made for a dream ride across the rest of the crater. We were shocked to see a surprising amount of wildlife trekking across the the barren landscape. Zebra and springbok seemed to be living large on what appeared to be nothing except the rare welwitschia plant. The wadi naturally funneled us into it’s sandy bottom as we slipped off the crater floor and onto the ancient river bed. To pass through the crater wall, we had to fully commit to a river bed for a few miles until the terrain on each side opened up again. This is where, for perhaps the for first time on the trip, we really turned our knobby tread loose on some technical tracks. This is why we ride a GS with good suspension and aggressive tread. This is adventure riding and the GS was our ticket to paradise. It was full steam ahead, and where our riding skill faultered, the suspension or crash bars picked up the slack!

The sand stretches were never too deep, or too long and within an hour we were beyond the walls of the crater and able to break out of the river bed onto the surrounding arid plain. We linked together various 4×4 tracks and old offroad vehicle spoor that appeared to be going in a favorable direction on ridable terrain.

Clusters of Aardvark holes, big enough to swallow a 21” front wheel occasionally forced us off track, but the desert floor always offered enough of a bypass for a motorcycle. Although we saw thousands of Aardvark holes, we regrettably never saw any of these nocturnal “earth pigs”.

The evening air cooled off the once burning hot landscape as we drifted between mountain shadows and pink rays of the setting sun. Still not knowing if this route was going to work out, we did know we were deep into a spectacular experience.

Finally, scanning the distance from a hilltop in the fading light, I could just make out a white ribbon of graded road in the distance. This route was a go! We were only a few klicks from a maintained dirt road leading to the town of Uis. Exhausted and relieved, we shed our armor and set camp just in time to catch a sunset worthy of days adventure.

 

About 40 miles out from the Namibian coast we entered a fog layer and I watched the air temperature gauge on my F800 display drop from 98 degrees F to a luxurious 55 degrees. Cold ocean currents off the Skeleton Coast grace the desert with a cold fog bank that can stretch 50 miles beyond the waters edge. After the scorching temperatures of the interior, our bodies felt immediate relief in the cool fog bank. Its no small wonder that the Germans chose to make a colony here in 1892. Some of the population still speaks German and the towns many dirt streets are lined with intricate colonial style structures.

 

One of our first new acquaintances in Swakopmund was an Austrian named Marco, who descended out of the sky under a paraglider in full business attire. Touching down on the sand dune next to us he politely offered us a beer, which he apparently stows in his harness for ballast and libations. This is Africa and its just another day in the office for legends like Marco.

We’d be back for flying with Marco, but our immediate plans called for blasting up the beach on the bikes and tuning our sand riding skills for the road ahead.

However, I ran into problems when I found I could no longer accelerate. With some muscle and will power we got the bike back on pavement, where I rode it 10km into Swakopmund, maxing out at 10 miles per hour. I figured it was an electronic “limp mode” problem, called emergency operation mode. I refused to believe I’d blown my clutch because of the low miles and limited stress on the clutch. That night in our campsite, I burned the midnight oil until 2am trying to diagnose the problem.

With a heavy heart and no success in resolving the problem myself, I limped the bike over to a local Yamaha shop. Jan, the shop owner and storied adventure rider, immediately stopped his current projects and took up my case.

It took him about 3 minutes to tell me that my clutch was blown. I still doubted it, as I’d pushed BMW clutches very very hard for extended periods in sand in the past with no issues. My old 1150gs with over 120,000 miles on it has burned up deserts and beaches around the globe without missing a beat. However, there was no denying the facts when the mechanic pulled the clutch cover and showed me the seared plates. I asked the mechanic, “how could this happen, its practically a new bike!” “The clutch lever was not adjusted properly”, he pointed out. That was the most likely cause. I never checked the play in the clutch lever because I had never done any clutch work or replaced any levers. The clutch lever was either adjusted wrong when I bought it as a used bike from the dealership a year ago or it had come out of adjustment on its own. Regardless, I should have checked the play in the clutch lever when servicing my own bike! It was an expensive lesson, although one I’ll never forget. I now check my clutch lever play every day.

