Hello All,
I'm planning a 3 month trip with my Father from the UK to S.Africa riding down the Eastern side of Africa before skipping over to Namibia in Southern Africa, largely a very similar route to MacGregor and Boorman on the long way down. BBC - Long Way Down - Route Map

I'm trying to figure out how much extra fuel we will need to carry. We plan to ride a std. tanked GS and an oversize acerbis tank on a 650 dominator.

Any advice from anyone who's travelled the route would be very much appreciated. I'm especially interested in undertsanding whether visa's can easily be obtained at borders or whether getting them from UK embassies prior travel is an absolute neccesity.

Thanks
Boomer

In 2008-2009, all visas for this side of Africa are obtainable at the border EXCEPT Ethiopia and Sudan.

So Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, TZ, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa Mozambique, Swazi, Leshoto....no worries.....indeed for Botswana, Namibia, S Africa, Leshoto, Swazi, and Malawi you dont need a visa if you are on a UK passport.

Get Ethiopia visa FIRST whilst in Cairo, then pop to Sudanese embassy to get the transit visa, no worries.

For fuel, Im not sure on bikes as Im a trucker, but i would think Sudan might be your only concern? All other countries youre never far from fuel. Indeed, Sudan isnt even that bad, just Im not sure on your bike fuel consumption.

For some reason I feel compelled to ask whether you're aware that you're planning a very, very fast trip. If so, more power to you and I hope you've got an escape hatch or two built into the schedule. If not, you might want to start by thinking about your time allotment.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Mark

(from Coihaique, on a very different sort of continent)

We're doing it in 4 months, but only 3 weeks of that is getting to Cairo. It's 3 months and a week for Cairo to Cape Town. But yeah, even with that, we do drive a fair bit. But we still get to stop at certain places for 4 or 5 days, then other days drive all day. It's not really slow paced, but I'd say doing in that time would be about medium pace. I don't really think we are doing it at any rate of knots.

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http://www.WhyNotTour.com

Thanks Dave the hat, it would be much more convenient to get visa's on the go,...did it cause much of a hold up at any border? what was your experience of 'fixers'?

Boomer

Did the run up from South Africa to Kenya last year on a 650 Dakar and a normal 650 GS.

We only carried an extra 5lt can of fuel and never needed it - although in Zambia we were a bit twitchy at 347kms betwen available fuel stops!

The main worry was the petrol stations either not having any fuel available, or no electricty at that momeent to actually pump up the fuel.

The BM's were wonderful in their economy though. I would carry as little as you can for weight purposes. (Same philisophy from my various freinds who have done the southern part of your route.

Sean

The link below may be of interest.
Certainly Ethiopian and Sudanese visas are needed in advance, easily obtainable in Cairo. Sudanese consulate not easy to find, in a different location to that shown on most maps.
But the people at the campsite in Giza (forget the name at present) that most overlanders use know the taxi drivers who can take you there. We looked for it ourselves but wished we'd used the campsite taxi as we lost a day in the process.
Usually, you need a letter from your own consulate to get the Sudanese visa. Again the local taxi driver knows which ones and where they are. Not cheap if you're British.

Our blog below has postings covering entering Syria, Egypt and Sudan that may be of interest. No other visas required in advance other than Sudan and Ethiopia. Not having a visa didn't cause any delay at any border.

But as already said, your trip looks a bit of a rush compared to ours.
5 1/2 months and we've just arrived in Ethiopia from London!

I have a Dominator at home, and with a big tank you'll have no trouble. You find fuel in some pretty unexpected locations in Sudan and Egypt.

Cheers

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

Ok, you sound like you´ve a fair idea. Still too fast for me or, I suspect, most people. But your original post said three months UK to SA. That´s quick.

enjoy,

Mark

Hi Boomer,

You don't mention which GS you've got, but I believe most have a range of around 320 km before hitting reserve. That will be close a couple of times, mostly depending on the conditions. In the sand in Sudan my R100GS was down to 10 km/L and Audrey's F650GS was down to 18 km/L (usually closer to 30!). We carried a 5 Litre jerry can but only used it to transfer fuel to the F650 (from the 45 gallon drum to the 4 litre oil bottle to the 5 litre jerry can) since it had a spout and could get at the gas cap behind the saddlebag. We didn't run out of fuel in Sudan as there was always a supply somewhere in a village. The F650 came perilously close to running out in Ethiopia though. Lots of filling stations but no gasoline on tap, just Diesel. When we finally found a station with gasoline the bike was running on fumes (we hadn't filled the jerry can because there were lots of gas stations).

