Location:  Khorixas
Dates: 11th September - 13th September 2001
Distance: 52,476 km's
Highlights: a grueling 650 km drive on a broken spring and being charged by a bull elephant. 



We sat transfixed to the radio for a couple of hours as events unfolded in New York. It was unbelievable, could it really be happening, it was the stuff films were made of. First one of the twin towers, then the second and finally they both collapsed, the commentator screaming into the microphone, breathless with shock. Then the silences, people in the background repeating ‘Oh my god! Oh my God’ There was no other way to phrase the disbelief.

The reports continued, 100’s of firefighters had been engulfed in the collapse, thousands of people had been trapped in the upper floors, some jumping as a last resort.

The Pentagon had been hit and reports of a fourth airline crashing into a field. Heroic last minute phone calls from passengers to loved ones; people were trying to seize the plane back to avert disaster. 

All planes in North America were grounded.

We were shrouded in silence, a booming deafening silence under the relentless glare of the afternoon sun. Vast open expanses of desert. To the north the Kunene and beyond the inhospitable mountains of Angola. To the west the Skeleton Coast, named after the lives it had taken. To the east the Hartmann Mountains draped in years of wind blown sand.

To the south, one long bone shaking track, 450 km plus to the nearest town with any repair facilities.

We hadn’t seen a car for 3 days and had strayed 8 km further north towards the Kunene after the end of the beaten track, crossing difficult dunes and soft sand. Echoing in my head were the words from a Guide Book I had browsed in Maun. Kaokoland is the most remote region in Southern Africa and should only be considered for fly in Safari’s. Those attempting to drive should only do so in fully prepared vehicles, a convoy of 3 vehicles or more and with a qualified guide and suitable communication equipment. We were alone!

Was this it, had we met our match? Had we pushed the statistics game one step too far? 

I looked at the broken spring again and again. The FC101 has only two leaves both semi-elliptical. On the FC101’s inaugural outing named ‘The Longest Beach in the Word’, where four military 101’s with trailers set off from Dakar in 1975 to cross the Sahara West to East, ending at Port Sudan. The first unaided vehicles to cross the ‘Empty Quarter’, a 1300 km stretch of soft sand with no water, an area left well alone by the Turag’s. In Sudan the 101’s hit ‘tussock grass’, thick clumps eking a fragile existence in the otherwise baron landscape. These clumps of grass punished the leaf springs, cracking one rear. Their solution was to tie the broken leaf to the good leaf with a leather belt; we unfortunately had a full 12” length snapped cleanly off. The ‘Longest Beach in the World’ expedition also had the luxury of VHF Radio communication, within a few days a replacement spring was air dropped from an RAF Hercules over Sudan. We were very much alone.

The 101 is built for a one ton payload, we had approximately half this and to ease the matter I could empty both the water and diesel Jerry can’s, and empty the left hand reserve fuel tank into the right. There wasn’t much to shift around the inside, the fridge was empty and the heavy spares box lay over the right side.

We had no choice but continue south as far as we could, in the hope of getting back onto the main track and indeed finding help.

Suitably rested and fed, re-arrangements made to the load, I eased bumble back onto the piste. Every bump was negotiated with care, every stone avoided, soft sand sought. For 30 km’s the piste was soft and relatively flat, the going gentle on the springs. The soft sand caused the poorly cooled engine to run on the red. The heating was on full blast and temperatures in the cab rose to over 50 degrees centigrade. When we needed it most, the heater fan also packed up. Bumble was running at the limit, everything on the red, I had to turn into wind every few kilometres to aid our inadequate fan.

Every few minutes I had to consciously relax my jaw, the muscles cramped with tension, my breathing short, ears straining for any sound, eyes transfixed on the road, picking the smoothest path.

A lone Land Rover appeared on the horizon, boy were we in luck. As we drew closer, our excitement and relief broke the tension in the air. It was a short wheelbase Series Land Rover, but seemed to be making little headway towards us. I aimed for it, guaranteeing a collision course; we couldn’t let this opportunity of help get away.

