Namibia (part 2) – The Dry
Not much mentioning of the bike recently? Apart from one puncture (the first since Ghana, 8,000km ago) it’s been a smooth ride. Good tarmac roads since I left Lubumbashi –…
Not much mentioning of the bike recently? Apart from one puncture (the first since Ghana, 8,000km ago) it’s been a smooth ride. Good tarmac roads since I left Lubumbashi –…
From Sesriem I took a short trip to Sossuvlei to see the dunes there. Pretty stunning but dunes nonetheless. And I’ve seen a lot of dunes now! But with all…
From sleepy Swakopmund on the coast I headed south to Walvis Bay. Then it was a tough ride inland across the desert, up the Gamsberg Pass and down the Spreetshoogte…
What’s not to love in Namibia? Beryl Markham, a remarkable woman who grew up in East Africa, wrote: ‘So there are many Africas. There are as many Africas as there…
Sometimes when you cross a border, you instantly know you’re in a different country. Perhaps a new language, a new uniform, now driving on the other side of the road.…
Just a short note on my last days in the DR Congo. (Will write about Zambia and Botswana shortly as will happily hole up here in Namibia somewhere just to…
Kananga to Lac Mukamba Kananga had enough distractions to keep me occupied for a couple of days – a quiet hotel, a small restaurant across the road selling good local…
Tchikapa to Kananga – 286km in 4 days Diamonds and wetsuits I rested for the day in Tchikapa. A busy town. Dusty streets lined with small market stalls run by…
Kikwit to Tchikapa – 343km in 5 days Kikwit – shit, leave quick Always happy to arrive in a town – Good food, cold drinks, a bed, a shower… Usually…
It’s nearly the end of 2010 and I’ve just hit 20,000km – time for some more statistics. Now according to my original plan, I should be in Cape Town by…
Chapter 1 – Entering the Congo One way to enter the Democratic Republic of Congo is at Kinshasa, by taking a boat from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo. The…
90km after Kikwit and the tarmac ended. Abruptly. From smooth asphalt to shocking deep sand. And just at that point it chucked it down with rain. Sheltering in a local…
Six days after leaving Kinshasa, cycling 500km on a good tarmac road, and I’ve arrived in Kikwit. It may have been a good surface but the endless hills and scorching…
Here are some photos from the latest part of the journey. I travelled south from Yaounde in Cameroon through Gabon to a small town called Booue. Having drunk some dodgy…
I debated a long time whether to get a bike with a Rohloff hub, or a regular dérailleur system. In the end, not knowing much about bike maintenance and being…
This is quite a thorough list of how the bike, panniers and racks have held up and problems I have had. Most people won’t want to read beyond this intro,…
Time to hit the hills. Time to take on Cameroon’s Highlands. Top Speed I cycle out of Bamenda, refreshed after the rest. The road sweeps around the green hillsides and…
Uphill to Bamenda End of the road I decided to take the high road, up to the hills surrounding Bamenda. Told that the tarmac road would end at a bridge…
Scene 1 The dirt road from Ekok wound its way round and up and down through the thick, overgrown forest. Everything was big. Trees competing to grow the tallest, to…
Out of Abuja From leaving the Abuja, it was nearly 600km and five full days of cycling to reach the Cameroon border. But first, back to Nigeria. I had entered…