Section 02. North East Nambia

Day 026. 04 June. Tsumkwe to Qangwa. 78 km. 7 hours. 90m up. 180m down. Despite the lazy day yesterday I slept well. I had a good breakfast from the buffet as I did not know where my next meal was coming from. Then I paid the extremely helpful manager called Nelson and left around 1000. I did not know how far I would get today but wanted to get to the Border at Dobe anyway and perhaps beyond. I cycled back 2 km into town and the T junction at the petrol station. There was a small section of tarmac in the town, presumably to keep the dust down and it was now a novelty to cycle on it for the short kilometre. I passed the shop where I bought the noodles and the possible accommodation at the Y two K and then reached the gravel road and the edge of town. Before long I was in the bush again on the gravel road heading east.

I had gone about 5 km when a nice Dutch couple pulled up and chatted. They were returning to see a small bushman village they visited 30 years ago and were excited to rekindle acquaintances. We chatted for 10 minutes, exchanged details and then they headed off leaving me with the road to myself. The road itself was not too bad but I had to go from side to side to find the best bits. It was seldom sandy but quite washboarded in places. There was more and more elephant dung at the side of the road, but none of it was fresh.

It was about 50km to the border and it took me the best part of 4 hours. The bush constantly changed from quite thick and starting almost at the edge of the verge to more open, but never the parkland of the Afrikarner farms. I noticed there were mounds and small ridges beside the road. It could not have been natural as this land is ancient and eroded flat into a plain. There were either quarries where the gravel was sifted from the sandy soil to make the gravel road or it was the work of farmers making ponds to hold water for the dry season. However there was little sign of organized farming and most of it looked subsistence herding and without the foresight to build the earthen banks.

About 20 km from the border I reached a road sign alerting drivers to the presence of Elephants. As I cycled along here I was quite vigilant, but when the bush was thick any elephant would be virtually invisible even if it was 30 metres away. Most of the time though the bush was thin and the savannah stretched out for kilometres on each side and an elephant would have been quite visible. I was told the elephants try to avoid the roads during the day as they know there is traffic, but at dusk they move back towards the road and might cross it or walk along it in the dark. People advised me not to cycle in the dark along the next stretches. There were occasional cattle herders along this stretch but the villages were set back from the road and I did not see them.

After 4 hours I reached the border. It was a metal fence with an open gate. I went through but no one was about. I shouted and eventually 2 ladies beckoned me over to a long building. Neither were officials but one went off to get someone from some barrack style buildings. Eventually an immigration officer shuffled up and asked me a few questions. More out of curiosity with the bike. She then stamped my passport and returned to the barracks while I filled my water bottles. I cycled some 200 metres and reached the Botswana border where the gate was quite ramshackle. I went through and reached some new empty buildings and a small shed with a person dozing outside it. He ushered me over and led me into the shed and gave me one of the smallest forms I have ever seen. He then went off to get a police officer from a dusty compound and when he arrived gave my passport a perfunctory glance and stamped it. He asked me where I was staying in Botswana so I just said Maun and that satisfied him. Both border posts took a little over half an hour. Leaving the Botswana border post I passed some construction of a large compound and more new buildings and then was in the bush again.

The bush in Botswana seemed slightly more mature. The trees were bigger and there was lots of grass under it. The grass seemed slightly greener, or rather less parched. Interestingly there were the same earthworks beside the road in places. I cycled along the road which was not as bad as I feared, but quite potholed. The potholes were irrelevant for me but they did mean the very infrequent traffic went a bit slower and this meant the washboarding bumps were not so developed. There was definitely less maintenance here than on the Namibian side and the verges were virtually nonexistent. It meant that the elephants could now be 10 metres away rather than 30 as previously. There were a lot of cattle on the track returning back to their compounds after having spent a day foraging. The compounds were not farms but more like rustic homesteads with either round mud huts under thatch or corrugated shacks. They were all surrounded by a fence which was not substantial.

I cycled for about 2 hours and reached a village called Qangwa. I thought I could just camp in the grounds of the primary school but on reaching it I saw the area was quite busy. There could be no stealth camping here. I asked a couple of people about somewhere to stay and neither were helpful. In fact one, a plump lady, asked for sweets and the other, a lean teenage girl asked for money. On both occasions I apologised and cycled off. It was a cultural shift from Namibia. Alternatively, and possibly charitably, it might have just been the few words of English they knew and it was a way of making conversation. I cycled slowly through the village noticing all the compounds. Most had a simple stick fence round them, an earthen yard, a square earthen building with a corrugated roof and a couple of round or square huts with a thatched roof. All had outside fire areas, often with seating.