If you’re going to fry your clutch, you want to do it near a good shop and in a cool place to make the most of it. In this way, we were fortunate.

Going back to the big coastal sand dunes on Katelyn’s bike, we found Marco, met his friends and got in some really wicked dune flying. Marco and his buddies fed us German LeibKuchen cake and mentored us on paragliding techniques that I’d never been exposed to back home.

Marco, a perpetual prankster, pulls out a broom to sweep the dune, insisting on his leave no trace policy.

We soared for hours among white mountains of sand that stretched along the coast. Tracing our bare toes along the sandy ridges, we’d race down wind, find some lift and then soar back up to the tallest dune. As winds picked up during the heat of the day, Katelyn’s small and speedy 16m wing was the weapon of choice and then later in the day, my full size Geo 26m wing came into play for miles of soothing sunset flights.

Jan and his crew at Dunworx Yamaha provided top notch service and accommodated us in every way they could. So the overland gods locked us into Swakopmund for over a week with a blown clutch, but we scored new friends, became better pilots and, thanks to Jan, had a new route laid out ahead of us. Jan had something of a treasure map on his wall, including hand drawn off road tracks connecting Messum Crater with the small town of Uis.

Few things stir the imagination like a committing desert track that might or might not work out. So, with a new clutch, some food, a full tank and extra water rations we rolled north.

It was already 100 degrees as we pulled away from our campsite under the giant red dunes and headed back down the dusty track. 200 miles and Big Moose’s famous apple crumble lay between us and the promise of cooler temperatures on the Namibian coast.

It’s hard to imagine that you can find world class pastries in the middle of an empty desert, but we found it. The famed apple crumble and coffee did not disappoint.

Another hour down the road and we enjoyed a quick water break to take the customary photo at the Tropic of Capricorn. From this point forward, the sun will now shine directly over our heads again.

It was a long ride over roads that often times required our full attention to stay upright. I (Katelyn) found out what happens when you take your eyes off the road too long to enjoy the views. While taking in the unique landscape and the watching the herd of Zebra in the distance, my front tire caught a gravel ridge and the bike did some sort of slam and slide with a 180 degree spin maneuvre. I think in motocross terms they call it a Batman Twist Daredevil Rollercoaster Grab or something like that. After a short nap in the shade of the motorcycles to recover my nerves, we set off again to finish our day’s ride through the beautiful, desolate landscape across Namibia’s interior.

Animal count: 15 Zebra

(zebra photo)

We were ushered into Sossusvlei with soaring temps and blowing sand. This is a national park and home to a vast expanse of soaring sand ridges, one of which ranks as the world’s tallest red sand dune.

Imagine our disappointment when, after 200 miles of desert riding, we were barred entry into the actual park because we were on motorcycles. “The motorbikes will scare the animals,” we were told, as a big rig 50 passenger overland tour bus roared past us through the gates. It was frustrating, as our BMW stock exhausts are pretty tame and as I peered out into the sea of sand, I wasn’t sure of what animals we would be scaring out there anyway.

In retrospect, I understand the rule. A lot of folks run customs pipes that really rip. I’d also ad that over time, we’ve learned that even in the bleakest African landscape, there’s almost always critters out there living large on what appears to be nothing and I’m not just talking about bugs. Although, we’ve seen some bugs uncomfortably close to animal size.

So there we were, hanging out at the park gate feeling sorry for ourselves, when the cavalry arrived in Fiat Pandas. We’d met these refreshingly eclectic folks on Spreetshoogte Pass the day prior, each of us drawn to each other’s adventure machines and stories as fellow overlanders. These guys really captured the imagination and put an audacious spin on adventure overland travel. They’d been on the road for about a year, having bought two Fiat Panda’s in Zurich and driven down the entire western coast of Africa.