There it lay, abandoned next to the piste, a discarded tow rope hanging limply off the front bumper, wind blown sand built up against the wheels. We drove a full circle around it and I jumped out to peer inside. The interior had been stripped of any belongings, the carcass left bare to the elements.

The Skeleton Coast, a place where old Land Rovers come to die! Was this an omen? The only vehicle we had seen in 3 days was an abandoned decaying Land Rover. 

I checked the springs underneath; they were a traditional Series Land Rover leaf spring pack; too short, too thin and too narrow – no use.

Our hopes dashed we continued south. Our track soon converged with a major piste just south of an airstrip. With the increased use, came horrendous corrugations, worse than the Dongola road in Northern Sudan. All the high speed tourists from Southern Africa, with only two weeks to circumnavigate Namibia, boast of racing over the piste's at 80 to 120 km/h, madness. We were now to pay the price of their impatience.

Every little corrugation stretched the spring, pounding the suspension, contributing to metal fatigue. Every peak, every trough worked the metal to the extreme. Each corrugation doing a Uri Geller impersonation, bending that metal spoon. My head was aching with the concentration, I tried to drive slowly but the rhythm found a resonant frequency. The rear of the Land Rover bucked and kicked. I sped up, but the repetitive bounding as the rear wheels jumped from peak to peak wore my nerves. I drove on the left-hand edge of the piste, resting the left wheels in the softer sand, breaking heavily for mounds, accelerating slowly in smooth patches.

Our progress was slow but sure, averaging 15 km/h. At each corner the scenery changed. The Hartmann mountains to our left dropped away to expose Van Zyle’s pass on the horizon. To our right the backside of the Skeleton Coast. Behind us Angola slid into the haze, before us a New World was opening up.

A mirage on the horizon, the familiar backend of another Land Rover. Did we have enough speed to catch them? We appeared to be gaining fast but it seemed an eternity before we arrived at yet another Land Rover carcass. The rear axle had cracked in half; the spilt oil long swallowed by the sand. The interior stripped bare. This was a 110 Defender from the 80’s, the rear Salisbury axle a more modern version of Bumble’s, not man enough to cope with Namibia’s highways though.

This really was the place Land Rover’s come to rest! We paid our respects and left the dead in peace, at least the Land Rover passed away doing what a Land Rover does best, travelling the wilderness.

The valley opened out into an extensive plain, our track keeping to the back of the Skeleton Coast. We passed south of the Red Drum, some 20 km’s to our left. Another 2 hours and the relentless corrugations turned to rocks. We dipped into a riverbed and followed its course west for 8 km before breaking south again. 

The wind was getting up and the sun dropping as a red ball of fire against the horizon, a dusty haze obscuring it’s fiery red brilliance. We stopped for a brief photocall but pushed on, only 10 minutes of twilight left before darkness set in. There was no sign of the moon to our left so we were in for a dark night.

We scoured the baron flat landscape for anything that would protect us from the wind. The track dipped sharply into another riverbed, the rear spring being punished mercilessly by the rock bed. Light had faded, a dirty set of headlights and one remaining spotlight picked our path amongst the treacherous rocks. Others had struggled up the opposing sandy bank; we didn’t have the luxury of a gung-ho high speed approach. I engaged low ratio, locked the center differential and feathered the throttle. It was a sharp ascent, made worse by those who had impatiently spun their wheels before, creating an almost sheer bank with a hard stony crest. Bumble’s front kicked up and we momentarily gazed at the stars before the back kicked as well. I kept the throttle steady to prevent any unnecessary pendulum swing from a drastic change in momentum. Back on a horizontal plane, the wind whistled through the standard issue Land Rover door seals. We unexpectedly dropped into a second tributary where there was a small island protected by the shade of an overhanging tree. This was home for the night.

