From Windhoek

We arrive in Windhoek late on Tuesday afternoon, after a grueling ride across the Auas Mountains in which the city sits. We had left camp with only 100 km to reach the city and had expected to arrive by lunchtime. We arrive at 5 after 10 hours of riding into a restless wind over wave after wave of steep incline. If I stop I know the pedals will freeze under my feet, so I continue to trudge forward painfully slowly. At times the others get off their bikes to push. At each summit I stop to catch my breath and look around. It is good to see clouds and hills and slopes full of deep green grass and leafy Acacia trees. When I first arrived in the desert it struck me as beautiful, but after a week of riding my eyes grew tired of gazing into endless fields of dust. Here, in the hills, I see baboons messing around with empty plastic bottles in the laybys and I pedal past a puff adder, which slithers lazily into the roadside grasses. Throughout the ride I focus on reaching Windhoek and the rest days I have ahead. I imagine the city to be quaint and dozy. I hadn’t thought about the logistics of my arrival. I ride past a police check point into rush hour traffic in the pouring rain. I have no idea where I am going and all around taxis and lorries impatiently honk their horns and swerve aggressively past me. It quickly dawns on me that this is an African capital. I turn into a side street and wait for the others who are about an hour behind.

I have ridden over 1500 km to get here over the past two and a half weeks, and 500 km over the past four days. Leaving Keetmanshoop on Saturday morning we headed to a town called Asab, 130 km north on the B1 and marked on the map with a petrol station and hotel. The road there is flat and the only landmark to focus on is a broad mountain in the distance to the west. As we approach Asab, tired, hungry, and thirsty, the wind picks up and Stefan gets a puncture drawing the final 20 km out for what seems like hours. I finally see the faint form of buildings in the haze of heat and dust ahead. I quicken my pace and arrive to find two houses and a burnt out shell of a bar-hotel. The petrol station has closed down. There are no trees so wild camping is impossible and we are nearly out of water. We approach one of the houses, in front of which there is a donkey and cart. An old man explains that there is no running water here, but we may pitch our tents behind his house. To get water we must take a dirt track 3 km west and ask at the village there.

A young guy leads us down the track, which is littered with coarse brown rocks in the dark sand. There are goats everywhere grazing in the dust around the small houses and corrugated huts which form the village. The first building we pass is a tiny white church. It is one storey high with a pale grey corrugated roof. The glassless windows are draped with deep blue curtains and the small tower at the church’s southern end has long thin crucifixes carved out of the cream stone. Some people gaze meekly as we push our bikes between the little houses. Others don’t look up. We are led to a corrugated house with a tap in the garden. The elderly couple there smile and gesture for us to fill up our bottles. We sit with them for a few minutes and share some biscuits, before heading back down the track, with the sun setting beneath the thin clouds over the village behind. We pitch our tents behind the old man’s house, next to a 1950s purple pick-up, which looks not to have moved for years. We cook up noodles and tins of bully beef before turning in just after dark, exhausted.

On Sunday we head to the next town up, Mariental. The road there is flat and the wind blows kindly on our backs, allowing us to make the 100 km in under 5 hours. We stop at a service station on the outskirts of town and buy big glass bottles of Coke which we drink greedily in the sunshine. While we sit a man stops beside us on a huge Harley Davidson and asks where we are headed. Before he leaves he brings us a bag full of drinks and burgers. The next night we stop at a grouping of little chalets, 25 km south of Rehoboth, where the owner lets us camp for free. The road there is lined with long savannah grasses swaying gently in the breeze and we cycle 160 km, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, to reach the row of pastle coloured chalets, where we spend our last night before Windhoek.

It is good to spend a couple of days off the bike in Windhoek and we are looked after well here by Andre, a friend of Stefan’s. He takes us on an evening game drive on a friend’s farm. While he drives, we stand in the back of the buggy drinking bottles of beer and watching out for kudu and oryx galloping amongst the trees. There are huge eagles soaring over the hills amongst the darkening clouds. When the sun disappears behind the mountains in the distance, we make a fire and cook a big rack of lamb, which we eat on its own, with our hands. It starts to pour with rain and thunder echoes powerfully around the surrounding hills, forcing us to sit in the buggy, where we drink glasses of brandy and Coke, before driving back to the city.

Tomorrow I leave Windhoek and will take the road east towards Botswana on my own. It will be strange to cycle by myself again, but the others must head north and I must reach Maun by the beginning of April.

From Keetmanshoop

I cross into Namibia at Vioolsdrift on Saturday after a quick ride from Springbok. I make the 120 km in 5 hours, barely noticing the sun. The breeze created by the bicycle, moving smoothly across the flat tar, keeps me cool. The view from the road changes gradually as I ride north towards the border: the pale scrub bushes thin, the deep red crusts of dried earth, that have flanked the road since the Cederberg, lighten and the grains of caked dust begin to loosen into sand. With only 10 km to the border the road winds between huge mounds of boulders that rise impossibly out of the dust. Just off the road a dead donkey lies on its side.

At Vioolsdrift I bump into three South African guys on bicycles, who are heading up to Windhoek. They ask if I wish to camp with them at Noordoewer. I am glad to have the company and Dewald, Ludi, Stefan and I head across the border to a camp on the banks of the Orange River. We stop at a roadside stall and pick up two quarts of cold beer each, which we strap to the bikes. The camp is set back 100 m from the river and as the sun drops Dewald and I take some fishing rods down to the bank and cast a line. The river is running fast and neither of us has much luck, but it is a good feeling to stand beside the river in the shade with the sun dipping behind the trees downstream. As we walk back empty handed, a kingfisher hovers and darts sharply to the surface, plucking a small fish from the water.

