OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
Our time in Hammamet is beautifully relaxing. Granted it’s not a representation of the Tunisia that exists to the south but it’s a great place for us to get ready for the coming days and our journey ahead. Our friend Koray from Nice has sent us a note letting us know that the French government has just issued a travel…
Hi Guys, My route over the last few days. We left Marakesh with spirits high and ready to ride the famous atlas mountains. Our destination Was Zagora. We left Marakesh with an orange juice off course. We made our way through the morning traffic and headed out of town on a wonderfull twisting road towards the mountains. We had some…
The drive to Livingstonia was slow, but absolutely beautiful! The most part of the road winds between part of The Great Rift Valley and the views are breathtaking! Mzuzu town is perched on the mountains at 1200m altitude, and driving to Livingstonia takes you all the way back to the Lake, and then up another mountain. As we started descending,…
In Luxor we stayed at a campsite called Razeiky Camp. This is a hotel with a large garden / sandpit and as we sat nursing ice cold beers in the afternoon heat we were told grand stories of yesteryear by the manager (who reminds Jules of her dad, but for the sake of keeping wills intact no photo was taken),…
In 1956 the French left Morocco after 44-years of occupation but recent times have seen a new invasion; from the Southern Spanish Ports they come in their thousands, a campervan cavalcade marching to a victory of sunshine and low-cost campsites. Throughout natural history, species with the means (ie-wings) have wisely selected to spend their winter months in the sunshine of…
We are suffering from a bit of sensory overload after three days in Etosha. It is not easy to describe the scenery, the vegetation, the vastness of the Etosha Pan, or the animals we saw. Or the numbers of animals we saw… Etosha National Park started out in the early 1900s as a 90,000 square kilometre park, but the last…
Crossing over to North Sudan Driving down from Gondar in Ethiopia to the Sudanese border takes you from a very cool elevation of 2,100m down to just 600m. Upon arriving at the border town of Metema, we were completely dumbfounded by the intensity of the Sudanese desert heat. “Only 38 degrees today!” the locals cheerfully replied. “In Khartoum, it’s 46!”…
We arrived late in Letaba on Friday because of the long delay at Skukuza workshop. Arno decided to drive the Hilux in 4×4 because the vibration that we heard at the front right wheel then stops. We were lucky to get the very last campsite against the fence. As normal, the hyenas came at dusk running up and down the…
Truck on it’s side A herd of Camals A donkey carrying far to much hay Truck loses it’s load down a donga We found some interesting photo’s depicting Ethiopian roads while we driving south towards South Africa……
We are terribly proud of little Lily, she’s fitted in well with the travelling esp. when we have been forced to travel great distances. She’s really enjoyed running out side with no shoes on and seems to be picking up so many words, languages, experiences for a two year old. Here’s some of our favourites… Love your parentsxxx Lily’s bush…
We made our way up north to the Simien mountains to a town called Debark, looking for Sib and Pris who were two days ahead of us after they left Gondor. We arrived at the Simien National Park where we went looking for them and were told by the National Park Wardens that they were in the guest book and…
After a long day on the Marsabit Moyale road and then doing the border crossing from Kenya to Ethiopia it was time to call it a day. Our first night in Ethiopia was spent in a hotel 1, 5 km from the border. There we were also served out first Ethiopian meal, grilled goat meat with the traditional injera, bread,…
Metema border Lake Tana sunset Simien mountain bush camp, nic dragging a tree for the fire Bad road to Axum Their huts with a beautiful outlook over lake Tana Nicky lake tana Lily’s dog bite at Tim and Kims at Tana Bush camp in simian mountains outside Debark 12th-20th April We arrived at the Metema border at 9am on the…
Way back in 1962, British director David Lean choose the dusty town of Ouarzazate and its surrounding area to film his epic movie ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Lean recognised the potential of the area as a unique and versatile film location and inadvertently started the small dusty towns long love affair with Hollywood. Ouarzazate and the smaller UNESCO World Heritage site…
Salaam Aleikum, My route over the last few days. I had a slow start the morning after the last blog. I had a quick coffee and packed in a rush as Dave was ready to go. We had a long day ahead of us as we wanted to push to Marrakech, the one city I have been looking forward to…
