So one final entry in this story. I started out from Cape Point two years ago and am now completing the return leg.

Almost eleven years ago I was here on a family holiday with Ruth and Kerrie along with two of my sisters. Two motorbikers from Bath in England pulled up, having traveled the whole way. I was struck with envy, wishing that it was me on that bike and steeped in admiration for them.

I had done some trips to North Africa and Eastern Europe by then and now thought long and hard about how I might achieve this goal. I have said this on Instagram and will say it again now. Ruth encouraged and supported me from the outset, and for anyone wanting to live their dream, it would be so much harder without a Ruth in their lives. Thank you for everything Ruth.

It was only a one hour ride down to Cape Point which was the easiest and most enjoyable ride of my life.

I pulled up at the entrance to the National Park and was a little bit dismayed to see that it was busy with tourists, just like me. However I was not going to be deterred from taking that one last iconic photo and I pushed past the hoards of photographers and parked Simba in front of that long awaited sign. I was here.

I then took myself off and sat on a rock nearby. I wondered ” who get’s to live their dream?” as I pinched myself in answer – well I just did. Life ain’t half bad if you give it a chance. Thank you Africa from the bottom of my heart…..

…….

And so to my last start on this wonderful journey. There have been very many highs and yet so few lows over the past number of weeks, but now it is time for one last surge to make it safely down to Capetown.

I felt a bit nostalgic/sentimental as I got ready to start out. Apart from me and Simba, this journey has also been about those back home who have been supportive from the outset. Ruth has known me for the best part of forty years and has always, from day one, supported my often different endeavours. She has lived with and gotten used to the worry/concern about that phone call – whether from Africa, The Himalayas, the Red Sea or even the Highlands of Scotland. I can’t put into words how much that this support has meant to me at every level. I couldn’t have done it otherwise.

My wonderful, beautiful daughter (now wonderful, beautiful mother of my wonderful, beautiful granddaughter, Kaylee) Kerrie, on the other hand has in some ways had it a bit more difficult. In the depths of my soul I know that she has concern for my safety, and, even though she has shared many trips with me, her view is now probably, and naturally, persuaded by the arrival of her aforementioned wonderful, beautiful daughter, Kaylee. There have been times on this trip when I have felt Kerrie touch my shoulder and point at the speedometer as she would have done in the past, and, believe it or not, I have slowed down.

Ruth and Kerrie, you are both integral and loving parts of this life I lead, but before long it might be Kaylee’s turn to ride pillion to whatever exotic destination she casts her eye at. Eoin, please support me on this one 😉

I have already bought these for her.

Anyway, back to today’s ride, and I said goodbyes to my lovely hosts at The Olive Tree Guesthouse in Springbok before hitting the road. They had been to Ireland recently to watch their son represent South Africa in the World Karate Championships in Limerick but they never left the place for three wet days. What a shame that this was their view of Ireland.

So off on the road and I was feeling a bit excited about getting to Capetown. They told me that there would be no speed traps for the first half of the day but that was belied by the patrol car hiding under a tree outside the town.

As I was by now almost used to, this part of Northern Cape was stunning. The further south I got, the greener it became but gradually the traffic started to build up. The landscape turned to wine farms before evolving into fields of grain.

I stopped at my last refuel and hadn’t got a clue what was happening when the attendant put a splash bib on Simba to protect the tank.

This stretch of road is known as the Cape Namibia Route and, not having been here before, it is quite spectacular.

The weather was cool but I wasn’t bothered as I was only focused on getting to the comfort of The Vineyard Hotel.

The last couple of hundred kilometres slipped by until I thought I could see Table Mountain. What a bummer after traveling all this distance that it was covered in cloud.

I made my way the last few kilometres until I arrived at The Vineyard, the same hotel I started out from two years previously.

You can tell from that smile on my face that I was happy. A great feeling of accomplishment, achievement and satisfaction.

…. and just to round off the day, wine, champagne, and nice notes from the hotel and my good friend, Dave Cornick……

p.s. my mother had a thing about bird feathers and when I parked Simba in the car park, lo and behold a bird feather on the ground – perhaps she has been watching over me all this time.

hmmmm….

My own head was already a couple of days further down the road in Capetown but I still had one last pair of border crossings to do. However the riding was going to be easy so I just sat back and enjoyed it.

