vanandtheartofmagnetorewinding

Sitting in front of a nice warm fire in the comfort and safety of our lounge I verbalised an idea that has been percolating for a while. What would it be like to get on my motorbike and follow some dirt roads and tracks right to the top of Namibia?

Toying with the idea for a couple of days allowed it to develop a life of its own. I am not one for much holiday planning but I realised that there will have to be some preparation. Reliable fuel sources are scarce in the northern parts of Kaokoland and one will have to carry enough food and water to survive for a few days in case of some eventuality.

In order to be able to carry enough water and fuel I constructed a carrier made from 110mm drain pipe and some aluminium square tubing. 2l Coke bottles fit snugly into the 110mm piping allowing me to carry 8l fuel in the pipes plus another 8l inside my baggage and added to the 26.5 l tank capacity I would be able to do approximately 750km in off-road conditions. I made sure I had at least 4l emergency water at all times and took some tins of food. As a backstop I also took a satellite phone….

The fuel carrier turned out a winner, but also elicited quite a few comments and questions from people I met along the way.

Night before, my wife looks a little bit in trepidation regarding this trip of mine….. Must say, crossing Damara and Kaoko all on your own on a bike may not be the most responsible of ideas 🙂

D-day arrived on Wednesday July 6 2016. It was quite a cold West coast day but at least the rain had stopped earlier that morning. First fuel stop Velddrift and I tackled the normally sandy roads through Aurora and Redelinghuis. Sandy? Nope, the rains of the previous couple of weeks turned these roads into a continuous string of mud puddles. I could not believe how slippery these roads can get.

From Redelinghuis I took to tar over Leipoltdtville to the N7 and crossed the border at Vioolsdrift. Bought a MTC Sim and airtime at Noordoewer and arrived at Amanzi on the Orange just before dark. Dinner came from tins, but I was thoroughly chuffed to be in Nam 🙂 642km for the day.

Day 2. After morning coffee I took the C13 along the Orange towards Sendelingsdrif. What a wonderful biking road! One has to be a little careful through some of the narrow cuttings and over blind rises because not everyone keeps left though…. From Sendelings I followed the C13 to Rosh Pinah where a toasted sandwich completed breakfast.

About 40km north of Rosh Pinah I turned right off the C13 onto the D463 following the scenic route to Konkiep

At the Arimas river crossing I started to walk the crossing but realised that the water is deeper than my boots so this will result in wet feet. Decided to just ride. Well halfway across it started getting deeper and my bravado dwindled so I stopped. Big mistake. Water gushed into the top of my boots…. wet feet….. Now I had to decide, try to turn around? One could not see through the water to gauge the depth. After a bit of contemplation I gave stick and rode. Well I should not have stopped. The water never got to spark plug depth and I crossed safely 🙂 Still had wet feet…. and legs and arse…. Man up dude, this is why it is called adventure riding!

At Konkiep I crossed  over the B4 onto the C14. From the B4 to Bethanie the C14 is tarred but then again dirt to Helmeringshausen for a refuel. Filled the tank and pushed the bike out of the way to go and buy a Coke. Tripped over the sidestand whilst pushing the bike and dropped it in a cloud of dust. PUNK! The fuel attendant graciously swallowed his giggle and helped me pick up the bike…… my ego was left in the dust…..

From here took the D407 to Betta. Not such a nice road. Corrugated and strewn with round stones. The bike tended to shake its head and change direction unpredictably. Played around a bit with tyre pressures and things got better. Turned out I should not go too low but 1.2/1.3 bar front rear seemed to work best. Arrived at the Betta campsite again shortly before dark. Here I could buy some boerewors and firewood so dinner did not need to come from tins tonight. Bargain! The wors was really good and the campsite a treat.607km for the day.

Day3. Breakfasted on some bacon biltong that I made the previous week and took the C27 past Wêreldend and Sesriem, then joined the C19 to Solitaire.

Sesriem

These roads are nice and fast and me and the 640 had lots of fun. Stopped at Solitaire for fuel for both of us and continued on the C14.This stretch of C14 across the Guab and Kuiseb rivers is an absolute joy. Beautiful scenery and curvy dirt roads  with a couple of kilometers of tarred surface thrown in makes for an unforgettable riding experience.

The last part towards Walvis Bay runs across desolate plains.Here one can really fly 🙂

Did a quick stop at Dune 7….

The wreck of Zeila of Hangana between Swakop and Henties – stranded as far as I know in 2008

Tent pitched at Buck’s camping in Henties and indulged in a cheese filled fillet 🙂 577km for the day.

Day 4 dawned with some trepidation. Today we tackle the Omaruru river from Henties to Omaruru.About 200km riverbed and the last 50 odd km dirt road. Eastwind was pumping, making conditions even more testing

Omdel dam. Don’t know when this dam last had water

Riding across the dam wall with a howling side wind

The picnic area at the bottom of the dam wall

I started the river section with tyre pressures down to 0.8/1 bar. The wind was quite a challenge. Felt like it tried to blow one right off the bike when standing, left a layer of dust on the visor and peppered one with grains of sand, but the ride was unadulterated fun 🙂

When I pulled off from here I should have seen the red lights. My tyre pressures were still too high but I did get going with some effort so just kept on going…… untill the next stop…….