On realizing I was leaving the village after cruising through it very slowly and see nothing I decided to be more assertive with myself. I did not want to camp beside the road if I didn’t have to. So when I passed one nice yard with a couple of well kept mud brick and plaster houses in it I decided to cycle up to it. The kids playing in the yard came to greet me and then a young man appeared. I asked him if I could camp there pointing to a sandy bit under a tree and he said sure. Then his father appeared and he spoke good English. His name was Sno and he had a warm face with entrenched smile lines and good teeth despite being in his late 40’s. He explained it was actually his sister’s place and she was away and his son was looking after it while he lived in the adjacent compound. His sister ran the bar I passed at the edge of the village and it looked inviting initially but then I considered drunks and what a persistent nuisance they can be.

They helped me put the tent up while the kids watched excitedly. I then chatted with Sno and his son. They were Tswana people as the whole village was. He explained it was still 120 km to Nakaneng but there were cattle herders every 10 or 20 kilometres and I could camp with them. He warned me that water could be an issue as the herders had very dubious water. Once the sun started to set I had my dinner of a tin of Chakalaka, 2 packets of biltong and a tin of peaches. It was perfectly adequate and little fuss. As I finished the kids were still playing around the yard and adjacent areas. The girls were all teaching each other different dance moves. As the sun set fires were lit in all the compounds for the evening meals. I was ready for my tent as darkness arrived and went in and wrote up the day’s blog. It had been a good day and I was especially pleased to have found a socially interesting place to camp – warm hearted, easy going and down to earth – African through and through. Around 2000 the compounds fell silent as everyone went indoors and there was just the gentle clunking of goats bells to lull me to sleep.

Day 025. 03 June. Tsumkwe Rest Day. 0 km. 0 hours. 0m up. 0m down. I still had a few very small chores to do which would take a couple of hours. They were mostly digital and admin tasks and in the end I completed them by midday. I then went to see James Suzman, the Anthropologist and Author, and have a coffee with him. However he was still battling with his stomach and despite having tried all the remedies it was not improving so he was setting off for Windhoek for some professional advice.

It meant I had plenty of time to kill, which has been a rare luxury in the last month. I cycled into town and it was a joy to cycle with an empty bike. There were 3 “supermarkets” in town. The first was closed but the other 2 were open. I went into both just out of curiosity. They were catering for the local family who wanted the basics in life and staples. There were large sacks of maize meal and maize porridge, large sacks of sugar, bags of salt, bottles of cooking oil and various soaps and detergents. Both shops were pretty much the same but one had noodles and the other did not. That was what I really wanted as I could eat them cold with biltong added to beef it up. I bought a couple of tins too for the evening meals over the next 3 days to Nokaneng in Botswana.

I checked out the petrol station also. It was the hub of the town and there were benches there with people waiting for pick ups to stop and take them up and down the C44 road. The shop here was very empty and just had cold drinks and crisps for the drivers. There were a few 4×4 pickups and jeeps, filling up with kharki-clad white tourists drivers, before heading off into Khaudum Park or back to Grootfontein.

On the way back to the Tsumkwe Lodge I checked out the community guesthouse but it was closed, with the gate closed and the yard full of weeds. It was obviously redundant. There were also the magistrates courts, the police station and a very well kept house with a green lawn and big gates which stood out against the dusty backdrop.

I got back to the lodge at 1500 and could just relax with nothing to do. I had a siesta and then sat on the porch watching the cows come and go from the dried up waterhole. I felt ready to move on to Dobe tomorrow on what would be my last day in Namibia after nearly a month. I really enjoyed Namibia. It had been a fantastic country to cycle through and despite the huge landscapes and straight roads quite varied too. The next stretch is NW Botswana from the border tomorrow evening to the tourist town of Maun. On this section I am sure to run into some elephants which will spice the long flat sections up somewhat.

Day 024. 02 June. Tsumkwe Rest Day. 0 km. 0 hours. 0m up. 0m down. It was great to have a rest day here but I got up early to meet the Canadians before they left. After a good breakfast I washed my clothes, which was not a huge pile. I then wrote the blog which pretty much took the rest of the day. I had fallen behind for a few days since leaving Grootfontein and it took me the best part of 6-7 hours to catch up. I did not mind as it gave my legs a chance to rest.

