Day 72-79: Windhoek to Maun

December 13, 2024 to December 20, 2024

Kalahari

This has been a bit over a week, but we’ll summarise:

Flat. 2 m high shrubs on both sides of the road. Relatively straight. Sandy Kalahari to the left and right. Thank goodness the road is tar – this would be a nightmare on the sand.

Kids, waiting for a handout.outsode the supermarket

Leaving Windhoek was a bit of a climb (up to a bit over 1800m). Since then, it’s been all downhill – but only slightly. It looks like the road is constantly slightly climbing, but the GPS and map tells us that’s an illusion. It’s been a while since we’ve gone quite so far on such flat roads.

There hasn’t been a lot of things to see or do along the road – just long stretches between low density settlements. We took the opportunity to stop when we found a pleasant place (which means friendly people and a water supply). Sleeping spots have included (in order of pleasantness): a donga outside a copper mine, a campsite in Ghanzi, a police road block, a boarding school, a farm supply depot, a mobile phone tower and a hotel in Gobabis.

Campsite in Ghanzi care of a couple of generous South Africans (again)

Disappointed to wake to a puncture in the morning

Donga with aircon care of Llewellyn, a plant mechanic from the Copper mine who offered us accommodation after seeing us in a nearby restaurant and hearing we were planning to camp in the carpark

The hotel was a disappointment. Not only was it the only place we had to pay for, but we got the worst sleep after needing to change rooms after midnight when we discovered bed bugs crawling around (bit of a shame, and not representative of most places we’d been in Africa so far!).

The mobile phone tower was also an interesting night. It had been a pretty hot day. Mid-30’s at least – which means it was much hotter in the sun on the asphalt road. The mobile phone network in Botswana is pretty good, so there are plenty of phone towers. We knew this one had a security guard and water, and they might let us camp. And they did. We also found a small farm: chickens, ducks, dogs, etc. And several security and friends that came and went. This was fine. We had food and water. And they let us camp on a concrete pad. Sounded perfect. Maybe not perfect… Just like Cath, the poor communication equipment was really struggling in the heat. Either the door was open and all the fans running at full speed, or the door was closed and the generator running to run a pitiful air con. Either way we had a sonic barrage all night. But even better was to come from the concrete. The pad had soaked up quite a bit of heat during the day, and we had the equivalent of an electric blanket running all night under the sleeping pads. To add to the excitement, a storm came through. So one of us was up and down most of the night – putting the fly on to keep some of the rain out of the tent, then taking it off again to allow a few whisps of breeze through the tent to take away some of the heat. Challenging night!

We’ve had a few changes in road conditions. One big one at the border between Namibia and Botswana. The road in Namibia was fenced on both sides. Grass cut short on both sides with some trees dotted along – it looks a little like an endless driveway to a manor house. Immediately after the border, the fences disappeared, and goats, cows, horses, donkeys, sheep started roaming along the road. Some sections in Botswana are fenced, but the livestock are everywhere – at least until Maun. I figure if there are sheep and goats, there probably aren’t lions, so happy with that. No elephant yet. But it’s also very dry – the wet season is late and just arriving.

We’ve only copped a couple of wet season storms. The ones with horizontal rain that dump inches at a time. Luckily it has only rained a few times while we’re cycling – only once while trying to fix a puncture in the sand 😊

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