Motorcycle Tour

Damaraland

One of the most recent tours in the program: the Damaraland tour - it has a greater proportion of off-road character and can be regarded as a familiarization tour for our most demanding Kaokoland tour. On these two tours we use the lighter Yamaha model WR250R.

Description

Damaraland - in northwestern Namibia - is probably one of the most beautiful landscapes: wild, lonely, rough, and varied. Here there are many smaller farm roads and remote tracks that offer wonderful impressions and are somewhat more challenging in terms of riding - thus ideal as a familiarization tour for a Kaokoland tour that you may be considering for the future. The lighter Yamaha WR250 is made for and enjoyable to ride on the "ruts" and off-road sections away from the larger gravel roads.

The tour includes many highlights, great accommodations, and diverse impressions of the central northwest of Namibia: over the Khomas Highlands it goes first to the edge of the Namib Desert, then into the Erongo Mountains, and over the Spitzkoppe finally to the Brandberg Massif. From there it leads up into the more northern Damaraland to below the Etosha NP, and over the beautiful landscapes of the Huab Valley and the Ugab Terraces, we visit another large, private game reserve near Mount Etjo.

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Daily stages:

Day 1: Departure Germany to Namibia (overnight).

Day 2: Windhoek Mountain Lodge

Day 3: Windhoek - Rostock Ritz

Day 4: Rostock Ritz mountain pass round trip

Day 5: Rostock Ritz - Erongo

Day 6: Erongo - Uis

Day 7: Uis - Twyfelfontein

Day 8: Twyfelfontein - Kamanjab

Day 9: Kamanjab - Aba Huab River

Day 10: Aba Huab River - Vingerklip

Day 11: Vingerklip - Erindi Game Reserve

Day 12: Erindi - Windhoek

Day 13: Windhoek and departure from Namibia

Day 14: Arrival/Return Germany

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Itinerary:

Day 1: Departure to Namibia (from Germany).

Individually booked departure to Windhoek/Namibia (usually overnight flight).

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Day 2: Windhoek Mountain Lodge + introductory tour

On arrival at Windhoek's Hosea Kutako International Airport in the early morning, your guide will meet you. A one-hour transfer takes you to the comfortable Windhoek Mountain Lodge in our base station's southern foothills of the Auas Mountains. After a good breakfast, there is an opportunity to acclimatize and relax by the pool with restful views of the surrounding mountain ranges and vast bushveld. In the afternoon there is a tour briefing, which includes a briefing on the motorcycles and the GPS. Afterwards you will go on an approx. 100 km long familiarisation tour, where you can familiarise yourself with the road conditions and the technique. If you like, you can enjoy the first "sundowner" on the viewing platform above the lodge, before the legendary "Bushman-Fondue" calls for dinner in the evening ...

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Day 3: Windhoek - Rostock Ritz

After a short morning briefing with your tour guide, you are finally on your way. The first leg is a gentle start, on good gravel roads we head west through the hilly farmland of the "Khomas Hochland". Later the road becomes more winding until we reach the Spreetshoogte Pass, where a spectacular viewpoint allows us to see far into the Namib Desert... The road descends in steep serpentines and the temperatures adapt to the desert landscape. In the middle of mountains and dunes lies the unique Rostock Ritz Desert Lodge, which is now our home for two nights.

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Day 4: Pass round Rostock Ritz

But if you don't want to relax today, take the opportunity to ride along a charming pass round. The mountainous hinterland still has fantastic winding roads to offer, we first ascend the Spreetshoogte Pass from the west, then we cross the course of the Tsauchab River several times and from the Remhoogte Pass we descend over the large rim step back to the Namib Desert and back to our quarters, where we can enjoy the sunset and starry skies on the magnificent desert terrace.

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Day 5: Rostock Ritz- Erongo

Today we head north through lonely mountain landscapes to the colourful little town of Karibib, where we can still see some houses built in the German colonial style. We then continue through more open farm bush country on smaller and larger tracks, skirting the old volcanic ruins of Erongo on the eastern side until we reach Omaruru, where we turn off into the northern fringe and game reserve of the Erongo Mountains. The track here is hilly and winding, offers great views, and can provide some game viewing, mountain zebras, antelopes, and giraffes roam here barrier-free. AiAiba Lodge is our destination today, nestled in a picturesque granite rock landscape, where bushmen settled almost 2000 years ago - the well-preserved rock paintings are impressive.