I was frustrated by my Whatsapp account which suddenly stopped working, saying it was blocking any more access to it as I was spamming too much. After I asked for a review, Whatsapp said that there had been a mistake. However, I could now not log back on with my UK number and had to give my Namibian number and it deleted me from all “group chats”. It has been about 28 days since my UK sim card was last used and I know some apps like Spotify log you out after 28 days without connection and you can’t use it until you have a connection again. A few of my South Pole compatriots found out last year with Spotify and a Garmin app. I also found out that the Tsumkwe Lodge’s wifi to be as bad as useless. It was not the staff’s fault who were very professional and competent. In the end I got there through the erratic mobile phone signal but it was a fraught experience. However all in all the lodge was a nice place to spend a day recuperating and getting up to date.

After my meal in the thatched dining room in the evening I was walking back to my cabin when someone in the adjacent cabin called me over. He sounded like he was from the UK and he was. He wanted to meet the cyclist. It transpired he was called James also. As we chatted I asked him what he did. He was an Anthropologist and had been working in this neck of the woods for 30 years. That was a nice coincidence as I studied Anthropology at University also. I asked him where he studied and he said he did his PhD at Edinburgh in the mid 1990s. It was now a tremendous coincidence as I did a short-lived post graduate course at Edinburgh in the early 1990s. We were both taught by and greatly admired, Chuck Jedrej, who was both at Aberdeen University with me and then later moved to Edinburgh when I was there. We spoke of Chuck fondly and lamented he had died a decade later still relatively young. James assured me the road from the Botswana border at Dobe to the remnants of the tar road at Nokaneng, some 130 km, was not too bad for cycling and there were plenty of herding hamlets along the way. I might see elephants but there were no lions. At the same time I got a message from Steve, one of the Canadians and the cyclist amongst them, to say the same thing. It was music to my ears and could have been so much worse. Unfortunately James the Anthropologist was under the weather with a severe stomach infection so we did not chat long but we were both here tomorrow as I needed another rest day and he had a workshop here.

Day 023. 01 June. Luhebu to Tsumkwe. 89 km. 8.5 hours. 180m up. 240m down. I knew morning was coming when the stars started to disappear leaving just the brightest. Half an hour later there was a faint brightening in the east. It was cold though and the dew had even penetrated the mesh and condensed on the smoother surfaces inside the tent. I eventually got up at 0700 and quickly packed. My hands were cold but within half an hour the bike was loaded. No one was about so I just wheeled the bike out down the path and onto the road. I had already given Mrs Chakwanda $NAB 200 the evening before, knowing she would be the most responsible with the money. At the T junction by the shops there were already some men waiting for pick ups to travel somewhere or go to work. As I started down the road a donkey ran ahead of me continually stopping and then running off. Eventually it made it onto the verge after a kilometer and its fleeing was over.

For the first 15 kilometers the road was terrible and it took me well over 2 hours to do just 20 km. The surface was washboarded and there was sand everywhere. It was a very trying 20 km and I was disheartened about trying to do 85 km in these conditions. It was bad enough for me to stop and jettison the 3 litres of water to make it less stressful on the bike. After 20 km I stopped for breakfast and had a panful of granola and dried milk. It filled me up and was at least 1000 calories. I also had the last few of the delicious boerwurst sausages which Gerrit had given me 3 days ago.

After this the road improved and I could get up to 12-13 km per hour but I still had to weave from one side to the other to find the best route. Generally it was on the verges where the graded had smoothed it but the 4X4 had not driven. There was a vehicle passing me every 15 minutes or so as I went down the straight flat road. I could see them coming 5 kilometres away in a cloud of dust and then the headlights appeared. All morning the wind was against me as it had been for virtually all of Namibia except for the first day. It was as if the east wind was the prevailing wind here at this time of the year. Today it was so strong it was lifting clouds of dust into the air. It knocked a good 25% off my speed and felt like I was peddling uphill.

After nearly another 2 hours I reached a small rustic settlement with a perfunctory strongroom type shop. There were a few people sitting outside and I cycled up to them and parked. It certainly was a novelty for them. I bought some biscuits and had half and shared the other half around, and then cycled off and had my coke on my own a kilometre down the road.