 

They were pulling equipment out of the cars to lighten them up for offroad sand driving, so I didn’t think they’d be willing to take additional passengers. However, we let them know our plight and they immediately made room for us. Not only did they get us into the park, but it was an incredible opportunity to make new friends and briefly be a part of their unique adventure.

Chris from Zurich at the wheel of his Panda.  Along with driving this car down to Nambia, he’s also taken it across Eastern Europe, Russia, Mongolia and the US.

Who would have guessed how capable these machines were. Light, 4wheel drive capable and simple, they blew over the sand as well as any Hilux, albeit dragging a bash plate here and there with their low clearance. It was a blast…possibly the next best thing to biking and we pushed it deep into the dunes.

Its just as hard to describe the Sossusvlei landscape as it is to capture the real beauty of it all in digital picture. You pretty much just have to go there, just remember to take A LOT of water.

Perfect example of where you don’t expect to see the environment supporting large animals. These Oryx are about 35 miles from the nearest water source.

In the evening we parted ways with Team Panda and settled into camp on the outskirts of the park. During the night, the wind died down encouraging a predawn hike into the nearest sand dune. I was determined to get a dawn flight in and I also was wanted to feel the desert at night. At 4 AM I started off, aiming for the black apex of a dune on the night skyline 4 miles away. The silence over the starlit sand was profound.
Any sunrise in the desert is rewarding enough, but launching off the top of a huge dune into the morning light is for me a step further into a deeper experience.

As my feet left the security of the ground, I breathed with exhilaration and basked in that rare connectivity to the incredible world around me.  I skimmed the wind carved sand ridges in my gradual descent, then flew out over the desert valley floor for my final landing approach in an ancient river bed.

After packing up my “aircraft in a bag”, I took a bearing off the mountain to the south and stepped out towards camp.

With a lone jackal for company, I raced over the desert, trying to make it to the shade before things really heated up or worse, I missed breakfast. I do not miss breakfast!

 

Feeling infinitely better to be back out on an open road, meandering among hills, mountains, and expansive desert. Now this is Namibia!

Deceptively minor gravel ridges slithered over the road for most of the route.  If your front tire unexpectedly drifts over one ridge when you’re eyeballing zebra and your rear tire remains on the wrong side of the ridge, your bike morphs into a Nebraskan tornado until you tame the beast with some liberal throttle application to straighten out the front wheel.  And of course, there’s the low speed sandy turnarounds that get us all at some point.

It was a full day standing on the pegs, whisking over corrugation and powering out of unstable surfaces, but the always evolving horizon kept the fatigue at bay and lured us on to the dunes of Sossusvlei!

Animal count for the day- 23 Baboons, 6 Kudu

 

The much anticipated rear shock for the F800 completed it’s journey over the pond and then took a vacation in a Namibian customs warehouse. Fortunately, the Namibian Fedex folks were absolutely professional and courteous, even with us showing up each day unannounced and loitering around their office.  After paying for the shock’s luxury vacation at customs, I got my fingers on a shiny new custom built rear shock straight out of Seattle.

There was a little drama with the lower shock bolt, as I broke my socket wrench.  However, I still had a T- handle that got the job done!  Time to get back on the road!

Since Chris’s bike was down for the count until his new shock arrived and motorcycles are not allowed into most, if any, of the wildlife parks through Africa, we thought it was a good time to take ourselves on safari. We made a somewhat shady rental deal and set off for Etosha National Park in our newly acquired Fiat Panda.

Just a mile into the park and we were greeted by giraffe, wildebeest and springbok galore.

Etosha is a large, dry salt pan dotted with watering holes which draw a steady stream of all kinds of wildlife coming in for a drink. We spent the day driving through the pan always amazed at the menagerie we would find around every corner. It was a joy to park the Panda and watch the interactions between all the different species. If you observe long enough, you begin to anticipate how each will respond or react to different situations. We decided that zebra are all trouble.

For the opportunity to catch the action at night, we decided to stay inside the park.  We pulled into our campsite and found ourselves surrounded on all sides by adventure rigs equipped for the apocalypse. We even had a questioning comment from the camp host, “Your vehicle is a little small for camping, isn’t it?” Hey! Who you calling little? I promise, when it comes to camping we got it down.

