DRC Lubumbashi - Kinshasa
 

Hi
We are travelling from Lubumbashi to Kinshasa early june next year and just putting the word out now to see if anyone is keen to team up.
I work for an English based overland company (Oasis overland) and will be in a 4x4 overland truck with about 20 passengers, as far as we know no other commercial overland company has attempted this route so we have no idea how long it will take or the exact route that trucks take,we are very aware that it will be difficult in a truck, But we (my mrs and I) have done 7 london to cape town trips for oasis before and been through Angola 5 times now so looking for something different.
Anyone keen to team up, either on a bike or 4x4 would be welcome,Bikes would be welcome to put luggage,fuel,spares or pillions on the truck if interested, we will work out a price according to how much we carry, Could put money towards food and eat meals with us,we carry a lot of food on board as well as 450 lts of water.
Please note this is not an add ,just that in the 15 years we have done overland trips in africa it has always been fun to meet up with other travellers and help each other out in tough conditions.
Also note we are in a big truck so do get stuck a lot , but its amazing how much work 20 people can do to a road when needed !!!
We are in Ethiopia at the moment, about to finish a 9 month trip in Cairo,but will be in Uk from sept so will be in email contact more easily.

Thanks Grant

nearly
 

I am looking to Travel from Uganda to the area of Kinshasa , so will be interested to hear ,I am going in June 17 ,

Have you read this hair raising account by this intrepid duo?

Democratic Republic of Congo: Lubumbashi to Kinshasa - Expedition Portal

The Oasis Overland website about your planned trip cannot be serious when it says, in the DRC "you will meet some of the most welcoming tribes". I think not...

Also, have you read "Blood River" by Tim Butcher?

Good luck...

Did the reverse Kinshasha - Lubumbashi on an Exodus truck with 22 passengers in 1993. A long time ago I know though from more recent accounts and videos I've seen it doesn't seem to have changed much. It took us about a month. More a question of mud pistes than roads so luck plays a big part. Our route was Kinshasa-Kikwit-Tshikapa- Kananga-Mbuji Mayi-Kamina-Bukama- Lubumbashi. We were lucky and avoided getting bogged for more than few hours at a time. Biggest hold up was bridges some of which took a couple of days work to make passable. Get some stout planks and rope before you go in. Broken and bogged trucks can be a problem on the "busier" sections. Food was a big issue. As in finding any. Markets are few, far between and have little for sale. Finding enough food for 24 people was hard and often impossible. If you break down and don't have the parts to get going expect to be there for a very long time (months). If you fall off a bridge you'll find it very difficult to get your passengers back to "civilisation". The "cities" are mostly ghost towns so don't expect much if any relief when you get to one. Tshikapa was better than most I guess because of the diamond traders and their money. Stuff is flown in there. I think we were lucky to do it in a month. In fact we were probably lucky to get through with the truck still underneath us.

Grant, I meet you in 2009 in Mali, Kiwi guy in a light green Defender.

I vouch that Grant knows his shit after many years of West Coast action if anybody is wondering about this being a 'no idea what they are doing' type request.
Whilst the truck getting stuck is a pain, there is an element of safety in numbers, when there is 1-2 of you, its easy to get picked on, different when there is 20+

Good luck!

Hi,



at least while dry season it seems to be not that bad.



In this unluckily German thread there is beside the mentioned Belgian couple a 2015 report of an organized VW Amarok tour:



http://www.wuestenschiff.de/phpbb/angola-umfahrung-uber-dr-kongo-lubumbashi-t39072.html



Also I came across a report where somebody did the trip with a with a 2WD Mercedes 207 or 307 but cannot find it anymore ;-)



Have fun and looking forward to the information’s. This is one if the open points on the Africa bucket list.



Regards

Bernd

I thought the earths-ends.com guys were saying it's being paved by the Chinese.

Hi Grant,
I would love to join your group in June 2017, I will be riding a bike.
Looking forward to hear from you.

hi, by the looks of your website you're all set to go.
sounds like a great trip, a proper old fashioned truck overland adventure.
this may sound like obvious advice and i'm sure the powers that be will have done the research but has anyone picked the brains of the guys that used to drive trans across Zaire/Congo back in the 80s and 90s?
i.e. Dave Barton at Kande, Nick Fisher from truck africa and hobo, Jeff Lemon from Absolute, Rick Clarke etc etc
most did the n/e corner but some will have done the slog down to Lumbumbashi.
good luck and i hope you and your pax have a ball.

Hi
Been meaning to reply to this for ages,but forgot my password and then to slack !
yep trips all go,lodging Drc visas this week, embassy in london has been very very helpfull and freindly,(hopefully not jinxed it now by saying that) fly out to Namibia this week to meet our Trans africa truck that has just come down the west coast from spain, think they are just in angola now, swapping trucks with them so we have the 4x4.
martyjc1971 and wibble i have spoken to a few old overland drivers and didnt realise any companies had done that route until you said, seen loads of old photos and heard all the stories about when they used to go from CAR into Zaire, The driver im picking the truck up from in namibia is Steve Newsway, He was going through zaire back in the 80s and 90s for economic expeditions and even once took a 40 foot artic trailer through with a 2 wheel drive truck, 40 pasengers , 10000 lts of cheap diesel and a few truck engines to sell once he got to kenya ,love his stories and he is still doing trips for oasis now at 61.

Roaminyak of course i remember,that was the last time we could go up to the dogon area and timbukto, We went back to NZ for a couple of years and built a house in wanaka then came back to do more trips haha.

dider martin - i will get back to you with dates if your still keen,

Just to talk about trucks again , If anyone ever says dont buy a renault truck, dont listen to them , this one im picking up ,a maxter 300hp 4x4 is brilliant, its done 11 laps of africa (500 000 km) and never had anything major done to it apart from springs and a couple of clutches, God hope i havnt jinxed us even more !!!!

Grant: Hope your current driver wasn't too disturbed by the anti-drugs gendarme stopping them at the northern corridor of Abengourou as they headed towards Agnibilekro, Cote d'Ivoire ...

Next time let us know when you're on your way through!

I am also planning a version of this route in reverse around the same time this year.

I'm currently keeping a close eye on the security situation around Mbuja-Mayi however which has been deteriorating over the last few months and took a sharp turn for the worse (for us travelling muzungus) this weekend - Two United Nations workers kidnapped in DRC | DR Congo News | Al Jazeera

Hi Grant,
I did that traverse in 2014, but in the reverse direction on a bike. In dry season there is plenty of fine bull dust that will get into your cab and into everything. We found that bikes could not follow the main route due to the depth of this stuff, consequently we used a secondary path for bicycles and foot traffic.

Sometimes this path was adjacent to the main road but most of the time it meandered off in it's own way, much of the time out of sight and ear-shot of the main road. It would be very difficult for motorcyclists to keep in touch with a truck as a bike will be much quicker and effectively following a different road.

As a poster pointed out earlier, security around Mbuja-Mayi was an issue, but mainly the real hassle we had was from some of the authorities. Secondary hassle but much more prevalent hassle was from curious locals as LARGE crowds would gather every time we arrived somewhere.

Anyhoo, that's my 2c. I'm also NZ at the moment. Give us a shout if you're still here.
CJ.

Hey Cam, do you have any more details or a report on that trip somewhere? Planning for 2018 and interested to hear about your experience on that section.