The next 40 kilometres were on a surprisingly better road and the headwind had dropped slightly so I made better time. The scrub forest on each side was quite dull but the hornbills were still plentiful flying from tree top to treetop as I passed by. At one stage I saw some elephant dung and some large footsteps from the solitary animal as it went for a good kilometre along the road. I reckoned they were a week old.

I passed a few more villages set back in the bush from the road. The only way I knew they were there was because there were a few cattle on the road and occasionally people sitting under trees on the verge with bundles waiting for a lift somewhere. The bush looked dull and much of it looked like it had been burnt in a fire in the last 10 years but was now recovering. However, there were dense creeping vines over everything like camouflage netting in a battlezone and these vines seemed to have a suffocating effect on the regrowth of the scrub. I passed one large village called Apelpost where there was a primary school, and then an hour later was approaching Tsumkwe on the still not bad road.

Tsumkwe was essentially a large village rather than a small town. It had a petrol station and a couple of souvenir shops for the infrequent passing tourists who went to Khaudum National Park. I am sure there are shops but certain there is no supermarket. There were no lorries or supply trucks which passed me in the last 4 days and just one petrol tanker on the way back to Grootfontein. There was a community hostel here which looked like it might be good for backpackers, but as I cycled past it I could not see it and indeed it might be redundant now. I had my sights set on the Tsumkwe Lodge, which touted itself as a 3 star hotel. It was 2 kilometres to the south of the T junction on a rougher road.

The lodge had both individual huts and also a campsite for the 4X4 drivers on tour. I was given a hut overlooking a completely dried up watering hole, once designed to attract elephants but now just a barren area, which just the village goats occasionally frequented on their nomadic foraging. However the hut was nice and had a hot shower in it and two beds under a vast and decorative mosquito net which would have rivalled any exclusive Tatler or Conde Nast recommended safari camp. After a great shower I went to the thatched reception area for a meal. There I met 3 Canadians. who had been the only visitors to Khaudum that day. They were heading to Botswana on the road I hope to take after the border crossing, and we swapped Whatsapp’s numbers so they could give me a report on what was in store for me. I suspect it is not that pleasant for 130 km from the Border at Dobe to Nokaneng in Botswana. One of the Canadians was a hiker and a cyclist having done some great hikes in the US so I knew his info would be reliable. It was a shame I did not chat with them longer as they were great guys. I went to bed around 2030 and slept well at the end of my 300 km 4 day cycle from Grootfontein. I would have at least a day off in Tsumkwe, perhaps 2 to recover and prepare for the next stretch. Unfortunately the Nyae-Nyae lake which was still full of water after the last rainy season and was teeming with flamingos was just too far and rugged for me to visit as a day trip on the bike.

Day 022. 31 May. !Kung camp to Luhebu. 50 km. 5.5 hours. 200m up. 180m down. I had a great sleep on the sandy campsite but woke a few times with the cold penetrating my 2 season sleeping bag. It was perhaps 4-5 degrees outside but the sky was crystal clear and I could see it through the mesh of the inner tent as I was not using the flysheet. I got up at 0700 and packed up a bit. It was still cold and when Simson got up and made a fire for his family’s breakfast I went over to it and ate my granola. At breakfast Simson said he had a friend at Luhebu and I should stay there tonight. It was only 50 km away leaving me 90 to do the next day. His friend was not there but studying to be a nurse in Swahkopmund so he arranged it on the phone with his friend’s father, a man called Chakwanda, who was also a !Kung Bushman. I was worried about the lack of distance today but at the same time grateful for a place to camp. If it was anything like Simson’s quiet gentle place it would be a nice experience.

I set off at 0930 and returned to the main road. It was not in great condition with plenty of washboard bumps and the occasional sandy section. The road dropped into the Omatako valley twice and climbed up again, sometimes so steeply I had to walk as it was also sandy. On the second occasion there was a cross roads and the Omatako Rest Camp, which was my original place to stay the previous night. However the Omatako Rest Camp was busy with people looking for work and lifts and had I stayed here I would have been among some 50 people milling around waiting for pickups. I would have been the centre of attention. !Kung campsite was definitely the better option.