I must have chosen the worst possible place to stop this time. When I tried to pull off again the bike just dug in. Eventually i took the kit off the bike, cleared the sand around the rear wheel and tried again. It did move forward a bit but soon the rear was dug in so deep that the front wheel was off the floor. Dug away the sand again until I could lay the bike on its side, filled the hole, picked up the bike and deflated to 0.4/0.6. Now the going was much better 🙂

One of those crashes I really do not appreciate. No idea why I went down. I was merrily zooming along in third and the next moment I am being torpedoed off the bike, hit the sand head first with the legs doing a whiplash into the sand. My right shoulder took quite a hit and my right arm hung limp. There was no chance that I could pick up the bike so I took some pictures and sat down for a while. After half an hour the arm started feeling better so I took the kit off the bike and wrestled it upright. By the time it was loaded again my right arm sort of cooperated again and off we went

Quite tired I arrived at River Guest House, pitched the tent, gobbled down some tinned food and hit the sack. This was an incredible day. The river trail is challenging but satisfying, remote and beautiful.257km for the day.

Day 5 Followed the C36, D2344, C35, D2612, C39 and C43 to Palmwag with a little detour to Twyfelfontein thrown in. Roads were mostly wide dirt roads but some parts were slowish due to quite bad corrugations. The idea was to carry on to Puros, but the allure of an early stop, a nice pool area and a restaurant dinner made me turn off to Palmwag lodge. It was a good call. Dinner was real good 🙂 Not a very exiting day but a nice ride and the body appreciated not being abused today. 337km for the day.

Day 6. Palmwag to Puros. The first part to Sesfontein is fast and smooth. Had quite some wind with the resultant dust clouds but a nice ride. In Sesfontein I filled up with fuel and filled an extra 8 x 2l bottles too. Added to this an extra 10l of water and the bike felt like a pig. The road from Sesfontein is extremely varying. Thick sand, loose gravel, some rocky river crossings and some wide open dirt roads. The sandy and loose gravel sections highlighted the fact that my baggage was way too high, way too heavy and way too loose. As soon as the bike started wiggling its tail and shaking its head the baggage would act as a pendulum and things would get scary. Redistributing the weight and tying the baggage down much more securely fixed the problem and I arrived nice and early at Puros bush Lodge.

I decided not to camp and booked into a chalet. I needed a bit of time to fix some irritating little niggles on the bike. The choke cable was stuck half-open and the cooling fan’s leads would sporadically disconnect themselves. In order to attend to these I had to strip most off the bodywork off the bike, but with that done the actual fixes were quick and simple. Puros bush lodge used to have an excellent kitchen where me and Elmarie dined last year when we were there with the Landy so I was looking forward to another nice dinner. This was not to be. Seems like things fell apart and the kitchen was not operational at all. Real shame…. Only 220km for today but all in all a good day. The bike was happy again, fuel and provisions filled up so ready for the most remote part of the trip.

 

Day 7. I spoke to some locals regarding the state of the Huarusib and Khumib river trails and the possibility of encountering lions and elephants. They said there was just enough water to make it interesting, the lions were not in the area and chances of encountering elephants also slim. They did warn me that the elephants were last seen not too far off and that they had a baby with them so might be aggressive.

The terrain varied wildly and I had to adjust tyre pressures several times up and down during the course of the day. The river parts were not as soft as the Omaruru so 0.8/1bar sufficed but for the fast rocky sections this would not do.

The part between the Khumib river trail and Rooidrom was rocky and some places quite challenging but a LOT of fun! Here I realised that my fuel consumption expectations might have been a bit optimistic. I was reckoning on an average of 17km/l but was spending far more time in 1st 2nd and 3rd than anticipated. Maybe I would have to reconsider my return route….

Rooidrom to Camp Syncro consisted of some fast and some not so fast sandy sections. Herds of Springbucks could be seen on the Marienfluss with lots of grazing after the earlier good rains.

Arriving at Syncro was such a high point.Ryan and Sarah makes one feel so welcome and I was SO chuffed with actually reaching the Kunene. Now just for the small matter of getting home again but there was still lots of brilliant riding and excitement to come. Ryan sold me 10l of petrol which meant that I could confidently stick to my planned return route.Did 211km for the day. Very enjoyable riding 🙂

Day 8. On the way back to Rooidrom I took a wrong turn which resulted in a little bit of a detour but saw lots more Springbucks than the previous day.

From Rooidrom I turned west towards Bloudrom. From here the terrain varies between rocks, drifts and gravel plains. From the previous day’s experience I knew that there was no chance that I would reach the planned camp at Ongongo on the far side of Sesfontein that day.

