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London to Cape Town Jan 2013 via W. Coast (surfing!) London to Cape Town Jan 2013 via W. Coast (surfing!)
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Photo by Marc Gibaud, Clouds on Tres Cerros and Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia

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Photo by Marc Gibaud,
Clouds on Tres Cerros and
Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia



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  #1  
Old 8 Oct 2012
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How refreshingly mad! Your trip is way off my crazy scale, but if I can help with anything on your arrival in London let me know. Got spare room and workshop about 3 miles from Heathrow.
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Old 8 Oct 2012
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Hi GaryUnguided,

Good luck with your adventure... hope you don't encounter mud like Martin (from Germany) did in 2009...





The video clip is here: Cameroon Serious 4X4 - YouTube
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  #3  
Old 8 Oct 2012
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Quote:
Originally Posted by muppix View Post
How refreshingly mad! Your trip is way off my crazy scale, but if I can help with anything on your arrival in London let me know. Got spare room and workshop about 3 miles from Heathrow.

Thanks for the invitation muppix! Careful.. I may just take you up on that..
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Old 8 Oct 2012
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Believe I've seen video of Martin with the board before - part of what clinched it for me that it could be done!

Zero - that looks gnarly!! I haven't done great in the mud so far:

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Old 8 Oct 2012
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A gentle warning - the rainy season hits Nigeria/Cameroon around February/March. Try to get ahead of it, though the rainy seasons are much less predictable now. Ideally you would leave Oct/Nov (i.e.: now) to get the best of the seasons as you go.

Arriving in Namibia in May/June as the rains end down there will be quite good though. Best animal viewing is June/July/August/Sept and maybe October in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa etc (winter dry season).

What the weather is doing makes a HUGE difference to your trip....

Good luck!

(and try not to have any schedule or plans or arrange to meet anybody on a certain date. The most stressed traveller in Africa is one with a timetable, schedule or a plan! ;-)

Oh, and the surf is pretty crap all down the west coast until you get to where the Great Whites hang out!
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Old 9 Oct 2012
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Excellent advice, thanks roamingyak. I think that I'll hand around surfing in Morocco and Senegal in Jan and Feb, should hit Nigeria/Cameroon around April...hopefully I will avoid some rain (?), but sounds like prime time for mud.

Oct/Nov does seem to be the most common time to be heading south. The trouble for me is that the best surf season in the north is Nov-Feb and in the south June- August, so that is the reason for my timing.

! hate sharks.
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Old 9 Oct 2012
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I would suggest leaving the surfing for another trip to honest. The surf is not so brilliant that it's worth enduring months of rain and mud for. I understand the addiction to it though!

Go and enjoy Africa, fly back to Morocco another time to do some surfing.

Travelling in the dry seasons is 5 times nicer than travelling in the rainy season (though its also nice to experience some rainy season as you will in Gabon/Congo as it rains all year round there!).

Try to allow about 9 months for the west coast, as just getting all of the visas can easily take up over a month of your time.

PS: If you don't like Sharks, will you like the thousands of snakes, scorpions, spiders, worms, biting insects and weird shit that comes out during the rainy season? It's a lot safer camping in the dry season!!
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Old 9 Oct 2012
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Originally Posted by roamingyak.org View Post
I would suggest leaving the surfing for another trip to honest. The surf is not so brilliant that it's worth enduring months of rain and mud for. I understand the addiction to it though!

Go and enjoy Africa, fly back to Morocco another time to do some surfing.

Travelling in the dry seasons is 5 times nicer than travelling in the rainy season (though its also nice to experience some rainy season as you will in Gabon/Congo as it rains all year round there!).

Try to allow about 9 months for the west coast, as just getting all of the visas can easily take up over a month of your time.

PS: If you don't like Sharks, will you like the thousands of snakes, scorpions, spiders, worms, biting insects and weird shit that comes out during the rainy season? It's a lot safer camping in the dry season!!
No way dood! In another life I spent 5 years hauling surfboards around the world on plains, trains, and buses. I've found that surfing (or any mission really) adds a lot to travel experience. Its a way to connect with people (surfers are everywhere), a reason to get off the beaten track, and just something to do while you're waiting for weird and cool stuff to happen. As was mentioned, I think that a mission can be like a schedule in that the key is not to be so rigid or focused so as to miss all the cool stuff that wasn't on the plan.

That said. Riding in the rain sucks! And the comments here have caused me to think a bit harder about my schedule. I was looking at this great sheet that 'JamminJay' from AdvRider put together to see how dry I might be able to stay - very similar to Surfy's above, buy arranged via my route. My path would be similar to the one that Jay has drawn...looks very difficult to avoid rain in CAR, Congo , and Cameroon..

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  #9  
Old 9 Oct 2012
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Originally Posted by roamingyak.org View Post
[...]The most stressed traveller in Africa is one with a timetable, schedule or a plan! ;-)[...]
Good one! I`m shure i will remember this sentence

But i will try to see my "plan" more as a concept:

Some weeks more or less...

@GaryUnguided: sounds like a nice trip! Here is a nice graph (thx to mike rutter), in case you want to avoid the rainy season.



I would also suggest, to see the whole trip as target, and not to set the main focus on the surfing. But it is a special plan, if you do it, you can tell afterwards - where the unknown surf spots are.

I have done the same experience with friends - have done with them trips in Laos and so on - but for the bigger on (Transafrica) - they dont want (to long, to expensiv (to stop working), to many kilometers and and...).

Then i plan the trip for myself - and after a short while my Girlfriend wants to join I had`nt ask her, for such a trip...

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