Chaka was let out to recce the neighbored, scent a boundary around Bumble to ward off any predators and stretch his legs. Without cooking gas supper was going to be cold. With a few twigs, dead grass and sun baked animal dung I managed to make a small brew on the Bush Kettle, only its second outing since Morocco. We boiled enough water for a brew in the morning.

The sequel to Speed starring Keanu Reeves, featured a huge ship steaming at 15 knots. A critic commented ‘how could a boat be considered ‘Speed’ and keep you on the edge of your seat’. We had just experienced 6 hours of ‘on the edge of the seat’ suspense at only 15 km/h, with the prospect of another 2 days to come; I needed no excuse to hit the sack.

We rose with the light, but with nothing to cook for breakfast, sipped a strong tea for strength and hit the road. Stiff from yesterday’s tense experience, the aching muscles soon reared their ugly heads. The headache returned and the jaw cramped. After 30 km of steady progress we reached Orumpembe, or so our map told us. No more than a hand pump next to the track. We had already taken a 5 km detour from our southern route to see what existed at Orumpembe and we now had to choose between 160 km to Opuwo where we knew a welder, but we had no cash and there was no ATM, or over 200 km to Sesfontein where we knew there was a Tourist Lodge and possibly a garage. From Opuwo it was 350 km to Oshakata, the nearest bank, or over 400 km south to Khorixas. Sesfontein was heading south but still over 250 km away from Khorixas.

We chose the unknown and so retraced those precious 5 km to pick-up the southern route. After 40 km’s of a south westerly heading, the track kissed the back of the skeleton coast and opened out into a larger plain of flat insipid grassland. The piste was sand and concentrated into a narrow track. Again the high speed tourists had done their damage, 5 km stretches of horrendous corrugations battered Bumbles ailing limb. It was here that we saw our first Kaokoland wildlife, kudu like creatures sprinting across our path, leaving a thin dust trail, dissipating into the haze. Some larger buck, reminiscent of the wildebeest from the Masai Mara grazed at the foot of the mountains. Our progress was slow but steady; the heat of the sun gradually turned the inside of Bumble from fridge to inferno. We let Chaka out to stretch his legs, keeping a steady pace in Bumble to divert his attention from the surrounding game. They maintained a respectable distance and Chaka oblivious to their gaze continued to chase Bumble.

Morning turned to afternoon, Bumble’s aching joints creaked and groaned as we maintained our snails pace. Signs for Purros Lodge and Camping appeared so we diverted in search of some comparative civilisation. Up ahead the valley threatened to close in, overshadowed by steep mountains. At the entrance to this pass two rivers converge at Purros before combining strength and forging a route out to the Atlantic. The signs curved us east to the sanctuary of a palm grove. We stumbled upon a sleepy worker taking time out from a busy day doing nothing. The lodge appeared to be under construction or renovation and we were firmly out of season. The bar and restaurant were boarded shut. There was no welder or any form of workshop here; we were waved onto to Sesfontein. 

The lack of signs on African roads had developed a 6th sense in our navigational skills. We crossed the dry riverbed and asked a lone herdsman the way, skeptical though, as he probably had never been out of the valley. The map and our piste didn’t seem to tally; the one track we didn’t want headed due south and that was our general direction. The town of Purros rose out of the hill, a small congregation of garden sheds, scattered over a baron dusty wasteland. Fifty in total but no sign of life, no washing and no kids screaming in the garden. Was there a local football derby on or were we just out of season, or had Purros known a former glory.

 In the distance a new expensive safari Land Rover traversed our route, equipped for game viewing but manned by a solitary figure, no fly-in tourists to speak of today.

The tracks parted company, ours swept due east hugging the river, the other disappeared over the hill heading south. The atmosphere was full of fine dust, sand blasting Bumble’s outing skin and creating a shimmering haze in the distance. We continued to bump along over the riverbed, picking our way through the boulders ever conscious of Bumble’s limp. We seemed to have had the worst of the pounding, corrugations behind us with rough shale ahead. Bumble’s lone spring was doing wonders, down to half load capacity and with some of the worst roads Africa could throw at us, it was still holding on.

