people often have a very passionate connection to overlanding we don't just like it we love it
it speaks to our souls and challenges us in ways that allow us to grow as people and to challenge
our relationships with others and ourselves over landing is just that thing for me i embrace
every trip with open arms and welcome the lessons i'll learn about myself my vehicle and the people
i travel with this trip is something special for me though i get to go on a once in a lifetime
adventure with a very good friend of mine and his father who both recently had a close call with
covert and who have been working tirelessly to get their vehicle ready for this trip
someone else i'll be traveling with for the first time on a trip like this is my own father this is
an opportunity to really spend some quality time with him and show him a part of my life that means
so much to me my uncle Andy will also be joining us and will be taking a role behind the camera to
make sure every little moment is captured on this sure to be fast paced journey all in all we'll be
a team of five people in two incredible vehicles this adventure will certainly test us all but
at the end of the day i think it will also create lifelong friendships as we tackle it all together
with our site set for namibia there were only a few last details we needed to get sorted out
this series of roam over landing is presented in
partnership with Garmin and supported by Cross-country Insurance Consultants,
Bushtech Aluminium Canopies Jackery South Africa and Eeziawn
thank you so much for taking a little bit of time to sit down and chat with me i thought
it'd be very interesting to kind of you know look at the process now going across the border in a
post covered situation things can seem a little bit scary i know for me i'm nervous about the
whole situation what's you know what are the rules have things changed crossing a border is
normally a stressful thing already and now adding in extra layers of complexity to it i feel like
this is something that might be stopping a lot of people from going out there and traveling
and exploring and at a time that's super important to be going out and actually doing that stuff
you know so i thought it might be good to touch base with you do you mind actually like
telling people a little bit about what you do because i think what you do is pretty damn cool
well thanks thanks Adrian thank you very much for the invite um
so from a tracks for africa point of view we basically configure travel experience into
things like maps and apps and books and paper maps so our job is to continuously try and
keep abreast with what changes happen in the sort of self-drive landscape you know is there
what changes in borders bridges road conditions new places opening up old places closing down
and in doing that we we've got to keep our ear on the ground and then we update the maps um and
and that database that we maintain that goes into our gps maps for the garmin gps's one of the big
things that i want to have a look at especially in this conversation is now with us prepping to go
there's obviously some things we need to kind of think about once we get to these borders and i'm
pretty sure it would be great for everybody else to know as well like if you if you're a first time
and you're gonna be crossing over into namibia for the first time what are some key things you think
um you know with all of your travel experience that people need to kind of take into account
you're crossing any border there's an old saying that says you can cross a border if you have your
paperwork and your money with the rest is actually optimal i mean if you forget your toothbrush you
go and buy one um but without your paperwork um you will not get through the border and
if it comes to namibia the paperwork isn't that odorous it's actually for south african
uh citizens and south african registered vehicles namibia is a pretty easy border to cross so
let's start with the person so the person will need a passport with six months ballot uh
passport from the date that you're trying to enter i think that's pretty standard across the world um
in the covert times that we're living now you're going to need a covert test as well so namibia
at this stage will accept a pcr test they used to accept the antigen for a short while but now it's
pcr and they give you seven days from the day that you did the test so that's seven days from
the swap not seven days from when you receive the results okay so but i would say yeah i mean
just just make sure that you plan an extra day for waiting for your test result i mean
we spoke a lot about the person the vehicle is pretty much the same as what it used to be
to take a vehicle across the border is a pretty standard thing you know again just take your
registration document get your stickers on the back um one thing that people don't realize about
namibia which has been a regulation for quite a few years actually is that on the national road
you have to drive with your lights switched on yes i've heard that i do that anyway so yeah
some of us sometimes have daylight running lights already on our vehicles but um yeah i've heard of
quite a few people who got a fine as they said proceed um luckily the namibian police are super