Visas were all easy to get on the way. The Sudanese visa took a few days in Cairo and we needed a letter of introduction from the Canadian embassy. We picked up the Ethiopian visa in Khartoum and it was straightforward enough so you don't need to do that in Cairo if you don't want to. We stayed at the Sun Hotel in Cairo and it was only a ten minute walk away from the Sudanese and Canadian embassies.

When we did the trip in 2007/2008 we entered Egypt on December 3 and got to Cape Town on May 2, so five months. We probably spent 3 or 4 weeks not travelling (e.g. Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Serengeti Safari) so four months wouldn't be a problem and three should be do-able. Plans change though (we decided to slow down our trip) so as mentioned before, have a backup plan in case it takes a bit longer. You'll notice in the Long Way Down (and Long Way Round for that matter) there was a lot of "discussion" about their pace, I think they wen't a bit too quickly to properly enjoy the journey but that's just me.

You can check out our website at Audrey and Ekkes Home Page if you're interested.

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Ekke Kok

'84 R100RT 141,000 km (Dad's!)
'89 R100GS 250,000 km (and ready for another continent)
'07 R1200GS Adventure 100,000 km (just finished Circumnavigating Asia)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

www.ekke-audrey.ca

What's the fuel situation in Malawi and rural Tanzania. I'm planning to take the southern route from the lake to the coast in Tanzania. Also some rural mountain route in Ethiopia so that's an interesting thing about fuel there.

I'm also planning 3 months. Reckon it should be doable. Might be fast for some, but I'm not one to sit around or take tours. Get a bit restless. Also not one to take holidays. Just enjoy the scenery going past.

To me Namibia sounds like it'll be the offroad adventure. Metaljockey over at Adv is really selling it to me. Further into Africa logistics seems to get more difficult to do that sort of riding, so I figured the main routes with some rural stuff thrown in is adventurous enough for me. You can find out where the bitumen starts and end to some degree on Google Earth as well. That way I figure out an average speed. Add to that riding hours/ day, throw in a contingency and some downtime for ferries, visa's, borders, excursions, services, etc and you get the answer.

Why aren't the Egyptian and Sudanese visa's not arranged at home?

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

I don't recall any trouble in Malawi or Tanzania but I imagine the more rural you get the spottier the fuel.

Namibia is fantastic. The roads are well maintained (which can be a bit of a curse on the freshly graded stuff) and the scenery is amazing. You might be tempted to spend more of your time there just exploring and with a three month plan I don't think you would be able to do that. I agree that three months is doable but personally I'm glad we took five. There is so much of the world to see that I'm not sure when I'll be going back to places to see things I might have missed on the first time through.

I think the main reason that travellers don't prearrange visas from home is because of the time committment. A visa is only valid for a certain time (be it 30 days or 3 months) so prearranging removes a lot of the flexibility from a trip. We applied for our Sudanese visa months in advance back home in Canada and we didn't have it when we left on our trip. We still didn't have it when we got to Egypt so we applied again in Cairo. In the end that turned out to be the best way anyway. With a faster trip and more critical time commitments it may make more sense to get them before hand.

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Ekke Kok

'84 R100RT 141,000 km (Dad's!)
'89 R100GS 250,000 km (and ready for another continent)
'07 R1200GS Adventure 100,000 km (just finished Circumnavigating Asia)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

www.ekke-audrey.ca

I totally agree, but in my situation and considering past experiences it's just not realistic and feasible, so I'm doing whatever is and just accept it.

The plan is to follow the route from this thread as it really inspired me to go to Africa in the first place. Don't see the point in reinventing the wheel, and it's miles from what we have here in Oz.

The Wife, the Ex and the kid do Namibia - ADVrider

My range is 400km if I throttle it (somehow get better mileage running it hard), and can carry an extra 10l in a fuel bladder. We'll do some stamina preperation here in Oz which is easily done here.

I'm starting in SA, so will have to apply in Ethiopia for a Sudanese. But I reckon I should be able to get within 30 days of the entry date just because of only having 3 months anyway. So am thinking of doing it here.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

I finished my trip in Jan this year from capetown to austria. My Suzuki freewind hads a 18 litre tank and i carried 10 litres extra. I used it once in northern kenya along the eastern side of lake tokanau. I Had problems in zambia, malawi and ethiopia. A lot of the fuel stations had none but i always found fuel on the black market. i think that some of it was blended with kero as it did not look or smell right. the bike ran ok.
Ask a taxi driver with a petrol car. I found that this was the easy way to find it.

Cheers miles

Taxi drivers. That's a good tip.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com