Once again the countryside was wide open but I noticed that it gradually became slightly less desert like as I traveled south.

It’s hard to understand twenty degrees as being cold in an Irish context but in this photo I had pulled over to put on a fleece and glove liners. And, as you can guess, I hadn’t found a tree to shelter under in days.

It was about three hundred kilometres to the border and I pulled in to a garage just before it to have a coffee to warm me up. The owner chatted with me for a while about my trip and offered to change whatever Namibian dollars I had in a straight swap. These small gestures are the ones that remind me that most people are good out there and that, in general, I kept meeting them.

I next went through Namibian Customs and Immigration and it was altogether a very sleepy sort of experience. There were very few people passing through and none of the mayhem at previous borders.

I then crossed the famous Orange River which borders the two countries. This is another of the great African rivers. It rises a couple of thousand kilometres away to the east in the mountains of Lesotho before flowing all the way across South Africa until it enters the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast.

The thought struck me that I had crossed a few of these great African rivers over the past few weeks – The Nile, The Zambezi, The Okavango and now Orange River, not to mention Lakes Victoria and Malawi.

Once across the bridge I pulled into the South African Customs and Immigration where I had a job persuading the guy in Customs to fill in and stamp my Carnet. He was insisting that it should be done in Capetown as Namibia and South Africa have a Customs Union. I pointed out that it had already been stamped out of Namibia by their Customs and that it had to now be stamped into South Africa. He eventually relented and I went on my way.

From here I just had a short run as far as Springbok where I had booked a guesthouse for the night.

More long straight roads but the quality was way superior to what I have covered over the past while (with the exception perhaps of Rwanda).

Another very striking feature was that there were beautiful wild plants on either side.

It was a pleasant run the rest of the way to Springbok.

This was my last stopover before I would finish up in Capetown the next day and it felt a bit strange to be going through the unpacking and locking up routine for the last time on this magnificent journey……

I felt a good bit better this morning but decided not to have breakfast before heading off and to just stick with water until later.

The first hour or so was a lovely hilly stretch and made for very pleasant motorbiking. I had passed a police speed trap as I was leaving Windhoek and that set the riding tone for the day. It was going to be a long spin but would be much longer if I was done for speeding.

As I came down off the hilly stretch a vast desert stretched out in front of me. It’s really hard to describe this country, either in words or photographs, other than to tell u it is most remote and barren place that I have ever been.

I have driven through Death Valley in the United States and other such places but this one is out on it’s own. For some reason the image portrayed by a line from Shelley’s “Ozymandias” stuck out in my mind – ” Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert” etc. It is a poem that describes a post apocalyptic desert scene and it’s peculiar how the mind can dig into deep recesses to come up with with such a distant memory.

There were only two small towns along the five hundred kilometres, one of which I did not feel comfortable stopping in. There were several large groups of young guys just sitting around and I wondered what hope these guys had of finding work, or even anything to do. For a country with such a small population there seems to be a lot of unemployment.

The day passed slowly until I arrived at Keetmanshoop and checked into a really quirky motel/guesthouse….

I had intended to allow myself just the Sunday to explore Windhoek before heading on southwards the following morning. However my best laid plans were brought to an abrupt halt when Mount Vesuvius started to erupt once more in my tummy. I’m not sure where it came from, because I just had a plain steak for dinner the night before, but it sure left me flattened.

I certainly won’t go into graphic detail but suffice to say, that Sunday night was the worst I’ve had in a very long time. So Monday was limited to bed and lot’s of water, although I did drag myself out for some fresh air in the afternoon and popped into a local barbers for a haircut.

Before taking ill on the Sunday I did manage to see a fair bit, but to be honest, there is not an awful lot to see in Windhoek.

There are few tourist sights and plenty of German style churches. Given the tiny population, particularly of church going white “Germans” (as they are known here), one wonders if they ever get used.

This peculiar city has a reasonable sprinkling of quite impressive modern buildings but somehow or another, the whole mishmash doesn’t seem to gel. There isn’t much sense of a city centre and the place felt like some sort of computer generated SIM City.

There are several monuments championing the breaking free from German occupation but yet being German is how many white Namibians still define themselves.

