I am always up for a beer and a chinwag, no worries.

Where are the pictures, he asked!
 

OK, as you asked Zed, here's a link to some words and pics. Tha Gambia was OK but a bit English for me. I didn't ride 3000+ miles to find 13A plugs. Borders were easy but the ferries were fun. The roads in south Senegal tested me in 40C heat. Anyway, if you fancy a read or look at the pics here you go:-*


Basingstoke to Dakar


I'm back in a week and may be up for a pint if you've not left. In Casablanca at the moment sorting out some paperwork difficulties....

Wow cracking stuff! Much better camera work and writing than I seem to be able to muster. I am about until the 17th of December then Namibia bound. Finally!

If we can sort out a beer, sounds good.

Hi John
looking forward to the Namibia bit :D

and big thanks to Jim for a great tale and all the info ....i'll heading to at least the Tropic of Cancer and hopfully Dakar next spring :thumbup1:

Phil

You and me both Phil. All I want or Christmas is a big steel box with a KTM inside it! Hahahaha.

Hello everyone! I hope you are all well and the New Year has broken in gently!

Well I am back in Africa and reunited with the bike. I will as promised later write up the whole shipping experience. I have been in Namibia since just before Christmas. The place is very, very different from West Africa! It is modern and structured. Nice but................

I have been out wandering around the south of the country and am now back in Windhoek. The rear shock on the bike has cried enough and the stand I damaged in Togo has just died so I am awaiting parts. I want to move on! The countryside is astounding to look at, the city has no appeal to me at all!

So pretty pictures I hope. And Jim, sorry the beer never happened. It will next time!

Good to hear from you mate , i'm with you on the city front ....give me wilderness any day
Have a good one and take some more pics as its not hot here :freezing:

Good to see the bike back on the road John. Like the photo of it next to the Capricorn sign, something for me to aspire to. Look forward to the rest of the photos.

Where you heading next?

Yeah the wilderness is cool.
As for where next? Well for a change I have thought about it. I will wander north possibly up to the border and then along to Livingstone. Should fill out a week or two :cool4:

Great pic John :thumbup1:

OK, possibly Horizons worst reporter clocking in!

I am still wandering around, had a moment of conscience the other week and looked for the plan! Hahahahahahahahahahaha, yeah right!!!!!!!!!!

The shipping experience. I am putting this up because it is a question that comes up on the site and when I tried to look into it I struggled to find many results. So maybe this will help. It is what happened, nothing is inferred or implied it just is what I did.

I was stuck in West Africa due to the Ebola and politics. I had looked into riding out, but too many people said it would not be a wise move. I was fortunate in meeting another traveller in Burkina Faso who was in the same position. He had a land cruiser and we decide to pool any knowledge we could with the possibility of working it out together. Our rough idea was to look at shipping from Benin, Togo or Ghana. He then got malaria so I ended up leaving a week before him to check out Lome in Togo. Neither of us were in a rush so there was no real pressure time wise.

The final result was, organized by my friend a lot more than me, a container from Lome to Walvis Bay in Namibia. We used MSC shipping and the whole process took about 2 months. It breaks down into 3 distinct parts;

1. Getting it organized in Lome. This was a little hard but mostly due to our lack of experience. There are a few shipping company offices in Lome and they can all give prices for containers but never even when directly questioned give advice on the process. Lots of talking and lots of frustration. However we picked MSC at $1700 for a 20 foot container. The next thing was to get the loading and customs stuff sorted. West Africa is fun for official stuff so we learned quickly. Go to the port ask around for a transitier/agent. There are lots, choose with prudence. Once you have chosen start to play the game. Do lots of homework checking people and local prices/bribes. Then go for it. On the surface it is a huge pain, but with two of us to play good tourist, bad tourist ( guess who I was hahaha) it was ok. After all our digging, checking, negotiating and confirming with others we were told our price was on the expensive side of average. We paid CFA450,000 as there were two vehicles involved, so two lots of some paperwork. I would use the same guy again, and I know he would remember us!

2. Container leaves Lome for Walvis Bay. Now to be honest MSC were a pain about this. The leave date was postponed more than once. Information was hard to get and not promising. However, when I returned to England I had a heated discussion with the English office and they were good. They explained the shipping process and why it was vague. The bottom line is with international shipping there are just too many variables to give a delivery date. Anything from politics, to weather, to piracy can be in the mix. MSC had a very good tracking system that told us where our container was and an anticipated time for its next movement. It went Togo, Ivory Coast, South Africa and then Namibia!

3. Clearing customs at Walvis Bay. I did not get involved with this at all. My companion was in Walvis Bay a week before me. Namibia is in the real world and he found a good agent. Most prices were the same and reputation was the order of the day. From memory the clearing company was called East To West something or other. I can check if anyone wants. It was the run up to Christmas and they were excellent. They aim for everything to be sorted within 24 hours of the ship unloading. They did exactly that and took us to a yard where the cleared container was waiting. All we did was unstrap the car and bike then ride/drive away. It was £5000 Namibian for each vehicle. I would definitely use them again.

As I said that is just the way we did it. At times it was stressful but overall it was a success. We moved 1 car and 1 motorcycle from one part of Africa to another. Neither vehicle was damaged or molested.
Hope all that is of use to someone and if you did it a different/better way, well done.

Pretty pictures will be back next time I write.......................................
Take care everyone.

:mchappy:

Glad to see all is on track again .

Come on its not good to post photos of Tropic of Capricorn

The old boy has always wonted to go there , your just winding him UP:nono:

Hello everyone. Update, sort of and pretty picture time.
The last pictures were Namibia so I will bring this up to date as far as the border.

I had a problem with the rear shock and waited in Windhoek to get it rebuilt, then off again. I went north with the intention of staying on the gravel and getting up to Epupa Falls on Kunene River. The plan was I would ride a trail along the river bank back to the tarmac road. Note use of the word was! Hmmmmmmm Best laid plans and all that.

Namibia has great open scenery, huge distances and good gravel roads. Fuel planning was needed, especially as my third tank had been destroyed by the terrain. I now have a soft 5l bag from South Africa. Oh well.................

I got to Epupa, having been told more than once by the locals the trail was bad I was eager to go for it. See the Falls, nah, just press on. Silly, silly boy.......... hahahahahahaha. The trail is good for a while, right up until you pass the bulldozer and the grader making the good trail. Then, well it kind of tapers off a little. There are lots of dry river beds to cross, full of sand and loose gravel. So the numpty on the big overloaded adventure bike with the wrong tyres goes for it!

Trail riding rule 1, Do not ride alone...........Hmmmmmm
Trail riding rule 2, Tell someone where you are going.....Ah whoops!
Trail riding rule 3, Do not fall off, lots!..........Definitely a problem there!
Trail riding rule 4, Do not break the bike falling off 3 times!......Damn!
Trail riding rule 5, If you are stupid enough to not read the first four rules do not wild camp next to river where you have been told there are crocs big enough to eat you!.................Oops, busted! hahahahahahahahahaha.

It is very pretty up there you know. The first 40km I can definitely vouch for as I saw them on the way out and on the way back. Hahahahaha, man I never want to grow up! The real world is just way too boring. Hahahahahahaha.

In fairness the trail was about 150km long. My bike, the right tyres and no luggage, it would have been a fantastic and very doable run. I was tired started too late and then lost fuel in a get off. It is not somewhere to take a risk over fuel range, it is just too remote. So I camped at a beautiful spot, sorted the bike and backtracked the following morning.

Hmm. Ok, try again with the pictures.