The map below represent our whole trip from Pretoria to Kaokoland and back. The total distance was +-5171km. We spent 22 days (21 nights) complete the tour.
Our group consisted of three vehicles and five persons: Siep and Johan (Toyota - BigBlue), Tom (Nissan - white) and Mrad and Inge (Toyota - WitBlits).
Tom joined us from Jongensfontein (Stilbaai) so we planned to meet him in Windhoek.
The blog is generated in such a way that you can just look at the section which interests you, or you can work your way through our whole trip day by day.
Our children told us: "Please more photos than text!" So our blog is loaded with photos (even some videos). Hopefully the text merely puts the photo into context.
Personal preparation:
- planning the itinerary.
- the WEG has published various issues focussed on Kaokoland. These guided much of our planning.
- food
- clothes
- camping gear
- at least four to five day's water
- organizing home base to survive in our absence
- ensuring radio communication between the vehicle
- make provision for enough diesel to drive at least 1200km
The Tracks4Africa (T4A) system is indispensable for travel preparations. It gives information on accommodation and roads for/during our trip from Pretoria, through Botswana & Namibia into Kaokoland/-veld. In order to make sure that the T4A map's distances and times are up to date, I plotted the planned routes onto BaseCamp. For the routes in NW Kaokoland, I had to create way points and join them to create the routes as BaseCamp and our Garmin would not do so.
Its a pity that I don't know how to ask BaseCamp to keep similar routes independently of each other - they contaminate/change each other. Nevertheless, we left Pretoria with various pre-planned route options for Kaokoveld - enough to give us a sense of security.
What a blessing! When we got into the back of beyond (NW Kaokoveld), the GPS wouldn't calculate the routes. But it accepted the pre-planned routes, although we had to literally move the GPS screen manually as we drove along the route (we have a Garmin Montana). We still have to find out why this happened. Fortunately, the information on Points of Interest was available - this enhanced our enjoyment of the routes.
In Kaokoveld one uses the official/community camps when available. Some are splendid, others run down. However, when one goes a far NW as we did, bushcamping is the only option - what a joy!
Our trip was an amazing experience - every kilometre of the 1490km we travelled in Koakoland. We hope our blog entices you to do a similar trip (see map below).
If you love driving on dust/dirt/gravel/sand roads, then you need to plan a trip to Kaokoveld. Namibia has well-graded, well-cared for roads. Even the furthest NW roads are signposted and user friendly.