On the other hand there is plenty of colour in local traditional dress and these three were certainly enjoying their day.

Against the backdrop of churches and statues however, there is still an uneasy feeling about the place. I had been warned a few times about being careful, even in daylight, but my rumbling tummy forced a hasty retreat to the safety of my room….

There is not very much to say in this entry. About three hundred kilometres of the journey was going back over the road that I travelled in on.

One thing worth mentioning is how cold it felt, which is a bit weird considering that I was riding back over the Kalahari Desert. The clock rarely rose over twenty degrees and it stayed that way the whole day.

The three hundred and seventy kilometres passed quickly enough as there were very few options for pulling over to buy a juice.

I arrived into Windhoek at about 5pm and settled down here for a couple of days. As capital cities go it’s on the small side with a population of about two hundred and fifty thousand people. Nevertheless, I was here now so wanted to check it out…..

This is a bizarre little town on the edge of the desert just where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. During the three days that I was there the wind howled in off the sea and the place had a feel of Bray in windy winter weather.

I had planned to base myself here and travel around to see as much of the Skeleton Coast as was feasible. However, once I got chatting with some of the locals, I realised that my options were limited on a big bike with road tyres.

The guys in the local Yamaha store were very helpful and even offered to clean out my air filter for me.

These Pirellis were the type of tyres that I would have needed but, even if I was prepared to buy them, they didn’t have a correct fit for my R1200GSA.

So the next option, and one that was suggested to me before I left Ireland, was to take a flight over the area. So I booked one for Thursday afternoon.

I had earlier bumped into a Belgian couple, Roch and Françoise, who were tracking a very similar route through Africa as I was. We arranged to have dinner together and later spent a really nice evening comparing stories about our journeys thus far. They were departing the next morning to head to Luderitz but hopefully we will get to meet up again further down the road.

The flight over the Namib Desert and the Skeleton Coast was every bit as spectacular as I had imagined it would be. The strong wind made for a very bumpy ride which was made a bit more uncomfortable by the German woman sitting beside me who started vomiting after ten minutes and continued on and off for the entire three and a half hour flight.

This was like a moonscape and the view from up high gave a much better sense of just how vast this country is.

Looking down on the only tar road into Swakopmund which runs beside a railway track made me wonder how they keep it clear of sand.

There are dozens of rotting shipwrecks along this barrren coastline thus giving rise to the name, The Skeleton Coast.

It was a marvelous day and I was delighted to get to see so much.

On the Friday I pottered around the town, doing touristy sight seeing things. It is very hard to describe this place. It was built by Germans as a holiday destination and one guy was telling me that there are regular flights into Windhoek direct from Frankfurt. Given that the country is a former German colony I guess therein lies the connection.

It has churches which would not be out of place in Bavaria.

It is also worth mentioning that Swakopmund, as is the case for Windhoek I am advised, is not very safe. Muggings and stabbings have become the norm in recent years and a couple of days previously two tourists were stabbed in broad daylight. Even though the town is small, there is a hinterland of poorly constructed housing for locals and this contrast makes for a somewhat unsettled community in many ways.

Anyway, I am glad that I came to see this place as I have read several pieces about it in recent years and it has always aroused my curiosity…….

This was going to be the longest distance riding of the trip so far at six hundred and fifty kilometres so I was up and packing at about 6:30am just as the sun was rising. It was yet another beautiful morning, which prompted me to feel grateful for the weather I had enjoyed since arriving in Kenya all those weeks ago.

The guy at the farm told me that the first twenty five kilometre section of gravel road as far as the tar road was not as bad as the access route I had taken coming to the the place. So all augured well and I was feeling pretty happy about the day ahead.

…. that is at least until myself and Simba had a disagreement about which way to get through a soft sandy stretch. Mind you it could have been that, as the sat nav was showing just two kilometres to the tar road, I let my guard down a bit. I had noticed the change in road texture but before I knew it the front tyre sank down and lodged in the sand spinning the bike in a pirouette like a ballerina.

Simba slid along in one direction and I flew off in another. Thankfully I had not been riding fast and the only damage was a big dent in my pride.

So I picked myself up and set about getting the bike upright again. Fully laden, this is one heavy beast and, although I have managed to lift it before, it was always in locations firmer under foot. I have done a couple of off road training courses in Wales in the past so I just followed what I knew.