friendly people okay they'll give you a warning when we get to the border post what it what's the
situation with taking meat and and stuff like that across for food and that's also something that
can change because it depends on the outbreak of something like the food and mouth disease in south
africa or yeah what what whatever other outbreak there could be i just in my personal travels
i just don't take fresh meat or fresh veggies into namibia or this one okay you know there are plenty
of very good shops which are probably stocked from the south african side if you think about it
where you can buy everything like that i think now all that's left to do is
get packing and get ready for an epic adventure that's the fun part awesome thanks john cheers
so this is now apparently where an adventure begins getting a covert 19 test
but it is something we have to do so this is a beginning of a very busy day of getting ourselves
prepared for namibia so we're here to get the thing in there this is my first cover taste
that is an experience
it kind of tickles we've got a little bit more preparation to do and then we are packing
ourselves in the vehicles and we are making our way towards namibia and that is so so exciting
well i guess so you're both negative yes okay awesome that's great news i'm also negative
my uncle is negative and we're just waiting for my dad to get the the one-time pin but i think
we're looking i think we're looking good i think we are heading to Namibia tomorrow
we are pretty much ready to rock and roll the only thing we're still waiting for is my dad's covered
results um but we're just gonna have to get going it seems like there was a bit of a data capture
issue and they didn't put in his cell phone number correctly and he's not receiving the one-time pin
and it's just so we're gonna have to phone and get the results emailed to us directly
um but we just have to kind of hold thumbs and hit the road we can't delay any further so
all we gotta do close things up and get going the road to namibia is a long one so
we needed to take this opportunity to gather ourselves fill our long range tanks and grab
some charcoal for our first night of camping let's get going then this initial run would give me time
to get used to the new radio we installed as well as familiarize my father with the vehicle
we would leave Gauteng behind and make our way across the northwest province
seeing the environment constantly change as we now entered the northern cape welcome
so we got some good news my dad's covert test results came through he is negative
so we're just going to get the tests emailed through so we can either get them printed or at
least show them at the border so worth the risk good to know considering we are halfway there
but everything's green lights after a good five and a half hours on the road it's time to stop
make a bit of lunch so we've just set up the awnings it's now really starting to get into
that desert heat a little bit now we're looking into the 30s and this is just the
beginning for our trip we're looking at temperatures 35 38 degrees so uh this is
a bit of a warm-up for us but we're just gonna make a quick lunch and then we can
get back on the road we're a couple hours away from our campsite and i think we should
get there at a really nice time that we can set up make a good fire have a good bride
and just relax a little bit before we get to the border and not just ride on that anxiety
into namibia heading for a town called Uppington a town that hosts many adventurers on their journeys
up to the kgalakgadi trans frontier national park and the namibian border the latter would be our
calling and the kalahari monarch campsite just outside the town would be our pit stop for the
night and give us the opportunity for everybody to test out their gear and get familiar with the
vehicle setups because these vehicles would be our homes for the next few weeks we had some
awesome gear with us this trip and we couldn't be more prepared for the adventure ahead it's nice
to be out of the vehicles a little bit sit down and relax crack a cold beer open and we're gonna
get a fire going just now and just settle in it's been a long day on the road and there's been a lot
of energy building up to this moment but seeing the road signs saying namibia 130 kilometers away
that just brings joy to my heart so tomorrow is a very exciting day tomorrow we're going to go
and cross the border we're going to be recharged we're going to be energized so it's going to be
really really exciting but for now let's kick up our feet enjoy the beautiful kalahari around us
and have a good night's rest and i think by the end of the night our nervousness
had turned into excitement because our adventure had finally begun tomorrow we set foot in namibia
this is quite a nice campsite but is a little bit noisy having a road nearby does kind of
kill your immersion a little bit but it's uh you know signs of good things to come
i think as a pit stop it's perfect i wouldn't spend more than a night here though but
with the board are so close that's all we need
i think tonight we'll probably be staying at the fish river canyon so i think that's going to be
