Karl found South-Africa.....

(RIP) maverick

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howzit guys and gals.

if you is interested (probably not but im gonna tell you anyway) me n 'er av
finally reched capetown. and what a wierd feeling it is. more of that later.

id ordered parts for mave when i arrived in windhoek, and a week later they
still hadnt turned up, they were still in sa, waiting for a strike to
finish. being a bit hacked of and having done most things to be done in
windy (even frquenting the odd nightclub!) i decided to risk it and head to
capetown and get parts there. thats if i made it.

had my third puncture the morning i left. i love tubeless tyres now.

anyway, left windhoek 7th july and headed south (kinda), via as many twisty
roads and mountain passes as possible. one being the steepest road in
namibia. it was pretty steep i can tell you, great views accross the plains
with blue misty mountains in the destence. was singing led zeppelin loudly
to myself the rest of the day. not a pleasent sound i can tell you!

saw somw clouds today. first in e long time. quite warm during the day, mid
to high 20s, but cold (5) in the mornings.

headed south west from windhoek towards the sanddunes at sossussvlei and
sessriem. incredably pretty. the road from the visitors center and campsite
winds it way through the dunes themselves, huge red coppery things (i
thought they were big hills at first, covered in grass some of them) that
look like they should have a multitude of of giant spaceships docked in
between them as they curve in and out away from the roadside. sossussvlie
itself was cool (if a tad windy), and is basikly a dried up pond, all white
with that amazing deep cracked mud kinda feel. this perfectly flat pan is
surrounded by flourescent green vegitation and more high sand dunes to
climb. climbed the nearest and sat at the top, on the sharp edge with sand
blowing off the top in that steriotypical 'sahara' look. copper dunes as far
as the eye could see.

which came first, the tin or the tin oppener?

fromthere headed down to luderitz on the coast via duwsib castle. this is a
red sandstone castle built by a german guy in the early 1900s, and looks a
tad out of place in the middle of the desert. the intereior has some period
furniture, including some chairs left in the lobby with a hand written note
on them saying 'property of king phillip os spain,1525'! luderitz is a
small german style port daan near the orange river and has some cool art
deco buildings. also neerby is kolmanskop, a deserted mining village (lots
of diamonds round ere, no mining at the mo, but still prohibited land). this
is a wierd 1950s town literally being swamped with sand dunes, you can climb
in and out of the buildings and theres a museum there too. one of the few
times ive thought about a camera. very eerie and the most touristy thing ive
been tom so far, loads of cars and tour busses and the usuall interest in
mavis. its fun whaching all the people milling round, looking at mi map and
the trip and trying to work out where shes from.

then hedid further south to fish river canyon, kinde like the grand canyon
but without the grand. still pretty spectacular views, basicly a flat plain
with a huge gouge out of it that gets narrower as you descend. small amount
of water in the bottom. starting to see loads of sa 4x4s and 'bakkies' (cos
you put stuff in the back? help me out on this one all you sa types) which
are basickly pick up trucks on steroids, usually with hard tops on the tail
and rammed with camping stuff.

got robbed for the first time in the campsite at fish river - by a baboon!
huge grey thing nicked a bag full of food. git. but his teath were bigger
than mine so i let him go.....

namib/sa border so easy it made me smile (your visa has a barcode on it),
and headed straight down towards capetown to collect mi thoughts n get mave
ship shape for the trip back (well, as far as kenya, the plan was to ship
from there). was sad to say bye to namib and it was wierd to be in sa. my
thoughts wer all confused, at this point i could either go home or try drive
back up the other side, but i felt so sad that this could be the end that i
decided to sort mave out and head back up the east side, as far as kenya
anyway. thats if i could extend mi carnet....


so, capetown. hard work driving round looking for accomodation, they have
three lane dual carridgeways and traffic lights. gulp. after weeks of being
the only thing on the road, it came as a bit of a shock to be the slowest
thing on the road. bumbed into peter (without his descovery) and after
trying to find a cheaper place to stay headed for the backpackers he was
staying at. (65 rand a night [about 5 quid], sound cheep, but compared to 30
or free its a bit expensive. oh well it was nice.) stayed in cape town for
two weeks. nice place, just like home. full of whities and posh shopping
centres near the harbour. quite small so could walk everywhere. first job
was to fing bmw place and found a cracker. they let me park mave in the
workshop (got some funny looks from all the smart car salesmen everytime i
came in with all mi scruff gear on) and i did most of the easy stuf,
dissasemply and putting things together again afterwards. also did general
service work whilst i was there and changed tyres. couldnt get hold of a
starter, but a lokal auto electricien had a second hand one which cost about
a tenth of the price of a nu one. little indian guy was the mechanic and so
he stripped my gearbox, (breaking his flange remooving tool in the process -
no wonder i couldnt get it off in cameroon, it had welded itself on! ooooh.)
replaced all the bearings and springs (one was just about to snap in half -
not good) seals etc. all this becouse one of the oil seals was crap so the
gearbox oil level had been up and down like the assyrian empire. i replaced
all the damages gaiters etc and also the susp mounting bolt on the bevel box
(it had bent!!!). also got thre shock serviced and supposidly a stiffer
progressive spring put on. actally works very well. so far. also mor
welding, as usuall...