The mirror was broken by a well-aimed strike from a Mopani branch……

Oranje drom….

Around these parts one really get the meaning of remoteness. Two people in a Cruiser were the only other human beings I saw that day. They were actually very concerned about me and their perception of me being a nut case was very thinly veiled 🙂

I met this dude too but he showed absolutely no concern at all….. looked a bit stoned…..

Staring too much at the surroundings and not paying enough attention to the road always results in some horizontal time….

 

Ougams fontein

Shadows getting a bit long…..

But I wanted to reach this viewpoint before sundown. A firm favourate of ours, overlooking the Sceleton Coast Park.

So wished I had my camera for some golden hour pictures but had to make do with the cell phone. Still had a ball!

At sundown I descended from this hill and stopped for a bushcamp just before it got completely dark. 268km for the day, 268 absolutely fabulously wonderful kilometers 🙂

Day 9 started before sunrise. Here I crossed the riverbed just before Puros.

By now I still had the 8 litres left in  my drainpipes so at Puros I emptied these into the tank. Refueled at Sesfontein. The bike still had 14 litres left in the tank so I would have completed the 750 km from Sesfontein back to Sesfontein without the 10 liters bought at Syncro, but was glad I did for the peace of mind it brought. Bike gave roughly 20km/l on this 750km loop. Not bad for the amount of time spent in the lower 3 gears….

From Sesfontein I did some joyously fast riding on excellent dirt roads past Palmwag to Khorixas. Camped and dined at iGowati lodge. The dinner did not disappoint! 420 km for the day

Day 10. Fortunately I had no specific destination for this day, because things did not go that smoothly. Started the day on a nice wide road towards Brandberg….

Met this guy who was elated to find out what the KTM on his sweater stood for…..

The fast wide road became a 2spoor and I had to ask directions because the GPS was acting up. I stopped to take this picture of Brandberg en switched the bike off for a bit of a breather. When I wanted to get going again I realised it was not the GPS acting up, but my battery was flat. I have never kick started the left-handed (footed?) 640 before so it took a while but I did get going again. Rode with headlight off to make sure that the battery would charge quickly…..

I rode past Brandberg and the idea was to cross the Messum Crater, but a few kilometers into the Messum area the bike came to a spluttering halt. After a bit of investigation I realised that the battery is not getting charged and now is completely flat so no amount of kicking is going to get the bike started. Big problem….. I had a little 12v rechargeable which I used for a camplight and charging the phone. I connected this to the bike’s battery and a while later I could kick-start it again. I knew this little battery could not keep me going for too long so I hightailed for the nearest main road and rode like crazy to get to Henties. The last half an hour of this ride was done in darkness….. Not so nice but I made it….. 354km for the day.

Day 11. Saturday morning was spent walking through Henties searching for a battery charger and a multimeter. Ended up buying a meter, solar panel and controller from a China shop. Back at the camp I started testing and soon found out that the magneto stator coil is open-circuit across all three phases. Oh dear! Started stripping and found that one of the 6 flywheel bolts came adrift, totalling the stator windings (the other 5 were only fingertight…don’t ask me…)

Well, I had nothing else to do and nothing to lose so I stripped all the windings off the stator, and started rewinding it with the longest of the pieces of wire twisted together. The longest continuous piece of wire was about 30cm….  This process took me the rest of Saturday and Sunday morning

By midday Sunday I was done, put it all back together and got it going….. My twisted together magneto gave out 10volt and enough current to run the ignition but nothing else, and my fingers were hurting…. Oh well,it was worth a try, will phone KTM Windhoek on Monday morning, let’s go for lunch at Fishy Corner 🙂 Man, that lunch was good!!

Monday morning , day 13, I phoned but it will take KTM 10 working days to get a new stator to Windhoek…. Shall I try this? Ride the bike home in this state? What are the options??? Let’s try it 🙂 From here on there were very few stops for pictures…..

Reached Solitaire quite early that afternoon. 300km and a VERY nice dinner!

Day 14. Solitaire, Helmeringhausen, Konkiep, Seeheim…. lunch at Canyon Roadhouse and tinned dinner back at Amanzi. 787km…. My magneto is holding up so far…..

To end the story, day 15. At Garies the bike started spluttering again. I stopped at the co-op, bought a charger and they offered me a power point to charge the battery. Whilst waiting I stripped the magneto again and found a loose wire. Twisted it back together and rode like the wind for home. Did run out of fuel too but a Samaritan on a 660 Tenere helped me out. Home just before dark in drizzling rain WHAT AN AMAZING TRIP THIS WAS !!!

Just am update on the magneto saga….. I tried to rewind the magneto again using new wire. Not too successful. The stator is bent too much so one do not get enough windings on it, it would only produce 12.5v. Our local bike shop offered their box of stators from stripped bikes and I found a stator which fitted perfectly. R450 later and the 640 is happy as ever 🙂 Thank you Adam!