Contingency plans kept running through my head, the best I could think of should the remaining leaf break, was to tie the axle to the bump stop with a couple of one tone ratchet straps, using the remaining length of leaf as a trailing arm. That’s if the breaking spring caused no damage to the axle.

Chaka had been hanging on in the back for dear life, as the rear bucked and kicked. His favorite spot being the top of the fridge, where his underside remained cool and he could hang his head out of the side window. A tribute to Engel fridges, withstanding the weight of a 40 kg Rottweiler for 2 years. The fridge was now off due to lack of food but was comparatively cool, the other option being the floor over a hot gearbox.

The weird aerodynamics of a 101, if indeed they can be called aerodynamics, means that when the back window is open, dust is sucked in over Chaka’s head, across the back of our heads and out the front windows. Our last shower was Opuwo, four and a half days ago; the dust stuck to our hot sweaty bodies, building up layer upon layer.

Chaka stirred in the back, whining as he picked up a strong scent in the air. To his credit there were large piles of dung in the riverbed, dry and parched from a much earlier visitor, it was hard to believe there was still a smell.

Round the next bend we were confronted by a most beautiful sight, a large desert bull elephant feeding from the branches of a tree, truly wonderful, the three of us alone with nature. 

We stopped and stared in awe, Bumble’s engine idling quietly, slightly down wind of the elephant. To our surprise the rest of the herd padded into view, three females and three young. 

It was a classic fairytale scene, from the large bull through 7 stepped sizes to the youngest following up the rear. Out came the camera as we followed their progress, foraging amongst the dry riverbed scavenging for anything edible.

Koakoland is one of the world’s last wilderness areas, isolated by the inhospitable coastline to the west and the arid, rugged mountains to the east. Large tracts of this region remained unexplored and undeveloped well into the present century. The unique desert-dwelling elephant may walk up to 80 km in a day and depend on their range for survival. They have a good sense of direction and may travel up to 60 km to a waterhole which they may have visited many month previously. The Kaokoland population has declined to 50 due to poaching and competition with humans for land. We were truly privileged.

The track descended into the sandy riverbed and we had a beautiful shot of the bull up on the bank. 

He turned to pose for the picture, showing his full bulk, trunk lifted in our direction and peering through Sue’s window we could see the pink snout contrasting the grey hide as he sniffed the air. 

His ears came out to show his full width and then he CHARGED!

‘Go, go, go, he’s charging at us!’ My foot pressed the accelerator to the floor, the diesel engine resisted, the revs began to build for what seemed like an eternity, we were in the soft sand of the riverbed and there was very little forward motion.
‘Where is he, I can’t see him’ I shouted. Sue sat transfixed starring straight ahead out of the windscreen, too afraid to look at the charging bull. Bumble began to lift, the turbo still hadn’t kicked in, and time was a commodity we didn’t have.

‘Where is he, can you see him?’ Bumble picked up speed; I steered the shortest route across the river, crashing over a rocky mound, cringing as the back spring took serious punishment. We hit the far bank and the front bounced into air and the back kicked up behind. If anything was going to kill the remaining leaf spring it was this, and to loose mobility was the last thing we needed whilst in flight. My mind focused in on Bumble from the outside, our safe cocoon suddenly felt very small in comparison to the charging bull. The shining ivory would tear Bumbles thin aluminum skin like a paper bag, pushing Bumble on its side to disgorge the contents. Should we let Chaka out to take his chance with the elephants, would this be a suitable distraction for us to make a safe getaway.

We were blind to our surroundings, with only wingmirrors to see what was going on behind I had no idea what was bearing down on our side. Sue was still staring straight ahead.

