News archive: July 2008

Victoria Falls and back- trip report

Day 1: Saturday 12 April 2008 Pretoria, South Africa to Nata, Botswana

I was enjoying a deep, well deserved sleep when my alarm rudely awakened me at 4:30 am. Africa was calling!

We had spent the last couple of weeks planning a trip to Victoria Falls through Namibia and Botswana- a trip we offering our tourists as a guided motorcycle adventure in June 2009. Of course we cant get a group together and lead them into un-chartered territory- so myself and my son Jonathan- had to go on a recci (reconnaissance) trip to scout out the best routes accommodations, attraction, and adventures for the tour.

The plan was to cover a distance of 5500km in 9 days- a much shorter, condensed version of the actual tour- roughing it all the way- staying in campsites- while scouting out luxurious 3-4 star lodgings for the actual tour.

Our 2 BMW R1150GS- Dual purpose motorcycles were waiting patiently for us in the garage below. All fuelled up and ready to roll. We had loaded all our camping gear, tents, sleeping bags, roll up mattress’s, pillows, cooler bags, gas stoves, and gas lights etc the previous night. We had plotted the route out and loaded all the waypoints onto our GPS’S.

All packed up and ready to go at 4:30am

We got going by 6am. It was still dark and we noticed some rain clouds in the distance. Luckily we had packed some rain gear so it wasn’t a problem. Just before we reached the small mining town of Thabazimbi- the heavens opened up! Oh no! its our first day- would this be evidence of what was to come? To our surprise the rain only lasted 1 and a half hours. It didn’t rain again for the duration of our trip

We reached the South African/Botswana border at 11 am. Border procedures were a breeze and half an hour later were sitting enjoying an ice cold drink with Clinton Van Vuuren, a fellow biker, at Kwa Kokeng lodge. We discussed staying at his lodge during our 2009 tour- and when he suggested setting up camp for us along the Great Limpopo river- building a big log fire and Barbequing for us under the African stars- it was an offer we couldn’t refuse. There is nothing better then falling asleep to the sound of Lions roaring in the distance while you are warm and snug in your bed.

But not tonight.

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