We have been in Africa for eight months, have visited eight countries and have ridden over 12,000 kms.  We have been through cold weather, hot and humid weather, the season of light rains, and have seen snow on distant mountains.  We have seen so many animals that to list, would fill this page.  Dale has decided the warthog is his favourite animal, mine remains the zebra.  We fear for the rare and endangered species we have been so fortunate to see, and being surrounded by African wildlife has been an absolute highlight of our travels.  

We flew over Victoria Falls in a helicopter, spent a lot of time in boats on the Chobe River in Botswana, spent three days on an historic steamer on Lake Malawi, have swam and snorkelled in crystal clear waters, and have ridden by so many amazing sights that it has been impossible to capture everything with the camera only for these images to now be indelibly printed in our memories.  

The Guzzi has performed beautifully!  It hasn’t missed a beat, however I put that down to Dale’s preparation, his knowledge of our older and quite agricultural bike, and that we are carrying adequate spares and tools for Dale to fix anything, anywhere.  Our good ol’ 20mm custom fitted lambs wool seat covers have been extremely comfortable and I have plenty of pillion room sitting behind Dale leaning against the back rest we made that attaches to the top box.  We planned journeys to have a break every 110km’s or so, in order to stretch out the bum muscles, and we tried not to do more than 250-350km’s in a day.

I’ve lost count of the number of beds we have slept in and remain amazed that African accommodation has so many twin bed rooms – seriously, how have they got such a high population?  We have slept in truck driver accommodation, in tents on river banks, upmarket chalets next to floodlit waterholes, in gorgeous B&B’s, on a houseboat, in rooms with million dollars views of pristine white sandy beaches, many interesting budget backpacker joints, and have been woken in the middle of the night by a grazing hippo within a metre from our heads. 

We have managed with five outfits of clothing each and reduced our total carrying load to something quite manageable.  We have eaten some fabulous foods and did a fair bit of self-catering to remain healthy and to cut down on costs.  Touch wood, neither of us has been unwell the whole trip and have loved every minute of the time we have spent with each other.  We had a few grumpy moments after long, dirty and dusty riding days, or when driving through thick traffic, when we just wanted to get to our destination, get off the Guzzi and have a hot (or cold) shower! 

I did have one “which part of this am I enjoying?” moment when we were punching into the headwinds in Namibia for days on end, not being able to turn west to enjoy the coastal areas.  All those places I had researched and we just couldn’t get to them!  And coming to the conclusion that we just really couldn’t travel too far off tarred roads, and wondering how much of Africa we were actually going to enjoy!?  But then we saw the animals we had come to see and settled into finding amazing places that we could get to with the bike, and that feeling passed, never to return.  Dale said he didn’t have any such a moment!

It seems we are classed as Overlanders.  An Overlander’s objective is adventure travel over vastly changing terrain while testing his/her own courage and resourcefulness, and the vehicle’s endurance and reliability.  All while maintaining some degree of comfort at an affordable price, usually over an extended period of time.  Overlanders in the past have relied on paper maps and Chinese Whispers.  These days, we find it difficult to not be connected to the internet, and a GPS stops us getting too lost.  Everyone needs to “find their balance”.  

The truth is that we are both addicted to technology!  Our balance has been lightweight laptops each (there is no way we could share).  I carry two cameras – both are advanced compact cameras – one has a travel zoom lens that extends to 720mm, and the other is an underwater camera.  I’ve been extremely happy with both.  Dale has been carrying around quite a heavy load with his Seagull Twin Lens Reflex film camera but he’s been mostly happy that he brought it along.  We have Samsung smart phones each and, when entering a new country, buy local sims that have a minimum amount of air time, plus 1-2GB of data, depending on the price.  Wifi has been sporadic in parts, but the data on the phone has provided a reasonable and convenient backup.  We have a helmet to helmet communication system, which has been indispensable.  It’s nice to chat and share thoughts and directions along the way.  When you don’t want to share, it simply gets switched off…  One piece of equipment that we hummed and harred about bringing was a heavy’ish Bose bluetooth speaker.  We have used it enough now to conclude it has a permanent place in the kit.  When listening to music and watching movies, laptop speakers just don’t cut the cake.

To gauge prices in a restaurant or a town/city, first have a coffee.  Depending on the price of that coffee, everything generally is priced relative to that.  When booking accommodation, we like sites such as booking.com or Airbnb.com because their pictures are pretty accurate and they provide a location map.  We look for ceiling fans for movement of air when you need to keep windows closed should they not have fly screens.  When entering accommodation, check there are towels and check that the shower works.  Showers are interesting – basically, it’s nice when the water is hot and there is adequate pressure.  But then the scale swiftly deteriorates after that - check there is actually water coming from the shower head, and then believe it or not, whether you get electric shocks when you try to adjust the shower head!

Everything has a place.  This isn’t a revelation, and if you stick to putting things back in their place, life is simple.  After packing to leave, we each do what we call a “camping check”.  Later, if we can’t find something, we know that as our checks are so thorough, we WILL find that something with us.  And then we put it back in its place…  Don’t overlap and get underfoot - decide on your own unpacking and packing tasks.  And put everything back in its place…

Out of sight, out of mind.  It’s amazing how an old, well used tarpaulin thrown over the Guzzi, suddenly makes it disappear.  Even though it’s an old bike, it still has a sparkle that screams “look at me”.  To protect our stuff, we’ve used this tarp to death.  We’ve been quite amazed, but thankful, that most buildings, and certainly everywhere we have stayed, has had good security.  This could be in the form of everything imaginable that is sharp and placed on the top of boundary walls, and/or 24/7 security guards.  We’ve not ever had to worry about the Guzzi overnight.  We’ve adjusted our diets to have a main meal in the middle of the day - prices are generally cheaper during the day, this saves us walking down dark alleys at night, and our bodies are happier not being fuelled to sleep.  G&T’s and Pina Coladas aren’t fuel, are they?

I am writing this blog whilst lazing on the island of Lamu.  It took a week and a half to pull the Guzzi apart, clean everything from the ground upwards, the seat covers and everything that we wanted to ship with the bike back to OZ.  It was a time of mixed feelings.  Our travel adventures on the bike had come to an end, even though our travels in Africa will continue until mid-January.  Last week, we worked with the shipping company to crate the bike, and all being well, she will meet us back in Australia in January.

“Safari njema” is an east African term that is extended to travellers wishing them safe travels.  We have been wished this many times, plus we carry a few good luck charms that have been gifted to us in the past.  We’re not superstitious but figure all of this can surely help and none of this can hurt.  When we were camped on the Kvango River in Namibia, a local fellow recommended we carry some elephant dung for good luck.  Mmm…this really couldn’t hurt, right?  So we carried some elephant dung the whole journey, even to the shipping agent’s warehouse in Nairobi.  I left it in one of their gardens as fertiliser.  The following few days, it rained and would have been impossible to ride the bike to the shippers.  You be the judge about the value of poop…  

We both felt like we had just “got it together” on the bike and really felt like the trip has ended far too soon.  It felt quite lame the other day when we had to purchase suitcases for the next seven weeks of travel!  We have met so many great people in our travels whom we hope will visit us in Australia at some point.  We have already started to think of our next bike trip, which will be to ride from northern NSW to Cairns in far-north Queensland in May.  We also know our land in NSW is calling to be developed.  Lots of great things to come, but first, sun and sand, and then pyramids…