TRAVEL JOURNAL
On the way to Xangongo, the first Angolan town after crossing the border from Namibia. This section of road between Calueque and Xangongo consisted of 80 km of thick sand, criss-crossing the disintegrated tar road along the southeastern bank of the Kunene River.
At Xangongo, we sat down on the pavement with the locals and drank a Coke while Portuguese music pulsed in the background. We were in a new country!
After about six months of planning, we finally hit the road. Friends, family and colleagues gathered at Trax Moto in Pretoria to see us off. This is where we'd bought our Husqvarna Norden 901 Expedition bikes only a month before. (Don't worry, we had plenty of experience on other motorcycles!) Some of our friends accompanied us through the streets of Pretoria on their own bikes until we reached Fountains Circle.
De Witt and I turned away to Krugersdorp and rode west through Koster, Swartruggens and Zeerust. In Zeerust we stopped for a Wimpy burger because when would we get the chance again? We decided to cross the Skilpadshek border post into Botswana before nightfall.
Despite the long line of trucks at the border, we crossed without a fuss. It was 16 September 2023 and the start of our adventure!
DAYS 2–7
Botswana & Namibia
We'd chosen the name“Expedition H2O” for our trip: The plan was to raise funds for a water supply project in the Free State. (See page 126 for more info.) But raising funds for a good cause wasn't the only motivation. We were both in our late 40s and this was an opportunity to reflect on what was truly important in our lives. There would be lots to think about over the thousands of kilometres that lay ahead.
From Lobatse, where we slept the first night, we continued to Kang (Night 2) and Gobabis (Night 3), then Windhoek and Okahandja, where we stopped to buy a brötchen.
We stayed with De Witt's friends on a farm about 10 km north-east of Okahandja for the next two nights and enjoyed a rest day. Pretoria was already 1500 km behind us.
But there was bad news: We had planned to courier knobbly tyres from Trax Moto in Pretoria to Luanda, Angola. These tyres would be better suited to the muddy conditions that lay ahead, but it turned