What a Wicked trip

Start in SA…

The start in Johannesburg was early (7:30am) and a bit cold, which I thought was the nerves making me shiver.
Collected Beans at Ghandis Backpackers and had the full check done, making sure everything was in there to be able to eat, sleep and chill wherever I stopped.

I made my way straight to the highway, which wasn’t difficult to find if you get pointed in the right direction (although I used a GPS). Got onto the N12 then the N3 north then N1 north. I was getting rather hungry and had to calm the nerves so ended up stopping and having breakfast at Maxis Highway Restaurant – it is located over the whole highway, with petrol stations on either side (check the photo). Excellent breakfast: eggs, bacon, toast, sausage and the strongest filter coffee they had – what a kick start. Before I got stuck next to the road I had to fill up the van with it’s dose of gas. I know that the vans engine fluids are always checked but out of habit also got them checked and was surprised to see the condition of the engine: it was so clean you could have eaten off of it – could become an idea to place an egg into a pan and place it onto the block to fry, but might get a few odd looks from people trying to help me with a ‘breakdown’.

Back on the road filled up and bright eyed to have to contend with the traffic and get to my destination in 1 piece.
Traffic was hectic being so early, but calmed down once I got onto the Krugersdorp highway – which is your last ‘proper’ highway until you get back into SA.
At the end of this highway is a Stop street which gets you turning right to go north. This is where I scored, what I believed, a deal for a hat at R20 which proved to become effective in shielding my whole face from the African sun. The cap I originally took with, took a back seat and had to be pulled out from under the seat at the end of the trip.
Going north on these back roads takes you past many farms, guesthouses and farm stalls. The best items that were being sold was biltong – the most sought after edible item by all tourists to SA. Depending where you are the choices of biltong becomes a little ‘wild’. Apart from the original bull bitong, you also find kudu, ostrich, crocodile and springbuck biltong. This is the best road food to have with you, always buy alot.

Some roads are long and uneventful and others become so eventful and jump out at you. I got this about 150km from the Botswana border. I drove around the Toll Gate at Zeerust, by turning at Swartruggens and going through Tlokweng and Pella which is a very well established African community. The road of about 15km long wakes you with speed bumps every 500m and they are huge so going over them needed to be in snail mode.
I mentioned I was using a GPS to get around and it took me to a gravel road that was 30km long (and you need to avoid driving on dirt roads in the camper vans, so to avoid damage and being stranded). Before I got onto it I hooked up with a guy that was fixing this road and was assured that it was being scraped 24km from the end. Driving this was a wrong move, but I was lost and so had to. I did see a Jackal and 2 Warthogs running around so it was eventful. Seeing the tar road ahead after 25km was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, AMAZING. Yea sure, the road wasn’t scraped unless he was referring to the sand over the tar which was smooth. I was just so excited to finally get onto a smooth road and stop messing my coldrink in the cup holder when hitting all the dips and bumps.

The rest of the way was driven along the road through the Madikwe Game Reserve and I just wish there was time to go in and see what animals they had, but I wanted to get to Botswana soon. After about an hour I saw what I wanted, the Kopfontein Gate at the SA/Botswana border. Going through customs was the usual; fill in forms and explain why you’re going to Botswana for a holiday – which is self-explanatory.

Into Botswana…

Making my way from the Kopfontein Gate to Gaborone was quick, as this gate is located about 5km from Gabs. I ended up making a pitstop at a friend’s place just to recharge my batteries, which was a huge relief. After this chill out session I had to get back onto the road for time’s sake, so entered the traffic at 18H30. Once you know which road to take it is just a straight stripe through Gabs to the western road towards the Kalahari.

Night time in this country is really dark, stars look brighter and closer than ever before. I mentioned that I was happy to use a GPS to get around, well this ended up having me stop a few times and wonder if I was on the right road. The GPS showed the road I was physically driving on, but the vehicle icon on the GPS showed I was driving in the bush. This got me panicking about what, where, when and how. Then it hit me that I hadn’t updated the maps on the GPS, although this was only after all the cursing at the GPS.

The reason why you are warned never to travel at night is the fact that animals crowd all parts of the highway at night and they are very difficult to spot until you’ve nearly rammed the vehicle into its butt. Cows and Donkeys do not move if you hoot at them, you need to go around them at snail’s pace. Goats on the other hand seem to be sensitive to high pitched sounds. As soon as you hit the horn they scatter and bleep – obviously complaining that you could’ve gone round them, no way. They also scatter in different directions, so wait until they’re off the road until you carry on going.

