Time to travel
 

Anyone have a clue how long takes to travel to SA once in Africa, I'll be heading straaight down none stop, apart from sleeping and a dash of photography, oh and eating of course....is it 3~4 weeks...

We will be heading the other way, riding every day. South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya (end of first leg), Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt (end of second leg).

The roads from South Africa to the middle of Kenya are all paved (Africa pavement, pot holed and nasty). As far as I know, from there on, the roads are pretty much untarred until Egypt, with tall mountains and mud during the summer in Ethiopia.

I believe this route is the quickest route through Africa, with the best roads and the most civilized countries. Still, don't expect to get through qucikly. We expect to spend 20 days of riding to get from Cape Town to Nairobi, a distance of about 6.000 km, an average of 300 km a day (and that is the easy part of the route). From there on, it is about another 6.000 km which I expect should take much longer, maybe an average of 200 km a day. In Africa this translates into long days. I have never done this trip before, but I doubt that anything more than 400 km a day is realistic. On our first leg Cape Town - Nairobi, we will ride anything from 2h15m a day to 8h40m, with most days translating into 5-6 hours of riding.

These are of course only my personal rough estimates, the real deal may end up being far slower or faster. Never the less, I've come to understand that by most standards, doing this distance in 20 days is considered fast. I'd even consider crossing Africa in two months to be fast, even if you rode every day much of the day! Then again, I believe the dakar rally this year was 9000 km in 14 days...

Don't forget that you will likely experience several punctures, hassles with officials of all sorts, changing money, doing repairs and maintnance, border crossings, etc. The red tape in Egypt is supposedly a pain in the a**!

I have myself tried to get ahold of this information from others, but it seems as though most people take their time getting through, not rushing it like you and me.

Don't take my word for it though, I may very well be wrong in much I say here. You should check out more sources before you make up your mind.

According to other replies I will have paved roads untill Nigeria, thats alot of the trip out of the way, from there until at least Angola I think it will get rough, bearing in mind Im towing a twin caravan down into SA, thankfully its not a new caravan and hence but if all possible damage not of a majr concern though it would be nice o get it to SA in one piece, I know roads into Angola arnt to bad but that way seems a bit on the dangerous side with more trouble predicted so it leaves Zambia and then Botswana as the next choice.

I do recall some +12 years back in the north of SA where I was doing site work seeing a convoy of EU 4x4 and cars towing caravans, they got lost and hence we found out so its nt impossible and I doubt very much they imported the whole via shipment,my starting point will be north west Africa.
Also bare in mind that the Dakar race is staged in the dessert and is totally a different ball game, there route is calcalted to be difficult and is time staged, I would oubt it very much they drive for more than 6 hrs a day, I may well be wrong...