(A shorter recreation of our post from 2019 which was mysteriously deleted…) Whilst staying with Nikolai and Aniela at their lovely home-cum-lodge on the Namibian Caprivi strip, Aniela suggested we take a river trip with Dan, their British neighbour. From Middlesbrough, Dan established Mashi River Safaris in 2010 having been in the area since 2007. Dan is a true no […]
Our long-time dream of a world tour in an expedition vehicle came true in 2018. On the 5th November 2018 we set sail on a ferry to Spain and here we are, one year later in Africa. The year has passed in a flash! Where did the time go? Big Bertha Our truck has not let us down at all […]
After returning from the lush green countryside of Angola, where one can buy huge avocados and other delicious fruit and vegetables from the roadside vendors, we are now back in the arid north of Namibia. We plan to spend a few weeks here before crossing over to Zambia in December. Etosha, Namibia’s premier national park, is in the north and […]
We spent a wonderful month touring Angola. Big Bertha added 4,426km to its odometer in that time and coped admirably with the high sulphur fuel. Luckily the fuel price is low in Angola – about 34p/litre. The road condition is very varied and we experienced perfect tarmac recently laid by Chinese contractors, absolute nightmare ‘tarmac’ roads with more potholes than […]
It wasn’t so long ago that civil war was tearing Angola apart. The Portuguese withdrew in 1975 after 500 years of rule leaving a vacuum and power struggle between the rival Angolan political factions. A brutal civil war ensued for the next 27 years which ended in 2002. The country has been difficult to visit and it is only recently […]
When driving off road, it can be very advantageous to deflate our tyres thereby greatly extending their footprint, or contact area. Deflating helps driving in sand for example. Letting air out of our tyres is fairly straightforward using my ARB deflator from my desert driving days – it’s a device that extracts the inner Schrader valve, but keeps it captive. […]
We have completed our 3589 km loop of southern Namibia and have returned to Walvis Bay to cool off. In Namibia, you can drive from the dry desert heat of 40⁰c to coastal coolness of 20⁰c in two hours! All thanks to the Benguela current that keeps the coastal sea temperature at 12⁰c. Southern Namibia has spectacular landscapes, but not so […]
Travelling down a gravel back-road towards Fish River Canyon, we were starting to wonder where we might camp as the clock hit four pm. It was then we came across a brightly painted plough with a sign for the De Klerk Boerdery (farm). We took a chance, opened the gate and trundled over a rise to be greeted by a […]
It’s dry, very dry! Our visa allows us to stay up to 90 days in Namibia and we fully intend to use this time to tour the length and breadth of the country. Distances between ‘things’ are greater than in Europe and we easily drive a couple of hundred kilometres in a day. Fortunately, diesel is reasonably priced at about […]
(A shorter recreation of our post from 2019 which was mysteriously deleted…) Francine has always wanted to skydive and the clear skies of Swakopmund in Namibia provided an excellent opportunity to fulfil her ambition (although David was very happy to watch proceedings from terraferma). Ruud, Francine’s South African ‘co-pilot’ took very good care of her, and she returned to planet […]