A little bit of Africa for you .....

Aubrey

Aubrey

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Mar 28, 1999
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Thought I would share some of me and my two sons adventure travel in South Africa ....... a walk in the park :)

We left our home in Johannebsurg on day 1 to travel to an overnight destination, Witsand, 600 miles away. This is half way between two towns called Kuruman and Upington It was me an my oldest son.... Marcel (16 yrs) on this part only.

Our rig .... Land Rover Defender 90 with our 4x4 camping trailer

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The area is called Witsand (translated as Whitesand) and is where the white and red Kalahari deserts meet. The red is due to iron in the sand that oxidises.

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This is our campsite ......

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Oh, remove any locks before travelling on dirt roads or .....you have to cut them off .... that fine powder stuff plays hell with locks.

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And right on time ...as expected .... African visitors ....Acacia Pied Barbet

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Crested Barbet

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Ground squirel

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And not having a lot to do in the desert with an energetic son ...we went sand boarding ..... or I think sand falling is more accurate ... I had sand in my ears for 3 days :rolleyes:

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Ok, Monday morning was boring until I stumbled across this post. Please post more! That defender 90 all rigged out is the coolest thing. I am seething with envy right now. You are a fortunate man. Now I have dreams of Africa to get me through the day. Thanks!
 
Day 2 we had a relaxed breakfast. It was cold overnight and went down to -2deg C ... that is below freezing . The north face sleeping bags did their work and the only downside was getting out of the bag in the morning to get some coffee going.

After spending 30 minutes packing up, we travelled to a place where the SA land speed records are set :cool: hey boet, we are with it although our salt flats are not nearlly the size of the Utah versions. This one is called Verneukpan (Cheaters Pan) The Cheaters part came about due to mirages making this dried pan look like a water filled lake ....making many of the Boers moving north in ox wagons, see more than red when it ended up bone dry. In Africa we call a shallow lake that dries up after rains, a pan. So a history/language lesson for free .....

This is Verneukpan ..... dusty

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We set up camp in the middle of the pan ..... 15 miles around us flat like a mirror ..... and this is an African sunset ...

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Well, not much to do but enjoy the solitude and quiet for the night .... and as it is now winter in the southern hemisphere, it was freezing :D
 
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Verneukpan had small areas of very wet mud but most looked well dried out ...

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Leaving the Verneukpan area we started into an area known as Die KnersVlakte (The Grinding Flats if translated directly) ...harsh but beautifull ....

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Day 3 started well but as soon as I got cell reception ...... trouble in the office. Signatures needed so we detoured to Upington which was the HQ for the ZA Long range Desert Police patrol on camels. But having access to the Internet .. Documents mailed, pinted, scanned and couriered back in short order. Apart form that ...nothing to see but did spend one night in a hotel :mad:

Crossing that we ended up in the Namakwaland ....which is unique in that August of each year is a desert covered with flowers ....

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Day 4 we started to travel south towards Cape Town to collect the youngest one, Ryan (13 yrs). We got into Cape Town late at night and stayed over with a friend.

Day 5 we were up early to depart for the Sederberg area (translated as Ceder Mountains). There was some rock hopping and climbing heading our way ...
 
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The Sederberg is a very fertile area and known for good wines. And I did mention mountains .....

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We camped out at the bottom of one of the mountains and the plan was to get up early the next morning to go mountain and rock hopping ...

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My friend, Ryan and his dad Andy came along with in his Toyota Fortuner. Ryan is a great camp cook and he supplied decent wine every night. A solid fella :cool:

The next morning we woke to a camp frozen solid to the great delight of everybody but after a breakfast of coffee and rusks we set off to climb to the Wolfs Crags. A word of advise ....the cracks are very narrow and after 3 hours of hard climbing up on this ....

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The last thing you need is to get stuck in some very narrow areas ..... if your waistline exceeds your chest .... there is one nasty area that has your name on it :D

Here I had to remove the backpack to squeese through ...

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This is the youngest son, Ryan doing his hole crawling ...

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And Marcel ....

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After an hour of crawling and climbing, we excited the top and was met with a vista worth the 4 hours of sweating ...

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The team ...left to right ....Ryan, Marcel, Aubrey, Andy and Ryan Minnaar

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We had a light lunch of dried fruid and nuts ...... and took the escape path down as going back the same way is nearly impossible they say ...not something I want to ponder whilst mountain rescue is preparing the blast my backside out out of a tight spot:p

See the bottom way down there ....3 hours away and where we started earlier today .... Hmm ...easy was relative BTW

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Amazing countryside. What were the temps like there? Dry heat? Humididty must have been low since it was cold at night, correct?

Looks like you and your sons had a blast. Africa has been a dream of mine since i was small. Thanks for posting.
 
Thanks for sharing the pics! Great rig. Africa looks like a pretty cool place to be, maybe someday I can visit...
 
Wow, absolutely fantastic adventure. That last picture is impressive as hell!
 
PropThePolecat said:
Amazing countryside. What were the temps like there? Dry heat? Humididty must have been low since it was cold at night, correct?

Looks like you and your sons had a blast. Africa has been a dream of mine since i was small. Thanks for posting.
Click to expand...

Temps were 60's to low 70's during the day ...humidity was below 10%. Overnight went to freezing and few degrees below.

Africa ....just do it! Flights are the expensive part but once here ..... do what the locals do and you can get by for a family of 4 for under USD 200 a day ...transport, camping fees, fuel, rental of kit and food.
 
Quarter Tank said:
all 5 of you are crammed into the 90?
Click to expand...

Noooooo ..... just me and the 16 year old in front. Rear is the domain of the 13yrs and a 40l Engel fridge/freezer and the on board kit for survival and first aid. Other two came in a Toyota Fortuner :)
 
So after the day long up and down a mountain ....... we sat down and calculated the next day drive to the Richtersveldt. This is the only sub-Sahara mountain desert in Africa. Ended up being another 650 miles ...... of which 400 would be on dirt roads. We chatted and decided we need to move out at 08:00 the next morning and with all our stuff fozen solid with frost ....we opted to break camp and move to a small bush hut. First real hot shower for some time ...... cold showers in winter are good only for so long.

It was still dark on day 7 when we rose and made a fire ....some coffee and rusk later and we were off. This time travelling north towards the Namibian border. We stopped for fuel and breakfast in small towns but all passed smoothly ...... we were still 4 hours away when the sun set on us just outside Eksteenfontein.

When we turned off the main road ...we had to stop to deflate the tyres ...... running about 13 psi makes corrugated roads bearable .... this is my 1998 BUsse on my hip ......

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Here is the sun setting .... done 200 miles on dirt road by now .... another few hundred to come ....

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We arrived at 20:30 at our chosen spot, Richtersberg Camp site ...... on the bank of the Gariep river that is also the SA/Namibia border.

We had full moon and could pitch camp without any extra lights .... Marcel took this shot without a flash and without a tripod. ...note the Gariep is what passes for a big river in Africa

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We woke the next morning under full attack of baboons. I had brought a bull whip with and after two or three snaps of the whip ..... peace was restored. We were staying here for 4 days so full camp was set up. Solar panels weer connected as we had no running water, no electricty ....just a lot of Africa.

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Aubrey,

If you get an afternoon with a bit of spare time, I would LOVE a few pic's and a walk through of your little trailer. That thing rocks!!

Doc
 
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