I drove until 23H00 and my eyes started feeling really heavy. I was tempted many times along the route to just stop and snooze, until I came to the town of Takatokwane and found the Police Station. This for me would be the safest place to stay if the Police agreed to me spending the night on their grounds. Well, it didn’t take much persuasion: I found the Officer on duty and asked her if it would be fine for me to park and sleep there and she was most accommodating. In fact she insisted I park the Camper Van between the patrol vehicles under the car park; now that was cool. Looking at the photo below looks like it was impounded, but alas, not the case. I don’t think I asked for a wakeup call, but when the Officer went off duty the next morning she felt I needed to be up when she left – at a dark 6am. Man, was I still feeling buggered. I made use of the stations facilities and off I was at 6:30.

It was a long drive, well it felt that way with the straight roads, until I saw what I was after: sign post to Namibia. What a relief, not that going through Botswana wasn’t cool. On the contrary, Botswana has it’s own character with the scenery, people and animals.

The last section of highway until I hit the Namibian border was a game of splat – not with paint balls but butterflies. With the side of the road filled with the Yellow Kalahari flowers, there were a huge amount of butterflies that believed the flowers on the other side were better and so the game began – and I had no choice but to join in. I had to stop after about 20km to wipe off some of the splats on the windscreen as I had problems trying to see the road. DO NOT PUT YOUR WIPERS ON as this just smudges it and then you end up driving blind. On one section of the road it was a game between the butterflies, myself and 2 new contenders; Swallows and huge black Beetles. I kept hitting butterflies and smacked a few of these beetles, which sounded like a stone hitting the vehicle – just glad none hit and shattered the windscreen. The Swallows were all over the place but thank goodness I didn’t hit any of them. About 3km from the border I spotted a gas station that got me some fuel and cleaned all the splats off the windscreen. Now that was a better drive through to the border post.

At the border post you have to stamp out of Botswana and into Namibia and here you see the advance in technology between the 2 countries and the money spent on the buildings. After filling in the forms and getting stamped to enter Namibia you need to go another building to pay and get a Border Pass for the vehicle. Any vehicle that doesn’t have Namibian plates needs this pass and if a Namibian policeman pulls you over you end up with a fine or … (the rest of this comes later on).

Into Namibia…

Time for a refreshment as Namibia is a very hot place to be in so I stopped at the East Gate shop just inside Namibia to get some Energy drinks and water. Coming up to the till got me wondering how I’m going to pay for all this when I don’t have Namibian Dollars, only SA Rand and Botswana Pula. It seems that Namibia’s currencies is on par with the SA currency and this means that they accept SA Rand on a 1:1. This is cool as it saves you time trying to exchange currencies. Well, paid for my stuff and hit the highway heat.

It is a long drive from the border post until civilization in Gobabis. Here I spent a few minutes getting a Wimpy burger and Smoothie and then decided to clean the butterflies from the radiator of the Camper Van after realizing along the way that the engine temperature was going up a bit. This clean helped as the temperature dropped down below 90, much better so I don’t get stuck next to the road with an overheated engine.

Got pulled over at a mandatory Police check point (many of these) and had to produce the Border Pass (the best part of the border pass comes much later) along with Passport and Drivers License. Had a cool chat with the police as they have seen many Camper Vans through that region and found them interesting.

It was a peaceful journey to Windhoek. Driving the flat land until 5km from Windhoek where you go through a winding road in the mountains.

Windhoek is rather big and may seem over powering but get to the B1 North highway and you’re set to get out of the city easily. I made my way along the B1 North as I was going to one of the Wicked Backpacker connections in Khorixas. I did hit another mandatory Police check point but was just waved through.

The GPS messed with me again, wanting to take me onto dirt roads but after stopping at Otjiwarongo and asking around found that it was a ‘quick’ easy drive on to Khorixas. ‘Quick’ drive here is anything under 200km distance, for me this was a hard push through. The landscape changes from mountainous to flat and arid.

Finally at 22H00 I got to Khorixas and made my way straight to IGowati Country Hotel to chill out for the night. I met up with another Camper Van couple and they were so accommodating that because they knew I was arriving late, they made me supper and a cool natural minty tea – still want to know what the plant was for this tea. Not an aphrodisiac or drug, but seemed to relax me mentally and gave me that minty breath. Hit the sack at 23H30 feeling better.

At 8H30 the next morning had to say bye and thanks to the other Camper van couple as they were on their way to Swakopmund to see the dunes and sea.

I went and had breakfast and saw the Buck and Ostrich located on the property of the hotel. Also got some photos of a Peacock having breakfast off of the Camper van – eating the bugs I collected on the previous nights drive through. Took a walk through the town to the Namibian Varsity (about 1km) to make use of their internet to contact my family, only cost R10 an hour and the internet speed is rather fast.

After getting back to the campsite, I made sure that the area around the Camper van was clean before going for a quick shower. After the refreshing shower I was ready for a long days drive South. I made my way back to Windhoek the same way and saw the landscape I missed the previous night, awesome. No matter if the landscape is mountainous, rocky, a forest or arid, it is all an awesome site.

