we are looking forward to a hot sunshiny day because we have been
all huddled up in winter clothing and we were not prepared for winter conditions so
let's see how the day goes but we're heading now to a campsite called Volmoersfontein
and we've got to do the abrahamsknee four-wheel drive trail i have chosen
that particularly because it's my surname um but it should be interesting
the tracks for africa guides on the garments say do not attempt when after rain there hasn't been
hectic rain the guys at the reception seem to be pretty like oh yeah cool go ahead and do that
hopefully it's not too crazy but um yeah should be a nice drive today if we've got beautiful sunlight
and warm up a little bit get in the shorts get in the plakkies
and just make the most of the day will be really nice
this whole series is made possible by the power of Redarc and in part by Bushtech canopies
Terrain Tamer and Eeziawn
we ran our batteries quite low yesterday i'd left the inverter on by mistake and actually
wasn't charging anything and we've been trying to push to keep our freezer at minus 12 minus 15
most of the time because we're really using it as a deep freeze for a lot of our meat and stuff
like that so it puts a lot of strain on the battery system i must say the redox system has
been keeping us topped up so beautifully like now we've already gone up 20 and we haven't even been
on the road for an hour we've just been kind of you know warming up for the day and we're already
back at 66 i think we dropped to 46 something like that and i can see it's charging at 32 amps at the
moment so it is really really hauling um so when we get to our campsites where we're sitting for
a couple days we put out the solar panel just to help supplement but really when we're just
doing these like one day stops you don't really need the solar the manager30 keeps it charged
so well uh it's it's actually quite amazing we're getting to camp every single day with 100 battery
especially when you pair up the manager 30 with something like a lithium battery it's a fantastic
combination because the lithium batteries are just so hungry for power so it'll charge at 30 amps
just flat out until it's full very very impressive so nice to be able to manage and kind of track
everything on the red vision app as well because we are running the red vision vehicle management
system on our redox system there so i can monitor everything that's happening on the vehicle
via bluetooth from my phone i can actually go in and i can even use the switches turn on lights
turn on usb sockets water pumps uh the fridge all that stuff right from my phone while either i'm
driving or i'm around at camp so i must say it's been a really amazing system to have on the on the
trip and i must be honest it's been flawless so far i've been thoroughly thoroughly enjoying it
i think we've been driving for about seven or eight days now and the landscape has completely
changed this looks like we're in namibia with the grass and the hills and the big sky even
though this landscape looks desolate it is full of life loads of little plants and insects and birds
but driving through this little landscape here really makes me feel like we're somewhere far
off it does not feel like we are just a couple hours away from cape town it's actually magical
what the tankwa karoo lacks in big five it makes up for in bucket loads with a sense of freedom
and truly is something worth experiencing it also hosts six different vegetation types
throughout the park and in a day of driving you can experience pretty much all of them
so we can go up here to roy fly and we can have a look here and then we can go down that way i
think leeuberg was one of the trails oh he said it's one directional so we have to either go
all the way up then start Leeuberg and then come down and then go that way so maybe what we'll do
is we'll keep going straight because it's still quite early we're at 10:30. so let's go ahead
we'll go all the way to here and we'll start this leeuberg four wheel drive trail
we'll come back down and we'll come back to our campsite the park has a couple of
4x4 trails most are too badly damaged by water to attempt at the moment but leeuberg was set
in our sights and with a couple of hours to kill we head out not knowing what to expect
sure something else so we've gone on to another planet
so i wasn't expecting the 4x4 trail to start so quickly next thing you know wheels up in the air
and rocks everywhere but i gotta get myself in the zone you know when you're in that like kind
of nice relaxed touring mindset and then boom all of a sudden you're on a four-wheel drive track
i think what's really nice is there's places to come and test out your four-wheel driving
there's places to come and test out your suspension you know there's places to come
and test out your wild camping setups and really camp with no facilities no ablutions no nothing
i think it's a good litmus test for going further up but this stands there
you know on its own it's very very impressive and i didn't know this was all hiding here
we climbed and climbed until it almost felt as if we were on the top of the world
i don't know if you can hear me it's pretty windy but this is really cool
all around us it's just beautiful scenery have a look
this is amazing and this is just the beginning of the trail it looks like
we're heading to the big mountain over there but this is absolutely top notch
this is seriously steep
the view out of the front windscreen would change from gravel to blue skies
with every descent and ascent with the most amazing panoramic views on either side of us
it really felt like we were driving on the back of some massive mythical beast
as we began the climb of the last rise at the pinnacle of the leeuberg trail