‘Where is he, is he still coming?’ Sue stole a glance out of the side window; the bull was standing in a cloud of dust on the far bank. It had been a mock charge, and to him had had the desired effect. The undesirable alien smelling yellow box had retreated. 

‘Did you get the picture?’
‘What! You must be joking, he was charging us.’
‘But it would have been a fantastic picture, staring a charging elephant right between the eyes.’
‘No way, I just wanted to get away.’ 
My heart was in my mouth, our vulnerability even more apparent, I daren’t get out to check the spring, but nothing was banging and Bumble appeared to be level.

We were now upwind of the elephants and the bull was extremely agitated. We considered ourselves lucky and weren’t prepared to give him a second opportunity. Back on the bank we made steady progress.

Another long day, ten hours in the saddle, a stressful encounter but Bumble was being ever faithful. A Land Rover may never be 100% running but you can count on a Land Rover to never 100% stop!

Dusk was approaching and we were still short of Sesfontein. 

Still no food or gas so we munched on some spam and Chaka went off hunting for his own supper, coming back with what looked like an ear! 

Caked in a layer of dust we collapsed into bed for yet another fitful sleep full of broken springs and charging elephants.

Compared to the previous 5 days traveling Sesfontein was a tourist Mecca. One sign after another for camp sites but no apparent evidence of civilization. The central attraction is an old German fort converted into a lodge complete with swimming pool, bar and restaurant. Sadly we had no money for these luxuries but set about finding a welder. The owner of the lodge took one disgusted look at me and called a waiter to serve me instead. The welder was apparently out of town for a week, our next best hope was Khorixas.

We stopped by the one remaining shop in town and managed to score a few supplies that didn’t need cooking with our last few Namibian Dollars. Even the bakery had sold out of bread.

We pushed on south, still another 250 km to Khorixas, at least the road appeared on our map and had a chance of being graded. I was getting more confident on Bumble’s single spring, we managed to maintain a steady 50 km/h for the next 5 hours arriving in Khorixas mid afternoon. Now this was civilization. A petrol station with fast food, burgers and chips, a super market, Bank with ATM and garage. First stop ATM second stop food. After an instant meal of junk and cold coke, I set about finding the garage. They did have a welder but wouldn’t be able to do anything until tomorrow, but more immediately they could refill our gas bottle. With that done Sue stocked up at the supermarket.

On the way into town we saw signs for the Khorixas Lodge with a camping symbol. This turned out to be our first true Southern Africa Camping experience. Each plot had a brick built braai, power point, water point, fixed bench and table under a shaded thatched roof. The lodge had full bar, restaurant, swimming pool, hot showers, washing machines and organised tours. A sign that we were reaching civilisation and the end of our journey.

Chaka had turned from a black and tan Rottweiler into a golden retriever. In the cloud of dust hanging around the back of Bumble, were two blood shot eyes, the rest of Chaka blended into the dust cloud. Sue and I resembled flourmill workers, our hair grayed by 5 days of dust, our clothes stained by the sweat and caked by the layers of dust. We still had an hour of daylight left so, emptied all the loose items out of Bumble, swept the interior, then mopped it out, before cleaning each item with water an replacing it. Chaka had a brush and a wash followed swiftly by a much needed shower for the both of us.

Sue went off exploring and to find another cold coke. She returned nearly an hour later with graphic descriptions of the September 11th news she had been watching on CNN. I couldn’t believe there was actual footage of a plane, full of passengers, flying straight into the World Trade Centre. Followed closely by a second and finally the towers collapsing – it seemed surreal, something only Hollywood could create.

Cold coke, hot food, clean clothes, scrubbed and showered and a clean bed. No more fitful sleep. We had driven over 650 bone shattering solitary kilometres, on the edge of our seats, feeling every single bump, thinking it maybe the last. Having pushed at the edge of the statistics game we had come out ahead yet again.

Neil - enableafrica.net expedition team

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