After setting up our modest camp, we walked to the waterhole to catch the evening show. What a show it was!

The sunset was spectacular. The zebra were causing trouble again, the rhinos went head to head over who got a bath and four bull elephants had a Mexican standoff over water rights that resulted in full on blows. Imagine two 15,000lb masses running into each other at full angry speed…and we had a front row seat for the all of it.

In disbelief of all that we had seen, we fell asleep that evening listening to the roar of distant lions and the constant chatter of hyenas on the prowl. What a treat!

 

Feeling elevated and inspired from our ventures to the Fish River Canyon, we raced north along smooth gravel track toward a dot on the map labeled Seeheim. We had aspirations of a big mile day, but the views, desert flora and fauna necessitated numerous stops to soak it all in.

Can you spot the Kudu?

We ultimately arrived at a dirt road junction, where, after some debating, we resolved to take the road less traveled (big surprise😊). This decision would ultimately seal our fate for the next 10 days.

It was a classic case of the “adventure shortcut,” which is of course often not a short cut at all, but lends itself well to new experiences. We chose an F road, which we would later learn, means that it has long since escaped the blade of a road grater and has begun its gradual submission to nature. Although a bit sandy, washed out in places and loaded with some world class washboard, it was a wide open track and totally doable. It should have been well within the scope of our adventure bikes.

It was, initially, great fun, just enough challenges to keep you up on your pegs and dialed in over sandy stretches, wash out and enjoyable humps and bumps. Then came the washboard, serious wash board, stretching from one side of the road to the other. I’m sure I’ve seen washboard this bad before, but I can’t remember where or when.

This is where I noticed my shock starting to bottom out, which alarmed me, as I hadn’t put it through any serious trauma yet and it’s the beefiest shock on the market. The bottoming out sensation was soft and I pushed on, hoping it was just a combination of some wash out and washboard that the shock rebound struggled to keep up with…one can only hope and remain optimistic. I don’t know of any technology that can make 4” deep washboard comfortable. Then came some creepy lurching and chain slippage from the drive system. I glanced back at my swing arm and my heart sank as I saw the telltale sign of fluid splashed over my chain guard.

So, there we were with a broken shock. I’d worn shocks out before, even crushed a shock oil line before, but in 10 years of adventure riding, I’d never seen one drop its lower section and spill all its fluids. The irony was not lost on me that this newly installed custom shock was supposedly the toughest on the market and I’d blown it out within the first week of our journey. Frustration is an understatement here. The ride out of the desert was pretty tough as I couldn’t keep my speed up to ride over the sand sections. There was lots of foot paddling as I desperately maneuvered to keep my tread from sinking in the rear wheel.

Ultimately, we rode 350 miles to nearest logistics point where I could sort things out. Needless to say, with a broken rear shock, this was not a pleasant ride, but we made it and Windhoek would become our home.

The only guy, who could work shocks in town, took one look at mine and said I should immediately warranty it. He had actually never seen a shock failure that severe and he didn’t want to touch it. I was hoping for a quick fix, but it looked like a full shock replacement was in the cards.

Touratech USA did offer to replace my shock, but would not send it to me. Fortunately, I have Bret! A very cool biker relative of mine in Seattle that was kind enough to go to Touratech, pick up the shock and sort out shipping for me (no easy task).

I just erased a page of emotionally charged ranting over how I feel about the Touratech shipping policy. No one wants to read that. On a positive note, I do want to point out that Touratech USA had a replacement shock built for me within 6 hours. Props for that!

So, we live in Windhoek now. The shock has been here for days, but is locked up in customs. The very sweet Fedex lady gives us the “it should be here today, or maybe tomorrow, or sometime,” every time we show up to check on the progress. It is frustrating, but I realize my desire to ride again does not constitute an emergency on anyone else’s part.