and perhaps even the pinnacle of our time in the tankwa looking over the vast landscapes where
we have been and where we have yet to explore this is sure to be a spot i will never forget
but all things come to an end and now it was time for our descent all the way down
into the rooivlei below this is where we would see the extent of the water damage
because the roads had turned into dry riverbeds and most have been washed away
so we've just come down the mountain and we're in like a riverbed system
and obviously riverbed systems are dangerous you can't follow your gps too much because obviously
rivers change and the roads change and stuff all the time but at the same time you don't want to
just follow tracks in front of you because you don't know if those lead anywhere positive or not
like here there's literally the gps says go this way and in tracks say go that way so i'm gonna try
and stick with the gps and see you know how far it goes but in this case they've had a lot of water
and stuff so probably best to follow the tracks um but we're gonna see and how i can see how it
goes i'd like to see how accurately i can actually follow the gps so yeah we managed to get our way
out there were times where we lost the track but because it kind of kept with us very accurately
we could actually see where the track is and just make sure that we're following tracks that kind
of match it but in this case that road ended up completely being washed away so we at least could
then use the garmin route to just say okay we're heading in the right direction and as long as we
you know take a safe path we've now joined back into the main road here and all as well
ah
i don't know what that's for there's another building over here
oh that's so creepy
oh that's definitely got things living in it Andy i was going to say maybe you could
sleep in there but you might wake up with a friend
you might wake up at 10 friends and chains
let's check this little crawl maybe you can set up in the crawl
and you know what's nice it looks like nice level ground for you
there's only about 10 rocks per square inch
so the crawl seems to be made of purely rocks so that's probably not gonna work okay well uh
that's it then i guess
got ourselves nice cup of coffee we can now sit down relax enjoy our campsites a little bit here
it's a bit rough around the edges but so are we so we'll make the most of it
so this is our quaint little campsite yeah this obviously used to be a little farm there's
a little crawl over there that's a little house it's got a little kitchen and oven and
all sorts of things in there Andy set up his tents inside one of the rooms
i'm using it as a big windbreak we've been done our dinner and everything there we warmed up
some leftovers from a couple days ago and ate it with a nice bread that we made yesterday
but very very nice i've honestly been so impressed by tankwa it's been a fantastic spot but it looks
like there's rain in the distance so i'm going to pull the camera in and start packing up everything
the rain ended up clearing and giving us a beautiful sky to enjoy our last night
in the Tankwa Karoo national park
this is the first time in a while that we have woken up to no clouds wind that's not that bad
and sunshine ah what a glorious feeling there's nothing like taking things
away that you take for granted to make you appreciate them today we leave tankwa karoo
we make our way to well not really greener pastures but probably windier pastures we're
heading to a place called star wars village this morning which is in nieuhoudtville i'm
a total star wars nerd so i'm absolutely excited to stay at the darth vader camp oh the springbok
we said goodbye to tankwa got back on the r355
and drove to calvinia where we stocked up on some basics before heading to camp
star wars village was the perfect spot for us to catch up on some essential chores
i was down to my last pair of underpants and a nice hot shower sounded like an absolute treat
it was really a quaint little spot with only a few campsites and i'm sure would be an incredible
spectacle during the namaqua flower season it's a unique and fun spot that i will certainly be
back to in the future while we are here we would also be meeting up with Nicky from Terrain Tamer
and his son Andrew who came through to check on the suspension and re-talk some nuts and bolts
in preparation for the next phase of the journey they would be visiting some clients nearby and
join up with us again at a later stage once we head into namakwa land so we've had a nice little
race here at the star wars village just outside nieuhoudtville we resupplied yesterday in calvinia
just to get some stuff we need a resupply again in fundraise though they didn't really have too
much stuff there for us um but we're going to be beginning our journey to the west coast now
so actually we're heading to the i guess the northern west coast but we're going to be heading
into the namaqua land coastal national park today we're going to actually be camping in a place
called bay or something like that and we're going to be there for three days just there by the sea
setting up put the solar panels out and just chill out and take a bit of a relax get bored
go for a walk figure things out while we're there so it's been nice to stay here we've
had running water warm water we've managed to do our laundry we managed to refresh ourselves
we're having a bit of a breakfast now so we'll start there in Groenrivier
and we'll make our way up the west coast there and it's going to be beautiful
thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of RoamOverlanding i really hope you
enjoyed it and we'd love to hear what you think down in the comments below please remember to like
comment and subscribe it really helps the channel and i will see you on the next adventure cheers
foreign