The next 45 km were quite ordinary really. There was bush on each side, but little in the way of farmland or even villages. The only thing that kept me company were the hornbills. There was also the occasional lilac breasted rollers with their striking blue iridescent plumage. Occasionally the road was good but by and large it was washboarded and sandy and often both. I was glad I was only doing 50 km of it as I could only do 10 km/p/h and even then I was feeling for my poor bike as it bounced over the ruts. After some 4 hours I passed a road going south which did a long 40 km loop to the south and back up via a hospital at Mangetti Dune to Luhebu. However, if I stayed on the bumpy C44 I would be there in 11 km so I knew I was closing in and to my joy the road improved a little. An hour later I reached Luhebu.

It was smaller than I thought and the two shops which Simson had described to me were just small concrete and stone houses with metal shutters and a door. I think they were more of a gathering and drinking house than a shop. I did not go in but asked one of the people outside where Chakwanda lived. He said he would take me there. It was 500 metres away on the loop road which went to Mangetti Dune and the hospital. En route we passed a few houses, mostly small round mud brick with thatched roofs and larger ones made of corrugated iron. We soon reached the turn off to Chakwanda’s, who I learnt was the pastor also. His compound was up 100 metres of sandy path.

The compound was 100 metres square with just two small square houses built of stick and mud, plastered between the sticks, both with a thatched roof. There was an outdoor place to pound maize into flour and a cooking place beside it. There was also a large trestle on which maize was piled high away from rodents and a new large plastic water tank fed from the village borehole. From the water tank a pipe led underground across the rest of the compound to a standpipe under a tree. It was a very simple set up but everything was there. As I arrived there was a discussion on the phone between Simson and Chakwanda’s wife. Both her and Chakwanda were in their 60s and spoke no English, but a son called Marten did and he was here. He said his brother and sister were both away working as nurses, but he lived nearby and did not work.

I was shown a place to pitch my tent in the shade of the other building, which I think was a store. The tent was up in a flash as the other helped me pitch it, understanding intuitively how it worked. Then Marten got two chairs and we sat in the shade and chatted while I drank the water from the standpipe which had cooled a bit as it travelled underground. We chatted for about 2-3 hours until the sun lowered and the temperature dropped.

Marten said his bushmen tribe had come down from Angola in the mists of history to join the other 4 Bushman tribes, due to unrest in Angola. They brought with them their house building style which was the square house we sat beside which was different to the other tribes in the area. We talked about their hunting and how they made poison from a caterpillar which they dipped their arrows into while other bushman tribes used a grub which was more lethal and quick bit meant some of the meat around the arrow entry wound had to be discarded. I was also fascinated by the snakes. He confirmed the one I saw crossing the road yesterday was a boomslang. He said the puff adders are very slow, but strike quickly. However when they bite it usually takes them 3-5 seconds to inject their venom and in that time you could pull them off. However he was fearful of black mambas and said when you see one “you move away very quickly”

It was great chatting to him while the rest of the family went about their late afternoon tasks. Mrs Chakwanda pounded maize and vegetable to make the evening dinner which was the white maize meal and a vegetable stew which gave the maize flavour. It looked like the staple and I am sure in time I would taste it. One brother went off to the shop come bar for the evening making his apologies. While his sister’s daughters played in the yard and field as they were about 10. Later on I heard some singing and it was them bringing the extended family’s donkeys back to the field having rounded them up. Their joy and happiness has been long forgotten but western 10 year olds, already absorbed by mindless tiktok videos. As the sun went down in its usual blaze of orange I went into the tent to write beside the small hut. It had been a fascinating day and enlightening to be with the gentle !Kung Bushman. This was the reason I came to Africa. I can return with a Landcruiser and stay in hotels when I am decrepit and dull.

Day 021. 30 May. Mooilaagte Farm to !Kung camp. 69 km. 8 hours. 290m up. 310m down. I was woken by the pit bull alarm clock. Some 4 or 5 dogs were near my tent barking at 0630. They were playful, having remembered me from the night before. I got up and dressed and started to pack up when Gerrit came over and offered me breakfast and coffee. I already had the breakfast I needed to eat later, but took the coffee and chatted with Gerrit and told him about some of my past adventures. I think he thought I was a kindred spirit as he was certainly adventurous in his hunting and business ventures. After the coffee Janneman gave me a huge bag of their homemade sausages, or boerwurst. We said our goodbyes and I headed off out of the gate onto the gravel road and headed east.