also done the torist stuff. climbed table mointain (no chair lift for me) 1
1/2 hours up 1 down. great views from the top of capetown and the cape point
and surrounding areas. couple of crap weather days and far to many nights
out, my finances took a beating. too many people arround to say 'fancy a
drink', and you know me always polite. some good bars and clubs too. also
did the trip of museums (art gallery and planetarium best ive seen for a
long while) and a lomg time in the aquqrium, huge tanks of shark and kelp as
well as the usuall stuff. took a trip to robben island (nelson mandelas
prison) and had a tour by one of the ex prisoners. was a bit strange, there
was no way you could undersatend what these peploe went through and i felt
very uncomfortable as he talked and people giggled and wispered atr the same
time. very informative and glad i went. seals playing in the harbour. the
parliament part of cape town has buildings same kind of desighn as london so
felt quite like home. finally got round to seeing johnny english. very good
i thought, but then im biased.... bumped inti ed again, then he disapeared
off to australia for a while. once mave was up n running again went down to
cape point and cape of good hope for test ride. very bleak but impressive.
too many tourists tacking pointless photos though... and baboons....
descovered a pub thet sels speckled hen. ahh bliss. best bit about cape town
is the unfinished freeway flyover. just like in speed, the huge curving
concrete road structure just stops dead in midair overe the road junction.
cool.

finally got used to the sun going the wrong way, seems natural now. ok, so i
know it is natural but it was just so wierd. some great stargazing nights.

must have reached civilisation, keep getting (very strong) wiffs of
deoderent and perfume. uuuurghh.

mave missing on one cylinder, traced it to a dodgy connection on the spark
plug lead so replaced. all funky now.

whilst at the sa museum ( had to go twice, not enough time to see it all) i
came accross the candidate for 'gods stupidest design awward'. it was a
dolphin (cant remember what type), but it hes two enourmous flet teath
growing out of it bottom jaw near the back. but these teeth are so long and
curved that they reach over the top of the dolphins nose stopping it opening
its mouth more that 3 in. doh.

finally draged myself away from capetown a nd headed down the coast to
hermanus. spent a day whaching the wales in the harbour (suthern right
wales). cold and wet, started to wear mi waterproofs and winter woolies.
brrrrr. hermanus has a railway station, but no railway. hmmmm. after here
next stop gansbaii and out in a small boat to whach the sharkies. spent a
gloriosly sunny morning whaching guys pour mashed up pilcherds in the see
and wiggle around a piece of plastic that was supposed to present a baby
seal. saw 5 sharks in the end, all 4m plus. most appeared from the murky
deapths, swam arroind the boat and chased the decoy, blending back into the
deep once they relise theres nothing to be had. but the first one did the
bursting out of the water thing, right below the decoy, just as the skippers
giving the 'sharks tend to stay below the surface' speack. cool.

'its a damb poor mind that can only spell a word one way.'

heded away from the coast towards the karoo dessert, over some groovy narrow
mountain passes, starting to get cold and wet. average around 10'c during
the day, even had rain and small snow on the mountain tops. mave absolutely
plastered with mud, looks like ive just been through the congo! the further
away from capetown i go themore 'african' its geting, more 'blacks' and a
lot more relaxed and back to animals and people on the roads. all the
churches look like theyve just escaped from trumpton. so far gone the wrong
way more times in sa than any country so far, too many roads, a lot of which
are still dirt. those that are tarred are verry good though. the countryside
round these parts is very confused. you can see an awfull lot of the rock
layers in the strata thet form the hills and vallys, but sometimes the lines
run horizontal, sometimes vertical, sometimes making huge arches and any
combination of the above right next to each other. amazing combination of
ochres, greys and patterns.

