Biking Africa – 2016-03-15 Steinkopf to Noordoewer (Namibia

Tues 15 March 2016

An early start I was out on the road at half past six, sans breakfast apart from a handful of grapes. After going up the inevitable hill it was a long steady downhill on an empty road and gorgeous watching the landscape change colour with the rising sun. Even getting a cracking image of my shadow.

The long beautiful downhill stretch was somewhat marred by the facewind but still a great way to leave South Africa. I managed a drink at the aptly named Fiddlers Inn at the border with it’s associated shop. The border crossing was very easy apart from the lady forgetting to return my precious white slip at Desk 1 so that Desk 3 could stamp it 🙁 The Namibian office thought it was a bit weird having a bike and wondered where I was going to stay and how long I was going to be there but no problems at all.

By the time I left the border posts someone had turned the heating up to 42 degrees plus 🙁 So as I soon I spied the sign Orange River Lodge River Camp a few hundred meters away I disappeared inside and into an room with AC at 11.15am 🙂

After a long nap I found the Engen store down the road, it’s 4 franchises run by one excellent guy: Petrol, Wimpy, Bakery, Shop all operating 24X7 now if only every place at something like that! They sorted a SIM for me at $10 plus $50 credit. No passport or bureaucracy needed at all pity its only an Edge connection so it’s bye bye Facetime for a while. The Lodges WiFi didn’t work either.

I’ve now decided to follow the route described by Thomas Anderson in his excellent blog that he rode 3 months ago. Unfortunately it does mean camping at least a couple of nights.

Strava says I rode 37.6mi and even with all the downhill I went up 1,242ft

The pictures are here

Todays photos