For the next hour I rode across the rest of Gerrit’s farm and game reserve. It was the best hours cycle of the trip so far as I passed herd after herd of game. Initially there was a large herd of about 50 sprinkbok. Even at a few hundred metres away they were nervous and ran off in a big arch crossing the road some 200 metres in front of me. Frequently one just leapt in the air as if they were trying to dodge a predator snapping at their heels. Once across the road they regrouped and then did the same again crossing the road for a second time. A bit further on I saw a large herd of wildebeest with again about 50 animals, including some big males. They also ran ahead and crossed the road. There were also other antelopes and I think they were waterbuck. There were about 20 of them. Then to cap it off I saw a herd of about 7 zebras. All these animals were part of the game on Gerrit’s land where they lived off good grazing and were predator free. For the game animals it must have been a perfect existence until their final seconds. For me it was like riding through one of the great East African National Parks with every thing very close. It was quite an enthralling cycle until I reached the edge of his farm and the cattle grid.

There was another 7-9 km to cycle on the good gravel road until I reached a crossroads. Most people had said don’t take the route to the north to the main gravel C44 road but continue straight ahead and then follow the D road round in about 17 km to continue north to meet the C44 there. I believed them but pretty soon found myself on sandy stretches – some a few hundred metres long. It was also quite hilly as the road kept dropping down to the dry Omatake river bed and then climbing over a spur to drop down again. This happened 3 times and often on the sandiest bits so I did wonder what the other road at the crossroads was like as this was hard work for 2 hours when I at last finished the 20 odd kilometres to the corner. There were a few Afrikarner looking farms along this stretch.

After the corner I veered north and the road was pristine. I was on the plain above the Omatake river valley and the surface was good. I was also perpendicular to the breeze so I coasted along at over 20 km/p/h. I saw a slender snake, light green with its head raised and about 1.5 metres long 20 metres ahead and veered across the road as I was sure it was a boomslang. I passed a couple more farms in the jungle-like bush at the side of the road and then reached the C44. It was not as bumpy as everyone made out and it took me just ½ an hour to reach the veterinary gate.

The veterinary gate crosses through a fixed barrier right across Northern Namibia. It was essentially a foot and mouth and other agricultural diseases barrier to protect the large organized cattle farms in the area I had been cycling for the last 3 weeks from the more local subsistence farming in the tribal areas where disease was more prevalent. It was allowed to take meat products through the fence the way I was going but not vice versa and it was all confiscated and burnt. It was a strict policy but Namibian beef is marketed as organic and foot and mouth free across the world and is a renowned quality product. I passed through the fence with some curiosity and interest.

On the other side of the fence I was suddenly in Africa proper. There were no white farmers, or towns hereafter. It was a sharp divide. I peddled for a few hundred metres to a rustic shop in bright colours and bought some cold water. I drank it on a rustic table among people cooking street food and thought about a place to stay. I thought about the road side, but this small village I was in called Rooidag, was busy with curious people. On the map I could see two places marked the !Kung bush camp in about 10 km and the Omatake Rest area in about 15 km and I set off towards them. The road was quite rough here with little maintenance, although I did see a grader parked at the gate. It had certainly not been here as the track was very bumpy and I felt for my bike. It took much longer than I hoped to cycle down the road and when I reached the simple sight for the !Kung bush camp I decided to check it out.

It was up a sandy track for 200 metres with a simple wire gate to open. Just beyond was a clearing and a stone house and small round thatched verandah area. There was a man here and I cycled up to him and we shook hands. His name was Simson. He was a Bushman and characteristically cheerful, shy, gentle and kind. He said I could camp anywhere on the red sand so I chose a spot in the shade of the biggest tree. Simson helped me put the tent up and in no time I was organized. He brought a chair and table and we started to chat. He spoke good English but in a soft tone which my deaf ears struggled to hear. Simson was educated locally but then he went to study in Kenya also. Behind the shed and the verandah was a rustic cabin where Simpson’s father and his family stayed. There were a few kids all with the brightest teeth and clear eyes.

I really felt I had stumbled across something quite special and it was exactly what I was hoping for. I chatted to Simson and his family for a couple of hours and was quite warmed by their gentleness and wisdom. At dinner time I went through to their yard where they boiled me some water for my noodles. I added some biltong to the 3 packs and felt quite full afterwards. The family sat on rustic wood benches and everyone was calm and respectful, even the 4-5 healthy children. I eventually left when the sun went down in a blaze of orange as usual and wrote a bit in my tent before falling asleep with the stars all visible through the mesh of the inner tent. I had not used the outer. I was quite delighted to have found this place which was as authentic as they come. I was now in Bushmanland although the town of Rooidag was dominated by Osivambo and Kavango Africans who had come down from the north of Namibia and settled here. However their influence should diminish as I head away from the gate and further east. It had been an incredibly varied day.

