After three days on the Bosua pass road I was fairly broken.
Travelling any distance on a dirt road is pretty tough. I like a nice
day out on the mountain bikes, but that's usually well under 40km and
on unladen bikes, Friday's 141km was pretty hard. So I decided to take
Saturday off to eat (lots) catch up on internetting (as you may have
noticed) and sort out important things I should have done earlier,
like flights home for instance!
As you know I stupidly wasn't actually aware it was a Saturday and
spent most of the morning sitting in a cafe writing the blog,
blissfully unaware everything was about to close down at lunchtime
(we're not in London now). I need to thank all of you who responded to
my request for open Internet locations. I was eventually once again
saved by Puccini house (which is next door to Pension Cori, where I
was staying) they let me buy some Internet cards and get on the WiFi
to send all the posting I'd written in the desert. My brother Rob was
also a star and helped me book my tickets back from Maputo (guess this
means I kinda gotta get there now eh?)
The girl running Pension Cori (Anne-Marie) very kindly arranged a
breakfast for me for the following morning so I could head off at the
crack of dawn... I then proceeded to oversleep (I'd forgotten to set
my alarm) and ended up not leaving till about 9am! Thanks anyway Anne-
Marie you looked after me well.
So the powerful one and I finally, but rather tardily hit the road to
Witvlei. On tarmac! Wonderful! It's a bit of a climb back out of
Windhoek, but on tarmac that's fine. I no longer have to concentrate
on the road but can take in the views. It was great.
The first major obstacle of the day was more psychological than
anything else. Passing the airport. As you know from previous posts
this is my second visit to Namibia and though I've mostly been to
completely different places this time I have been in the same general
area that Hannah and I visited. So there've been a lot of memories.
When we visited we came in through the airport of course so passing
beyond this point was new territory for me and I found it quite
tough. Hopefully things will get a little easier on the new roads.
The day was going well. The distances were speeding by. I was loving
the Tarmac. I saw lots of Hornbills, yellow-billed I believe (I forgot
to put them in the beasties post) and loads of Wharthogs and pigglets,
who didn't seem to mind the cars or massive lorries passing, but were
terrified whenever they saw me!
All was good until I stopped for a cool mid-afternoon drink at a
roadside bar. As usual people asked what I was doing, why I didn't
have a car, did I want a lift etc... I explained to the guy I was
talking to that I was headed to Witvlei (by now only 40km down the
road) Oh no! He said. There is nothing there. It is a rural place. You
must go on to Gobabis... another 60km further! That meant I still had
100km to go and about three hours daylight left (not nearly enough). I
wasn't sure what to do, but thought it best to at least get peddaling
whilst I pondered the situation. Camping is only really an option if
you can stop before dark. So I'd need built accomodation, but had no
numbers for places to stay in Gobabis. My sister Lizzy put in a
stirling effort once more finding some numbers via the Internet
(though the maps say I'm supposed to have 3G on a lot of this road
I've been completely unable to do anything other than telephone or
text) I was now nearly riding into Witvlei. It was just past five. The
sun probably had half an hour till it slipped below the horizon behind
me. I really didn't want to do that extra 60km. Especially in the dark
with the massive lorries on this road.
As I sped in to Witvlei it appeared my friend at the bar was indeed
correct. The biggest buliding I could see was a biltong factory, other
than this all the buildings were very small, the main local transport
appeared to be horse and cart (unless you count the big lorries
thundering downthe main road). Much as I didn't want to I thought I'd
best get ringing Gobabis.
...then salvation! I spotted a great looking place called Ziegie's
rest camp, rooms, camping, overlanders welcome Sounded great. And it
was. The owner Jan came out and offered me camping or a room, the
90minute 40km sprint had finished me... a room please!
So after expecting a terrifying few hours dodging lorries in the dark
instead I ended up spending the evening sitting at Ziegie's bar
chatting with Jan and the ony two other guests, CJ and Tarryn. Jan was
an amazing person, he was on a five year sort of downsizing plan
running the place. He'd been a circus elephant trainer, been in the
army on the Angolan border an extra in loads of films, worked as a
Trans-Atlantic coffee trader and spent quite some time travelling
around Africa in a unimob lorry he'd kitted out himself. Tarryn and CJ
were zoologists from Pretoria researching the contribution bushmeat
has to the Namibian economy (mostly through biltong I believe) and are
off to the Khomas in a few days to interview farmers over there. I
asked them to think of me if they ever decided to tackle the Bosua pass.
A great evening. Things like this were why I came.
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