Remember I mentioned earlier about the Border Pass, well getting through the mandatory Police check point on my way back into Windhoek became problematic this time round. The policeman recognized the vehicle and asked to see my Border Pass. I couldn’t find it, oh boy. I was told that I had to go to the office and pay an “onsite fine”, R1500 which I didn’t have. I only had enough to get me back to SA with fuel and food. This dude obviously thought I had lots of money, but luckily I only had R600 in the note section of my wallet – the rest I hid away on me, in case. Well this was the ‘in case’. The policeman’s eyes were fixed on my wallet when I opened it up and asked for something to ‘work this out’. I didn’t have much option but to give in to his demands to pay him off. So I ended up paying R500 to get through and hoped the other Camper van couple still had their Border Pass. NOTE: Make sure you keep all papers given to you by Government officials – you never know when you’ll need to produce these.

Rather cheesed off but still on a high to finish my travels I headed through Windhoek south. It was 15H00 and I had about 4 hours daylight left and tonight I wanted to chill out with a better eat and longer sleep. I tried to go into the Heroes Acre in Windhoek but this closed for renovations.

Along the way I spotted a huge Baboon trying to cross the highway. I just hoped it did cross before or after the truck behind me and not at the same time. I also spotted a herd of Springbuck right next to the fence along the highway, just with the truck on my backside I couldn’t stop so suddenly so I couldn’t get a few photos.

After 3 ½ hours driving I was eagerly looking for a place to overnight. Of all the places along the route they were over 5km off the highway, I needed one literally on the side of the road. I was sms’ing back and forth with my wife at home to find places in the area on the internet and let me know, but all the ones she found were those I didn’t want to go to. I eventually hit a board (not literally) saying Koha Guesthouse 3km – now this looked promising. I took the turnoff and had to travel about 3km on a very decent dirt road and came to Koha Guesthouse. WOW is all I can say. Although it was dark the sunset lit the place up like a candle lit dinner would. Made contact with the manager and afterwards drove into town (Marienthal) to get something to eat at Wimpy and get a Bug Repellant. From Koha to Wimpy (next to the highway) it is 3km off highway and 5km along highway into town – 7km is not bad at all.

Got back to Koha with my supper and parked in the camp bay. I dived straight into my food and then whipped out a camp chair and drank my coffee with a very unhealthy smoke. After chilling out I went straight to the shower which was so refreshing and clean I had to force myself to get out, especially since I was steaming up the place. I had a nice refreshing walk to the Camper and walked around to take in the night sites before turning in. I made a mistake to put the light on inside the Camper and keep the door open, as this attracted all the little moths and bugs and even a few mozis who were after my blood. I hurriedly put the light off and waited a few seconds before closing the door, then I put the light back on. Anywhere you are in Namibia requires opening a window to get a little breeze into the Camper or you end up sweating. So I flipped open the side windows and got the breeze as well as a few mozis. Immediately I whipped out the mozi stick and put it all over me and also left it open by the open window, which seemed to work like a charm, as through the night I had a mozi flying around in the Camper but never got bitten.

The next morning I felt so refreshed and the daylight showed me the awesome beauty of Koha. The campsites are well laid out with electricity boxes by each stand, which is not required for a Camper but useful for other people that don’t have the luxuries of the Camper van. Even the rooms in the guesthouse are a sight to behold. They also have a game farm where they are starting to build campsites on. So for the future visitors to here, you’ll be able to experience so much more than I did – but I will make a plan to go check this out someday. I even saw 2 campers staying there that were studying termites, mmmm, not my cup ‘o tea.

After saying my goodbyes I was back on the road. It ended up being a rather long trip to the eastern border post back to SA. Even though you can use Rand in Namibia, try and make sure you use all your Namibian Dollars before going into SA, as Namibian Dollars can’t be used in SA. So just before the border you’ll find a gas station with a shop – Use your Namibian Dollars to fill up on fuel here and buy some drinks and snacks for the road.

Getting through the Namibian border control was easy and I became a little concerned after going through the gate that I couldn’t see the SA border control, that I may have missed a building as the 2 border control points are normally right by each other, within walking distance. I drove about 5km through mountains and passes and eventually saw the SA border control post, now I felt at ease.

During the drive between the control posts the mountains change dramatically. From your standard vegetation to black rock mountains. Seriously, these black rock mountains are made of small to huge round black rocks. There is even a section that I coined ‘the Black Rock Gate’ where these mountains come to the road on either side, giving the feeling that you’re driving through a gate. No matter how boring you may find the drive, there is always something that makes you gasp in awe.

Back into SA…

[five-star-rating]