Rob and Dee Overland in Africa 2014 – 10,000 miles – 4 months – 10 countries

Monthly Archives: August 2014

We spent the last 10 days of our African Adventure enjoying Cape Town.  What a wonderful and livable city.  We were joined there by our friends Mike and Hester whom we had originally met on the road into the Serengeti in Tanzania, and had spent several days with since.

Much of our efforts in CT were spent in trying to sell our truck but in between times we visited the waterfront, Table Mountain, the tip of the Cape Peninsula near where the waters of the Indian Ocean meet the waters of the Atlantic.  This is a major landmark for round the world sailors like ourselves, but on our circumnavigation we had braved the Red Sea and the Somali pirates and thus missed this iconic meeting of two of the world’s great oceans.

As anyone who knows Dee is aware she LOVES penguins- the number of stuffed penguin toys, penguin notepads, penguin bookends, aprons, t-shirts, etc she has received is beyond counting.  So a visit to the Cape Penguin colony was a must.  It did not disappoint as the look on De’s face in the photos below will attest.

The highlight of our CT visit however was when two of my gyroplane contacts whom I had only previously known via the internet offered to take us for a scenic flight.  They pulled out all the stops with Dee going in one gyro and me in the other and we went for over an hour long flight all along the Cape coastline, down towards Table Bay, over the city and then to the scenic attractions of Camps Bay and Hout Bay.  What a perfect way to end our trip.

Thanks Dave Lehr (LearJet) and Jean Tresfon for making the ending of our trip perfect.

We have just arrived back in the US but will be adding a few more posts to this blog in the coming weeks- specifically I will be adding some travel details geared towards those who are planning their own trips and want some nitty-gritty specifics to aid in their preparations.  If that is you be sure to check back.

Rob

 

 


Rob did it again! He, with a lot of help from Jean and David two gyro friends, put the icing on the cake of my Africa adventures. At 4:30 pm Thursday with the skies clearing we were in the air in two Magni gyro planes. These are open cockpit tandem cockpit gyros of Italian design – sleek and very stable. We flew out to the coast, saw whales cavorting in the surf, went toward the city of Cape Town with Table Mountain and other peaks describing the far horizon. What a fantastic geographic setting – mountains, plains, sea and city! Flew low and slow over it all and headed back as the sun was setting – coming through the pass between Table Mountain and Lion’s Head. Added the finishing touch and another fantastic perspective on the adventures of Africa. Thank you, thank you all. dee

 

A few pics here- more to follow in Rob’s Cape Town Post

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

S dune sunrise1It is hard to imagine a greater contrast in landscape from the desert and sand dunes of Namibia last week to the flower strewn meadows of South Africa’s Namaqualand where we are now. With our Kiwi friends Brian and Sarah aboard we drove endless miles of parched white sandy desert in Namibia and now we are camped in fields of blooming Namaqua daisies.

Crossing our first section of desert brought us to the forbidding Skeleton Coast, which lived up to its name on the day of our arrival. It was a bleak wintry scene with wild storm tossed ocean waves breaking over the discarded wreck of a stranded cargo ship. Farther along in Namibia we made a pre-sunrise climb to the top of a 1,200 meter sand dune in Sossusvlei and later proved our mettle by getting stuck once again in the sand- and getting unstuck on our own.   More desert travels including two flat tires in one day brought us to Fish River Canyon- a mini version of the Grand Canyon. We tried a puncture repair but with minimal success then continued on with crossed fingers and no spare tires. The road ahead was the same section that had caused the two flats so it was with great relief that we finally reached a town just as our right rear tire sank into the pavement. Three new tires and $600 poorer we were on our way towards South Africa.

This section of South Africa is famous for its fields of daisies which usually bloom from mid August through September but we are in luck as they have bloomed early this year and we have timed it perfectly. How pleasant to again be driving through wonderful scenery and colorful meadows.

We have come nearly 20,000 kilometers and Cape Town, the end of our road is not far now.

Rob