After a gentle rest day at Noordoewer, we set off at 5 am on the road to Ai Ais, a camp at the southern tip of the Fish River Canyon. It is still dark and I spend the first hour staring at the sky. As dawn approaches the sky blanches and then turns pale pink, faintly illuminating the rows of pylons that line the road. At the turn off to the dirt road to Ai Ais we stop for a smoke. Ahead I see two dusty white guys pedal quietly over the brow of the hill in front. They are wearing old jeans and no shirts and have ridden all the way from Kampala. It is surreal coming across others on bicycles emerging from the desert.

The dirt road is brutal on our bodies and the bikes. The bumps are relentless and every few metres the sand is deep and I must slow to keep from falling. The air is very dry and sand billows across the track from the rough. After 3 hours of riding we have only covered 25 km and the headwind seems to blow stronger and stronger. There is no shade for miles, and and we huddle behind a thorn bush, eating dry bread and a tin of tuna. We ride for another 6 hours under the same sun and into the same wind, growing more and more anxious. Only one car has passed on this track and our water is running low. At dusk we arrive at Ai Ais, having ridden for 14 hours.

We are all too tired to prepare for the following days ride so we take another rest day at Ai Ais. In the morning we walk for an hour up the Fish River Canyon. On both sides the rock rises steeply from the foot of the gorge. The river is low and it seems unthinkable that that it has carved out the Canyon. While we walk Dewald points out the tracks of mountain zebra, oryx and otter. He tells me the names of all the trees and even the stories behind the names: this is the Fever Tree - you can tell by the smooth bark... When early explorers came here they often got sick. They thought it was the trees that caused the sickness... In fact it was because the tree grows near water and drinking the water made them ill... This is why they named it the Fever Tree...

On Wednesday we set off early along the dirt roads to Hobas, a camp at the main mouth of the Canyon. The dusty track winds its way through high mounds of shear granite. Cycling in the pale dawn light through the red dust and dim shadows cast by the rocks, it feels as if I were pedalling across the surface of another planet. After a steady climb the road plateaus and runs parallel to the gorge for 60 km. At 2 we stop and pitch our tents behind a motel. After another days riding the dirt roads we have not passed a shop for 3 days and our supplies are very low. We stop in the middle of tha day at a hotel at Seehiem, a grand old building that sits at the intersection of two gravel roads. A group of fat South African men, downing rum and cokes in the midday heat, give us the leftovers of their barbecue. As we wolf down the plate of sausages they mock me for being English. I don't look up, simply happy to have eaten. That evening we wild camp on some farm land set back from the road. I fall asleep looking at the sky and awake much later to the sound of jackals howling close by. I drift off thinking about the tar road which we will rejoin in the morning and the prospect of a supermarket and internet at Keetmanshoop.

From Springbok

It is Friday and my first day not cycling. I am in a town called Springbok, 580 km north of Cape Town and 120 km south of the Namibian border. Springbok is much like the other towns I have stopped off at since leaving Cape Town. There is a main strip, off which lie low rise white buildings and a smattering of diners, guesthouses and petrol stations. I ask the waitress, at the restaurant I am in, whether she likes it here. She says it is too small. There is nothing to do. At the weekend people drink until they can drink no more. There is one club. The same people each time. There is always a fight. I feel lucky to have the freedom to come and go as I please. Lots of the people I have met, in the towns I have passed through so far, seem to feel trapped.

Over the past 6 days I have bicycled up the main highway, the N7, stopping at Malmesbury, Piketberg, Citrusdal, Vanrynshorp, Garies, and Springbok. Arriving in each town is surreal. Everyone stares as I pedal wearily to the first bar with an orning, in search of shade. On the road I have crossed the Cederberg Mountains by the Piekenierskloop pass, which winds up and over the range via a steady 3 km climb. The mountains rise out of the sandy wilderness and from the summit I see the dark tarmac I have ridden until it disappears between the desert and the sky. The climb itself is hard for me. It is still early, but the heat reaches the mid 40s by noon and even at ten the sun is high. I take regular breaks and wave at the passing lorries, who crawl up past me like broken mules. They always honk their horns as they pass, which spurs me on. The descent is a wonderful feeling and I arrive at Citrusdal by 11, where I decide to call it a day.

I leave Citrusdal at dawn and decide to take a gravel track towards Clanwilliam instead of the highway. The riding is slower but the landscape more varied. To my left there is a stream which runs across pale stones and near white sand. There are lots of trees and the track itself is deep ochre. It is still early as I pass through the first village, which has a tiny school. As I cycle past the playground all the kids look up and as one yells out something in Africans they all clap and shout. I wave back and speed up for the next 15 km. At the first turning I re-join the highway and cycle up past the Clanwilliam Dam, arriving at Vanrynsdorp by mid afternoon. I cycled 140 km and get an early night in a pretty little B&B.

Leaving Vanrynsdorp the landscape is pleasantly flatter: the hills soften, rolling into the Karoo. The road is long and straight and empty. The air is cool and I cycle at a decent pace. After an hour or so the sky darkens and I hear thunder and see lightening flash ahead. The storm makes me anxious – I can see no sign of life in all directions, only the rain, the black clouds, and the scrub. As it passes I relax and feel glad to have seen it. I cycle for another 7 hours and arrive at Garies, having covered 150 km.

The final day of riding is the toughest yet; all the way to Springbok are hills. After each climb my heart sinks as I see another rise ahead of me and the sun saps my energy. It takes 9 hours to cover only 120 km. In the evening I have some drinks with a couple of English overlanders and look forward to a lie-in. The past 6 days I had set off early and seen the sunrise from the road. Tomorrow I head to Vioolsdrift where I cross the border to Namibia.