We are, however, making the most of our time. See next post. 😊

Our first border crossing from South Africa into Namibia was simple and stress free. We even managed to coax a few smiles from the sleepy border officials.

We pulled away from the border post heading over the tranquil and luring Orange River, a splash of color in an otherwise dry desert landscape. Feeling the excitement of exploring a new country and of the adventures that lay ahead, we were eager to get out there and experience all that Namibia had to offer. Just 10 minutes down the road, we turned off the tarmac and found ourselves with hundreds of miles of dirt track ahead and nothing to do but enjoy the ride.

As avid hot spring soakers, we gravitated in the general direction of nearest geothermal fountains, rumored to be located on the canyon floor along the Fish River. If there really were hot springs out there, we needed to investigate.

Just at sundown and about 100 miles from nowhere, we found ourselves at the Ais Ais Hot Springs Resort. Starving and covered in a thick layer of dust and sweat, we were immediately lured in with the promise of a hot meal, camping and a soak in the pool. The pool was not up to Chris’s temperature standards, but we had it all to ourselves and I have to say that a dip, even in a lukewarm pool, after riding through the heat and dirt all day, was pretty much heaven.

The next morning we were woken by our neighbor dumpster diving for his breakfast…

After exploring a bit up the canyon on foot, we got back on the bikes to roll North and check out the views along the canyon’s edge.

We eventually stumbled upon an overlook for the Fish River Canyon.

Imagine arriving at the Grand Canyon, the gate guard is asleep and you have the entire park to yourself. That is essentially the situation we found here and we took advantage of it. We spent the afternoon soaking up the views, enjoying the solitude and getting a great tan. This is a spot not to miss if you are travelling through Namibia. The views are stunning, the history is worth a read and if you plan ahead, there is a multi-day trek you can make along the bottom of the canyon beginning at the overlook and finishing 85km later at the Ais Ais Hot Springs. We will be back to do that hike some day!

 

Got to add this note in here…

“There’s a Vespa down there somewhere. Check with “old” locals for the story,” I was told by Gordon, a previous resident of Cape Town.

Only local folks know this stuff! What a story! It goes like this…in the late 60s someone said with great confidence that there would never be a tire track in the depths of the Fish River Canyon. Well, some South African guys figured otherwise. With ropes, cables, winches and rafts,  six guys had a go at the “trail” with three hardcore adventure Vespas!

The trip starts with one Vespa going for a free fall off a 100′ cliff and the venture just gets wilder the deeper they go. Read the story!

Taken from fishrivercanyon1968vespaexpedition.com

Apparently, there continues to be Vespa sightings by adventures thru-hikers.

http://poserscooterclub.blogspot.com/2014/07/veni-vedi-and-vici.html

Tire pressure checked out fine before we started riding in the morning and again as we switched from dirt track to fast asphalt. It was about 100 miles down the highway that I got the wobbles and Katelyn called in my flat rear tire over our helmet intercom. Its always nerve wracking going from 70mph to a stop with 0 air pressure. In this case too much brake application or any brake application can make it really tough to keep the rubber side down. I learned the hard way 10 years ago when I spread plastic fairing parts all over the I25, South of Peublo, Colorado. With that in mind, I gently eased her down in speed and over to side of the road.

There wasn’t much left of the tire to diagnose the culprit. The tube was severed in half and the rim strip was in 5 pieces. I hadn’t seen that before! It was discomforting that I’d replaced my front tube the day before and now I was replacing the rear tube. Looking back, the only discrepancy I saw was the fact that both tubes were over a year old and that I had not replaced either, despite two tire changes. Clearly, past Chris, felt that future Chris would enjoy a sweltering roadside tube swap under the African midday sun.

Duct tape, good enough for the Manhatten bridge in 1902, now serves as my rim strip. It was initially just a quick fix idea, but now we’re thinking to just roll with it. No one around here has got a rim strip for a 17” BMW motorcycle tire anyway.

We arrived late to Springbok, grabbed a campsite outside town and settled in for a Thanksgiving dinner of noodles fortified with dried Kudu meat.