The first thing you do is to make sure that first gear is engaged and to pull out the side stand so that once you get it upright, it won’t fall over onto the other side. You then squat down with your back against the seat and your arms holding the near handlebar and the rear grab rail. You then lean into the bike and while pulling your arms upwards you try to stand up from the squat.

All that was fine in theory but, because the ground was so soft and sandy, Simba and my feet slipped in opposite directions. So not a budge.

I considered contacting the farm to call for help but, when I checked my phone for signal, there was none. So there I was, in the middle of nowhere with just a few curious warthogs and wild turkeys for company. I had plenty of water so there was no need to panic, as the thought struck me that perhaps nobody would pass on this remote stretch for hours.

Nothing for it but to try the opposite of the technical way so I went to lift it facing the seat. I got a bit of a raise and it seem to be holding firm and not sliding away from me. Each couple of inches was progress until I had it lifted to an angle that caused my own feet to slip. There was no way I was giving up and I dug my feet in as far as I could and kept at it until Simba was upright again.

Then came the even more tricky part of letting it lean over onto it’s side stand. I let it over very slowly and kept my fingers crossed that the ‘elephant’s foot’ extension that I had fitted to it before I left home would hold it up in the soft sand.

Bingo, it was upright again. So now I needed to get it onto a firmer surface. There was a bit of compacted gravel a few metres away and I went to push it over there with assistance from the engine. Crap. The engine wouldn’t start. There was just that horrible clicking sound that many bikers will be familiar with. Now I was starting to worry.

I then did something neither mechanical nor scientific and rocked the bike forwards and backwards. I thought perhaps that petrol was not getting through and that this might free it down the fuel line. I also took it out of gear and put it into neutral. I have no idea if this helped, but the engine started up straight away.

By now I was knackered and I hadn’t even started the six hundred and fifty kilometres on tar. Anyway there was no point in hanging about so I made my way very carefully along the remaining two kilometres of dirt road and off I set.

In the same way as when I started out the scenery was beautiful. There was very little traffic and there were gaps of one hundred and fifty kilometres between towns and there was nothing in between, not even a village.

I stopped off for petrol and a water break at each town, if only just to stretch my legs.

Calling it a ‘highway’ is stretching it a bit but the single lane road was good all the rest of the way to Swakopmund. The journey had taken about nine or ten hours as I rocked into this bizarre little place with it’s high crime rate against tourists.

The tiredness didn’t bother me too much as I reflected on the fact that I had just traversed Africa from Indian Ocean to Atlantic Ocean, so I privately allowed myself to feel a little bit chuffed….

I left the lodge hotel where I was staying and and stopped off in the town centre at an ATM. It took four attempts before I found a machine with cash in it and, needless to say, it was the one with the long queue of people beside it. Some day my luck may run out when I will be in a town with no cash.

It was three hundred kilometres to the town of Grootfontein and at that point I would make a right turn off the main road and go in search of this farmhouse guesthouse. My long time friend, Pat McGahern, had a connection with it several years ago and had asked me to stop off at it if I was in the general area.

Once I found it on my sat nav the only concern I had was the condition of the approach road because the last twenty three kilometres was all gravel. They assured me in advance by email that the road was quite adequate for a motorbike.

Once I turned off at the sign I just stood out of the seat and took my time. It was manageable enough but any discomfort was well compensated by the magnificent scenery.

It was stunning and when I pulled over along that stretch it was the silence that struck me most. Farms in Namibia are vast and you really feel that you are in the outback.

There was quite a grand entrance onto the property and I was warmly greeted and shown where to ride my motorbike to my room. There seemed to be about twelve rooms divided into four clusters of three. Mine was total luxury, it was cool without being air conditioned, and it even had a mini-bar.

I unpacked, showered and sat out on my porch with a cold beer. It was late afternoon by now and I nodded off.

The view from the porch was stunning and this place turned out to be a real gem. There three other couples, all German, staying there for a few days hill walking, horse riding and bush safaris.

Set dinner tasted gorgeous but I neither understood what the guy said that he was serving nor had a clue what it actually was. What I do know is that it took nearly three hours to serve it, by which time it was well dark and I was freezing.

Thanks for the tip Pat, I loved it……