pretty damn awesome we've got a fully packed day ahead of us border crossing we've got to resupply
we've got to refuel we've got to do a bunch of things so stay tuned and let's get going
our long trek yesterday put us at the Kalahari Monate campsite and today's journey would have
us cross the Nakop border where we would cross into namibia through Ariamsvlei
before making our way to the fish river canyon where we would take in the epic scenery of the
largest canyon in africa before settling in at our campsite for the evening at the hobas camp
after getting all of our covert tests and paperwork for the border crossing sorted
and kicking off our trip with a great first night of camping
everyone was buzzing to hit the road and get going
the morning preparation had begun and the vehicles would be packed and ready to go in no time
cool so on our way to Namibia i think let's get some fuel and stuff sorted
and uh yeah what do you think we're gonna fill up
yeah i think uh let's let's fill up our tanks and um head over to the border i'm ready i've
got my coffee here i'm gonna put some tunes on now and have a nice little 130k drive
we were uncertain of the fuel up ahead in Namibia so we decided to fill up but in hindsight filling
up on the other side of the border would have actually saved us a couple hundred bucks on fuel
because the fuel in Namibia is quite a bit cheaper than south africa
crossing the border is pretty stressful and i'm not even sure why however the officials on the sa
side were very efficient and had us processed in a couple of minutes our drive across no man's land
was a solid 20 kilometers through some pretty epic terrain and when we arrived at the namibian border
post it already felt like we had entered another country but this was new territory for us so a
polite and cheerful tone helped guide us through the health authorities where we would show our
covert results the road traffic fund where we would pay our road insurance and customs
so i think that's it i think that's all our documentation and paperwork done we're
officially in Namibia now it's time to find a town resupply and make our way to our first campsite
and not too long after that we pulled over to make a quick brunch
because we had quite the mission ahead of us
we decided to do a little bit of a lunch stop here it's about one o'clock so good time to stop
friendly truckers have a little bit of lunch we just made some leftovers from yesterday and
parked under the awnings here have a little a little something something before we head
into town and get some new supplies we gotta get some meat get some veggies
and then we're good to go fish river canyon here we come
most of the decent stores were closed leaving a few dodgy markets and petrol stations which
had no good meat so how's this little place maybe two three k's south of the fish river canyon kind
of turn off where we're supposed to go beautiful little butchery quite awesome we didn't get any
meat in the main town in Karasburg everything closed by 12 o'clock and we arrived off the one
so luckily i did a little bit of research beforehand and i kind of knew about this place
but it was a bit of a gamble to get here and see if they were actually open so
luckily they are and we are resupplied on a bunch of beautiful meat for the next few days
and we stocked up pretty well loading the freezer with everything from vars to chops and steaks
so needless to say we set off as a bunch of soon to be very happy campers this would be
our first taste of namibian gravel so we eagerly air down our tires in preparation for a long
stretch of gravel over the next couple of days airing down your tires just a bit not
only helps with comfort but also gives you a bit of extra puncture resistance with the air down
tires and my newly upgraded suspension from terrain tamer we just ate up the kilometers
the further we went the more the landscapes transformed around us this was Namibia all
right vista of the vista kept appearing rocks jutting from the earth in ever more creative
and spectacular ways we arrived at our hobby's campsite at the perfect time the sun was not
far from setting and we still had time to get to the canyon and watch the sunset now that is epic
if this was Namibia's way of welcoming us then we were certainly up for a serious adventure ahead
Roelfie first beer in Namibia cheers cheers coming it's been an awesome day
this is i haven't had a beer in four months this is so good
that's lekker oh man look at this place
i'm really glad we came to do this now and didn't wait just for tomorrow morning
because this is really special absolutely it is magnificent,
Andy it's time for you to put down your camera and grab a beer
let's go soaking in the day we had just had was a challenge my eyes
and my brain couldn't even believe what they had just experienced but now with the border crossing
over i could truly feel myself relax and now i was ready for anything namibia could throw at us
we have some really exciting adventures ahead of us so make sure to subscribe so you stay on top
of all the upcoming episodes or you can even join patreon for early access to the upcoming series
anyways thank you so much for watching and i will see you on the next adventure