Day 020. 29 May. Grootfontein to Mooilaagte Farm. 87 km. 8 hours. 400m up. 720m down. Herman laid out a great buffet breakfast and I was finished by 0830. I then packed quite leisurely and eventually left at 0930. Quite late really because I only had a short way to go to Dornhugel. The first 16 km were on the M8 highway. It was not really too bad but there was a truck every 5 minutes or so, and cars more frequently. Some of the cars were going very fast. It was mostly downhill to the turn off with the D2844 gravel road and I was glad when I reached it well within the hour just after Kalkfontein. Initially this road was also tar for a few kilometres.

The tar road led to Berg Aukas which was a local village. There were signs here for youth employment and skills training but I did not see much sign of it. It was more a dusty village with perhaps 50 houses and many shacks. Nearly everyone I met on the road after Berg Aukas had a catapult but there were no birds left here. After Berg Aukas the road changed to gravel but it was quite smooth and easy to peddle along. The terrain was quite flat and it only took me 1 1?2 hours from Berg Aukas to reach Dornhugel where I hoped to stay. It was only 1230 but I could just sit around if I was too early. I pressed the gate button and cycled up the drive once it slid open. There was a family at the back but she went to get the manageress. Unfortunately they were closed as all the staff were on holiday today as it was also a national holiday. She filled my water bottles from the tap and then offered me a sandwich and coke to cushion the disappointment. It looked like a nice place and was owned by a couple in Germany. However the Afrikaner lady and her husband managed it year round and their kids lived here too. She suggested Fiume Bush Camp in another 30 km and then some 5 km off the main road up a track. I resigned to camp in about 4 hours around 1700.

As I headed east on the main road I saw some 5 ostriches in a field. I have never seen them before and did not realize how big they were. The cycle was quite fast and I was averaging 15 km/p/h on the flat road and smooth surface. There was a mix of Afrikarner farms and redistributed farms. The former were well maintained with fields of hay ready to harvest with parkland trees scattered in these fields. The farmhouses all looked idyllic surrounded by large trees and bougainvillea bushes. The latter looked very scruffy with bush running wild in the fields and the grass eaten down to the roots under this scrub. The houses were often shanties and their Brahman cattle looked thin. On a few of these redistributed farms there were some charcoal operations. Not quite industrial level but certainly more than a cottage industry. All the bush was cut down for this and anything bigger than an arm was transported back and fed into large ovens made of drums in which the wood was packed and sealed without oxygen and then charred by external flames. The kilometres flew by, but it was after 1700 when I reached a crossroads.

After the crossroads there were some large fields and hundreds of guinea fowl on the road. They flew off awkwardly as I approached. Then I came across a herd of sprinkbok in the field to the north of the road. The verges were wide and grassy here and good for camping on, so when I reached the Mooilaagte Farm I thought I would ask if I could camp. The request was relayed up from farm workers to domestic staff and then the lady of the house came out and said yes and pointed to a spot saying her husband would be back soon and would show me more. Pretty soon Gerrit Breedt arrived and came over. He was very welcoming and showed me a spot where I could camp. He said the house was full with American guests otherwise he would have given me the option of a room. I was a bit unnerved by the 6-7 dogs, many of which were pit bulls but Gerrit was a firm hand and they were soon in their place and tolerant of me. Gerrit said I should eat with them that night. I put the tent up and then went round to the braai and seating area.

Gerrit soon appeared and took me to see his trophy room. It was incredible. It was like the display hall of African mammals at the British Museum. Previously Gerrit had been in the police but he had always been a passionate and professional hunter and the room was full of beautifully taxidermied game and predators. Perhaps 30 species in all, from a lifetime of hunting. We went back to the braai area as it was getting dark and then to my delight and astonishment we were gazing at some 50 eland, waterbuck, wildebeest and sprinkbok who had come to lick salt blocks just the other side of the fence. There was a subtle light to illuminate them. A bit later Gerrit’s three American guests arrived. They were all hunters and had been here a few times.

