We enter in the north of Cameroon near Lake Chad, where its barren desert like landscape but this changes dramatically every few kms you ride. From dusty red sand to thick green rainforest through high plateaus & mountain ranges! What a gem this country is.

The spectacular ring round around Bamenda

Right in the north, motorbikes are refused entry into Waza national park, so we result to hiring a big old blue ute with the worst suspension to man. We are then subjected to 6 hrs of standing up, whilst being thrown around in the back like inside a washing machine (not to mention the numerous times the ute konked out & a puncture in the tyre) but it all payed off when we spotted a herd of giraffes running gracefully. We wait by a lake bed silently to watch them drink in their arkward split-like front leg positions.

thirsty giraffe in Waza National Park

Dusty red baja

Little tricky ring road

Tarmac or piste? sore buns? daily dilemmas of which road to take..... It's piste we decide to head along the Nigerian border to Rhumseki & see the gigantic 'Kapseki' peaks like structures. The dirt roads are better than expected & extremely calm compared to manic Nigeria but we still ride round corners to see green broken branches deliberately placed on the road, followed by another one behind it. This is the African way for 'caution, broken down Lorry, semi, truck, bus, car...... whatever ahead' (& usually with people sleeping underneath it)

Some tea pickers amongst the eversogreen plantations

one of the wells we stop at to refill our water supply.

We hear about a spectcular ring road around Bamenda that we want to ride, but we have also heard that its impassable in parts. Do we or don't we? Rob & I discuss that we don't need to go looking for adventure anymore as it's more unneccessary stress on the bikes. The general wear & tear we don't want so we'll make it to South Africa but of course we still want to see & do all the things we want.

As I have now ridden a bike almost everyday for over 5 months, I feel I can handle most terrains so I give Rob the thumbs up. We head in from Atta/Ndu and circumnavigate anticlockwise through windy, draw dropping scenery! Rob & I are loving it, it's beautiful!

Another reason why I came on the trip as Rob cannot find anything to prop up the front tyre! I sat there for over half an hour

Another Puncture!
We are in bed before 8pm, up just before the sun rises to hear Rob cooking oats & bananas, his new food obsession! We are trialling a our new mosquito net invention constructed with our tent poles, which works a treat!

A beautiful camp in the old Kimbi Game reserve around the ring road

Further south we go, making it to the Limbe on the coast below Mount Cameroon! We are exhausted but decide to take the 3 day challenge! talk about butt crunching stuff, we ascend to 4095m above the clouds to minus degrees celius weather. It's extremely tough on a different level but persevere & make it to the summit!!!! The best part was yet to come, the descent around horizons filled mountains ranges, walk right past erupted craters, steep hills of volcanic ashes, clamber over lava flows & camp between the craters and rainforests. What a feeling when we finished, not to mention that I can no longer feel my legs.

Climbing Mt Cameroon

sleeping huts on the Mt

Buttcrunching is finally over, We made it!

My fears about entering Nigeria have crescendo since the day I started this trip as this was the one country I didn't want to ride through. I hadn't heard a good thing about it & the more people I met, the more they warned about this volatile country. 'Do not go there', 'Be very Careful, Nigerians are very voilent, corrupt & aggressive' we even met people avoiding the country by catching a boat to Gabon or Sao Tome. I still wanted to get across it but was extremely dubious, particularly as a women. We discussed further about our route, deciding on avoiding the Southern Delta regions & heading north east up to the north of Cameroon.

Are they chasing us or helping us? Nigerian police officials

We camp in Benin near the ketou/Meko border, waking early to unsolve the mystery of Nigeria! We hit the border, Benin was a little damp uninviting mud hut across the road from a street stall where a women wipes her stale bread with a mouldy cloth. errkkk ex nay on the toast please. No probs with leaving Benin.

We actually enter Nigeria before the official immigration/customs post & an extremely lovely man directs us there with his gentle father on the back of his moped. The four of us nervously enter & sit anxiously on a wooden bench & begin to file through the usual procedures. The officers surprisingly starts asking friendly questions and even making jokes. I'm constantly told the obvious that I don't look Australian..... Japanese? chinwa? and wow, you must be strong women to ride that 'machine'.