Next day was a longish one – we needed to make it almost 300km to Roy’s Rest Camp just outside Grootfontein. We also discovered that the main part of Namibia is on a different time zone! So, turning the clocks back gave us an extra hour in the day. On the way, we stopped in Rundu to find the “Forget-me-not…
The last few months I’ve been slaving away in the office earning money for the next trip, Take On Asia. And in the evenings I’ve been slaving away on the laptop finishing the book on my earlier trip, Take On Africa. Finally, 10 months after typing the first sentence, the book Desert Snow is ready to print. 160,000 words have…
The next day we drove to Nkhata Bay. My cousin, Lea, recommended Mayoka Village describing it as heaven. And I quote, “Seriously, Shannon, it is heaven!” SOLD! We headed to Mayoka Village and were a little disappointed because they had no camping sites for cars, their dorms were full and their rooms were a bit out of our budget. But…
يوم جيد في اللغة العربية My route over the last few days. , After meeting up with Dave again in Dakar, we decided to try some of the best fish around and get some pics of the most western point in Africa. We were ready to roll too Lac Rose, the finishing point of the famous Dakar rally. The traffic…
As a student I had a Mini 1275 with a 34 litre fuel tank. Filling up a 90 litre gas guzzling 4×4 along with several 20 litre Jerry cans in Egypt 15 years later is considerably cheaper. In Cairo we paid 1.1 Egyptian Pounds per litre. I’ll let you do your own currency conversions and calculations, but if you’re too…
So, here we are. Already been in Namibia a few nights! Time is just flying. After crossing the border at Ngoma, we headed up to Katima Mulilo. Here, we had a few errands to take care of: draw Namibian dollars, pay for Namibian road tax, fill fuel, buy provisions. We knew ahead of time that South African Rands are legal…
Egypt has a lot of mosquitoes. You would think the author would have warned us about this when he wrote about all the other plagues in the Old Testament. When we finally left Hotel De La Post the room looked like a murder scene with splotches of blood all over the place after four nights of gruesome attacks and counter…
Saturday, the day before we left for the Kruger National Park, we invited Willie, Annette and Cora for a farewell braai at Naas & Heleen’s house. Liena were also invited and it felt as if she is part of our family now. She flew to London on Monday so in a way it was her farewell braai as well. Eretha…
We were very excited when our vehicle arrived in Cape Town – amongst other things, it meant that we could finalise a plan that had been brewing for a while: join Global Adventures on their Botswana Recce. Their plan to visit Botswana had been a year or more in the making, and the excitement was certainly tangible when we set…
This was our last stop in Botswana, the culmination of a fantastic two weeks, and with a fitting finale. Our exit from Moremi National Park was followed by a 40km sandy track until we entered at Mababe Gate. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the easiest navigation, but we found our way to the entrance. Once again, we signed the necessary books and…
This piece of road must be one of the most famous drives in Africa. Mostly for the wrong reasons. Cars break down and people have to camp along the road as they can’t make it all the way to the next town before dark. Well, here is our experience. The road looks pretty bad leaving Marsabit. In Kenya you drive…
Part 2: Iganga Hospital is a 200-bed district general hospital run, and largely funded by the government. It has male, female, paediatric and maternity wards, an outpatients department, pharmacy, laboratory, x-ray, ultrasound and an operating theatre. The gate opened straight out onto the main road and once inside there was always a great crowd shifting around the white buildings. Clusters…
Egypt Overland Vehicle and Tourist support regarding entering & leaving Aswan port and Egypt Contacts We recommend these Egyptian Agents Mr Mohamed Abouda Amir (Mohamed’s cousin) They deliver an incredible professional service around arranging all the paperwork, traffic checks, licenses, customs etc. you need to get vehicles into and out of Egypt seamlessly. Their fees are well worth the headache…
The nerves start setting in about five hours before the ferry is set to depart from Palermo. For an extra €30 the hotel has let us stay in the room until 6pm which allows us some time to try and relax without having to contend with lugging bags around, storing them and hoping everything is returned just as we left…
boarding goods Fellow passengers Leaving the cars in Port Aswan Aswan to Wadi Halfa via Lake Nasser – 01/04/2013 The port at Aswan is hot, chaotic, busy, with boxes and luggage everywhere. We had an agent called Aswan ferry goods , a lovely man who has sorted out our passage with ease so we can get to Sudan. He cost…