Gerrit told me a bit about his farm. While it had 500 head of cattle, and could have had more, he opted instead to have game also. He had some 500 head of game across most of the antelope type species and even some zebras. He said when he took the farm over from his grandparents there was no game and he slowly built the fences and introduced the animals. To make it pay its way he sold hunting packages to Europeans and Americans. The way he explained the operation and the ethics of it made perfect sense. He was essentially a conservationist and if he did not have hunting then these 500 game would simply not exist. He would have another few hundred cattle instead. The game lived a very good and pleasant life in this large protected, predator-free parkland with watering holes and saltlicks, which had some parasite medication in it. When guests came to hunt very few of the game would be culled in an humane manner. I can imagine it would be less traumatic than that of the cattle which had to be transported to an abattoir. All the meat from the hunted game would be eaten and the skin and horns set aside for the taxidermist.

The Americans who came wanted to take their trophies home and there was a long discussion about taxidermy. Apparently there are ready made forms in foam and polystyrene for all the game and other animals and the taxidermist orders the appropriate animal form and then pulls skin over it and attaches the top of the skull and horns through the skin. His skill is largely to give the animal character by adjusting the ears, eyes, lips and posture to make it look natural. Ideally all the animals eyes should be looking at you when you enter the trophy room, as all Gerrits were.

I was invited to the meal and it was the steaks of the last few days of hunting. It was all expertly cooked on the braai by Gerrit’s son Janneman. First there was Oryx steak. It was quite gamey, very lean and because of this a bit dry but delicious none the less and well seasoned with a mild blue cheese butter. Then came the Eland steak. It was slightly gamey but not quite as lean and a bit juicier. Its texture was more beef-like and more tender than the oryx. however the flavour of the eland was slightly stronger but still subtle and flavoursome. In the vote the eland won by 6 votes to 0.

The Americans asked about Gerrit’s family history. Like most Afrikaners you could write a chapter about their great grandparents arriving in South Africa then the treks from the port to their settled farming land, in a way similar to the pioneers of the west USA. However Gerrit’s family could warrant a whole book from the earliest colonials who then trekked up to Angola after a couple of generations only to withdraw from there after 50 years and head south to Namibia where they established themselves again. I was not only enthralled about the history and lifestyle of Gerrit but also embarrassed by his hospitality. I would have been quite happy to put my tent up on the verge and eat my camp meals but Gerrit would have none of it and insisted I eat with them. I can see why Afrikarner hospitality is renowned. It has perhaps a lot to do with the history of hardship and trekking with the ox wagons where the tradition of hospitality established itself. We all went to bed quite early as the Americans were heading off at 0630 in the morning to begin the long flight home and I was tired after the 88km. As I returned to my tent the eland, wildebeest and sprinkbok were still lingering around just 50 metres away. It had been a very good cycle and then a fascinating, insightful evening.

Day 019. 28 May. Grootfontein Rest Day. 0km. hours. 0m up. 0m down. I was tired in the morning when I got up at 0700. I knew I was going to have a rest day and was looking forward to it. Herman provided a great breakfast and I ate it with the very nice German and New Zealand couples. After we had said our goodbyes Herman and I went a couple of streets into town to do some shopping.

Unfortunately it was a new public holiday in Namibia. It was National Genocide Day to remember the ethnic massacre of some 70,000 Nama and Herero insurgents and collaborators some 120 years ago at the hands of the German occupiers. They essentially rounded up large parts of those populations and put them into Concentration Camps and either worked them to death or killed them. It was something they learnt from the British in South Africa after the Boer wars and a blueprint of what was to come 30 years later in Germany. A few shops were open but Herman was distraught the beer section was sealed off due to the licensing laws.

Herman also took me to visit his cousin’s son who had the only bike shop in town. It was closed but Robert was doing some bookkeeping at the shop and agreed to check my bike over. He was very thorough and checked all the spokes and bolts to make sure everything was still tight. He cleaned the chain and re-lubed it and said there was some stretch in it but I should not be alarmed yet but it would only get worse in 1000 km or so. I did have a spare chain so would be able to continue as long as the sprockets were not too bad.

After that I spent the afternoon relaxing at Herman’s who was the perfect host and made a great lunch. In the Afternoon another German couple arrived who were just finishing a world tour of a year’s travel and then two extended families from Windhoek, who were longstanding friends of Herman. In the evening after the delicious buffet supper the discussion got onto politics. I let it wash over me but the young progressive German couple stood up to narrative that Europe was going down the tubes due to political correctness and mass immigration. It all ended on a friendly note and Herman was also far too wise and busy have his say.

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