KARASBURG TO GOBABIS 762 KM. 10HRS.
Took the C11 road N and then D260, D611, C15, M42, C20 into Gobabis.
Was a long day with many varying road surfaces which for the most part were fun to ride on, but had a huge scare on M42 was very, very fortunate.
Was going to take the C road all the way up but decided I wanted remoteness and took D260 which through everything at me, was only 80km but was rather knarly with riverbed and loose rocks abound with a spectacular mountain range that just popped up, was slow going but fun. The C roads are maybe 15 m wide and well maintained for the most part and you can do 180 kmph on them, well I only did it once for about 2km. It is not a smart thing to do but it sure gets your heart going. The C roads all have game fences that run along it about 15m away on either side. The D roads are narrow and run through farms and have a lot of cattle guards on the road or gates sometimes and aren't well maintained and are quite rough and remote and slow going in general, but my road of choice. Today I have passed 8 vehicles on the way up and three donkey carts, so you're on your own, especially on the eastern side of Namibia which is where I am.
Highlight of my day was stopping and chatting to two guys riding donkeys, the poor guys were riding 20km to go fetch a donkey cart. They work on a farm nearby and it was no big deal for them to ride bare back that distance, they gave me a ride and the poor donkey with my weight didn't want to go anywhere.
Riding on the M42 about 25km out of Stampriet, I got the biggest scare of my life. Was doing about 115kmph when suddenly out of nowhere a huge Kudu appeared to my right at full charge, coming in at a slight angle and then launched into the air, my immediate thought was this is it, no way in hell I am going to miss it. She was in the air, the front hooves were a metre away from me at eye level height and slightly ahead of the bike,just floating in the air and I was going to be hit in the gut with my head. This was all of two seconds and miraculously she didn't hit me and I looked in the mirror and but didn't see anything. I was shaken up slightly and can't believe we didn't collide, I yelled out in fear as I saw it, was it trying to jump over me ? That really scared me, even more so now that I think of it.
The bike must scare the animals because going over a small rocky pass, suddenly the dassies just decided to stream across in front of me, why move ? Same thing with the Dik dik's, they run alongside the road by the fence petrified and one dashed in front of me out of the blue.
You can also follow along on https://share.garmin.com/CapetoCairo.
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