stopped in a lotle town called nieu-bethesda and had another 'i could live
here' moment. very small town (as in about 3 streets) set out in the middle
of the hills and mountains, surrounded by fun dirt roads, very peacfull and
kinda what you imagine the atmosphere in old towns in the wild west to be
like, but with whitwashed buildings made of concrete with fancy gable ends.
theres also a house that used to occupied by an old woman artist back in the
60's/70's. she was a bit eccentric and decorated her house in really mad
colours with ground up glass glued on all the walls and a garden filled with
concrete sculptures, mainly owls camels and people. most of these
incorporated whole or part glass botles in a miriad of colours. all very
cool and surreal out in the middle of nowhere. as with a lot of places the
whities live in the village itself occupying all the large old africaans
buildings and the blacks live in garege sized wimpy style houses set in
regimented rows, outside the village centre. theyve got huge fat wooly sheep
here with the beafiest curly hons ive ever seen.

actually found a nature reserve i could go in on the bike (most dont let
you) in a place called graff rienert (no predators you see), so i thought id
give it a try. only small but some funky animals, but a bit scary when you
spook a herd of black wildebeast (have you seen the size of their horns!!!!)
so they start running allong side you by the road, suddenly cutting in front
of you and trailing huge clouds of dust. all good fun but i was a litle
worried for mi safty so left pretty sharpish like.

more hills and mountains to follow (still cold n wet) and another 'live
here' kinda place called hogsback and the grooviest backpackers so far. sat
on the top of a long mountain ridge, with views overe the rainforest on the
sloaps leading up to the lodge and the scattered houses of the locals in the
distant vallys. the backpackers has its own tree house, climbing wall, huge
log fire and lots of ground to explore. as i was standing whaching the sun
set the clouds mooved in round the ridge slowlyy covering everything in a
thick mist. nearly fell down the cliff trying to find my way back to mi
tent. chuffin cold at night though 0'c. brrrrr.

the more east i go the more like africa things are becomming. more and
more tradituional villages (usually little roung thatched huts some painted
tourquise, spread out so you get the impression the whole countryside is
covered in houses, all with large spaces inbetween so theyre speread out
quite evenly as fer as you can see.) also back to car wreacks, water pumps,
people waiting for lifts at the side of the road, and the river being used
as the lokal car wash.

back towards the coast and to port st johns, down into rainforest (you could
smell it first) and stayed in a teepee for the first time. leeked a bit when
it rained though. sat and whached telly for the first time in ages, well
tried to but the rain kept tripping the electricity. that is, from the power
station, not the lodge! some groovy roads roud here, some really smmooth
tarmack, others fairly good dirt, but all winding round the rolling green
hills, up and down like a rollercoster. decided i like riding in three
dimensions, its the ups and downs that are as much fun as the left and
rights. stooped for a wee wee and had a chat (well he spoke no english and i
spoke no zulu, so make of it what you will) with an old guy on horseback
seting off to round up his cows or something. i was quite jelouse as he
trotted off accross the hillside leting the horse choose the easiest
straightest linr to his destination.

as soon as i crossed fron transkie into kwazulu-natal white people
suddenly appeared everywhere (most dont travel thrrough transkie and a lot
of people told me to be carefull there, but it was (to me) no worse than
anywhere else in sa and ive come to the conclusion africaans are a touch
paranoid, but then i should have twigged this earlier by all the huge guard
dog, electric fences and barbed wire. and thats just the private houses.
lots of people ask a bout my travels when stopping at service stations,
foodstalls etc.

passed through kokstad and headed to the sani pass which leads up to lesotho
through the drakensberg mountains. took a while to climb the increadably
muddy windy narrow etc etc pass(2873m at the summit), had to wait naer the
top for the ice to melt on one particularly narrow, tight gravelly bend. had
fun whaching the local tixi drivers doing involountry 3 point turns as they
slid down towards the sheer drop at the side. a few people gave up, parked
there cars and walked to the top. this should have kinda given me some
warning what it was gonna be like in leshoto propper - i spent a grand
total of 3 hours in lesotho, there was too much snow and i kept falling off.
the ice underneath made it hard to get going too. i thing i must have been a
bit desperate cos at one point i had 2 huge eagles circling close over head,
with that 'is it dead yet?' kinda attitude. so in the end we gave up and
retretaed back down into sa with our tails between our legs. even at the
botom of the mountain it was -5'c first thing in the morning, so god knows
what it would have been like in lesotho (it is the country with the highest
average height in the world).

wonder whether it would be possible to space hopper round africa?

well, still got more to right, but thought id send this litle dity to all
you luverly folk to keep you amused in the meen time. so untill some time
soon, toodleoo....

K.
 


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