One of them even offer their younger sister's hand in marriage to Dereck!! I think Dereck seriously considered making extra room on the back of his bike for another passenger. With the friendliest border post so far in Africa, we walked away with no bribes, no hassles, no bullets but instead smiles on my face as we head for Ibadan.

Girls with tribal scars near the border

We are reminded we are in Nigeria with the pillions of checkpoints, road blocks & noting of details blah blah blah. We eventuate to sneakingly trying to zoom past & before they have time to realise what has happened, they just decide to let us go. This proves to be quite difficult with a convoy of 4, the first 2 get through okay but the tail end charlies cop it. At one check point, the police panicked when we whizzed past, jumping into their old bunged up vehicles with rifles to try & chase us down. All hand shakes & laughs when we all turn around. Most of the official were surprisingly very pleasant along as all the paperwork is in order. A prime example of the generosity, when the BMW's starter engine konks it, 2 police sweated to push start the BMW!!!!

Finally make it to Ibadan, where we meet up with Alessandro & his wife Bernie who graciously take us in for 5 days, feeding us delicious food, drinking real expressos & lending us their drivers for an unforgettable kamakazi trip to Lagos. Lets just say I'm glad we visited Lagos in a van rather than riding on our bikes because it was insane crash derby style driving, extremely fast fast driving, no indicating, random swerves on the road, its like playinga grand Turismo! There appears to be no road rules except honk when you can.

Road side stop on a trip to manic Lagos

Stilt villages just outside Lagos

This didn't deterr us from a day of Nigerian bush riding & a trip towards Lekki beach with Alessandro on his Honda DR650 from Oz. More food and copious amounts of alcohol...... Its was great to have a snipet of a civilised world but after prolonged relaxation, we were keen to ride again! Thunderbirds are GO.

Lekki beach

We sadly farewell hot showers & king sized beds to head to Abuja & hence Cameroon before our visas run out. The tarmac roads are in good condition but the drivers all think they are in the Grand prix, Gee Whizz. They zoom past at ridiculous speeds, overtake at the worst times & we even got run off the road twice! I am reminded frequently how easy it is to have an accident when we pass the hundreds of car, bus, trucks & van wrecks along this road. It's a hair raising car highway graveyard .

A brief road stop on the way to Abuja, Kamakazi highway

Safely make it to Abuja with no scratches, we head straight to the Angolan Embassy as we hear that Libreville, Gabon are no longer issuing visas and within a few hrs with visas in our hands, we then head to the Congo Embassy, another 15 mins later we leave with 2 visas. We ride to the Sheraton's as we heard that you could camp for free in the carpark but it's a derelict concrete enclave. We decide we would prefer to ride out of town and camp in a village, but only to be stopped by a TV production manager working for NTA, The Nigerian Television Authority. We then get filmed riding through their carpark & asked a whole range of questions about what the hell we are doing riding a bike through Nigeria.

Outside the grand mosque in Abuja

NTA, Nigeria television Authority head quarters in Abuja!

After our brief celebrity moment in Abuja, we head further north to the beautiful Jos plateau & as the further north we go, here comes the desert again! I never really expected it to be so dry but here we pass a small lake bed with hundreds of camels drinking. An amazing sight to see.

collecting their daily water, they were just as intrigued by us as we were of them

Wiki warm springs, great after not showering for days!

We meander through Togo & Benin, homeland to Voodoo or locally known as juju & back to Franco phone speaking country. We discover Fan milk bicycle riders with delicious icecream on the go, which is a great way to beat the swealtering heat! We rest in Lome for 5 days visiting Toni Togo daily to fiddle with the bikes to make them into tip top shape & purchasing brand new tyres! We meet inspiring Michel, listening to his stories about being one of the first Africans to ride in the Paris to Dakar.

Riding pass the usually loaded trucks

Fanmilk Icecream on the go

joke we played on Del

We discuss the direction of our route through Africa, with concerns about entering Nigeria. Most people we've met have warn us DON'T GO THERE, avoid it! Hearing frightening first hand stories about why we shouldn't go.. and be extremely careful!!! So what do we do? find an alternative route or we find out for ourselves why this country gets such a bad reputation........ we decide the latter to spice up our adventure!

We are on our way to NIgeria!

Dereck, me, Michel & Rob at Toni Togo