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Day 6: Erongo - Uis

Ai-Aiba Lodge has given us a first taste of the Damaraland that lies ahead. Heading west we leave the Erongo, in clear air the Brandberg is already visible on the horizon. But first, we descend on smallest farm tracks through the bush and past small settlements of the Damaras with their free-roaming cattle, until suddenly the grandiose Spitzkoppe rises in flat semi-desert landscape, also known as the "Matterhorn" of Namibia. We follow the strong attraction and easy tracks grant us passage between the bizarre, smooth granite formations. Across open areas it leads us to the mining town of Uis at the Brandberg. Here a simple, but very warm, family-run accommodation awaits us with a hearty "Braai" in the evening.

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Day 7: Uis - Twyfelfontein

By now everyone should have warmed up and got used to the WR 250 - which is good because today's stage demands more skill and leads into a completely different world, where hardly a soul is to be seen. But instead overwhelming, almost untouched and diverse natural landscape. Sand, gravel, fine and coarse rocks, riverbed crossings - everything is there. First, we ride close to the huge Brandberg until we reach the river gorge of the Ugab, in whose catchment area springboks, giraffes, elephants, lions, and rhinos still move freely - we will keep a careful lookout. The stony desert landscape is valuable habitat. The peculiar and rare giant plant Welwitschia, for example, we will often encounter here with impressive specimens, as well as the spherical Euphorbia broom bushes - highly poisonous - but rhinos also live on this. Through the beautiful black and deep red rock surfaces of the Doros Crater, the Brandberg massif disappears on the horizon. We finally reach the Twyfelfontein Lodge in the late afternoon via the "Burnt Mountain"...

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Day 8: Twyfelfontein - Kamanjab

Twyfelfontein is a Unesco World Heritage Site and home to thousands of rock paintings and engravings. However, to visit these would go beyond our time frame, directly in front of the lodge you can marvel at some engravings on a big rock plate. After a good breakfast, we continue our journey to the northeast today, varied tracks through remote landscapes are in store for us. We leave the lodge off the public roads through the beautiful area of the Aba-Huab River to the large Huab main riverbed, an important catchment area for desert elephants and rhinos. Via Palmwag, a major gravel road takes us through table mountain landscapes to the Grootberg Pass on the Etendeka Plateau, which will offer great views. In the small town of Kamanjab, which supplies us with petrol, we have then also reached our accommodation for today, the Oppi-Koppi Restcamp.

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Day 9: Kamanjab - Aba Huab River

The Damaraland tour is undoubtedly an extremely contrasting and delightful journey - it already presents Namibia's most diverse facets even on such "short" distances. Today we take a southern offset route, which leads us back toward Aba-Huab. On small and very winding farm roads we ride through the typical mopane bush savannah with its chalky white soils. We pass the wide Huab riverbed again with its huge ana and acacia trees, which provide important food for the desert elephants, and reach our extravagant accommodation - Camp Kipwe, situated on the Aba-Huab River - in the afternoon. It captivates with its creative and sensitive architectural style, with which it embeds itself perfectly into this fantastic landscape. Despite the luxury, we stay close to nature - and enjoy ...

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Day 10: Aba Huab River - Vingerklip

We hate to leave this place, but the tour still has some great routes and experiences to offer, so today we head for Vingerklip Lodge. We stay off the usual gravel roads most tourists use in this region for most of the time and take all the smaller farm roads for riding fun, passing through Damara settlement areas via Khorixas to the Ugab Terraces. The Ugab River has literally rutted the landscape here and table-like elevations once again make this landscape appear so strange and different, especially the rock finger, which rises up in a bizarre shape and rests on only a seemingly small base - from our accommodation today, the once again extremely cosy Vingerklip Lodge, we can still admire the "Vingerklip" sufficiently in the evening and morning light.

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Day 11: Vingerklip - Erindi Game Reserve

Our today's stage of 280 km leads us out of the Ugab valley to the south and through loud small Damara settlements along the little-used roads. Via Omatjete we reach the already familiar small town of Omaruru, where we stop and meet in one of the many cafés for a break before continuing north on the sandy track. Homey stretches through bush savannah and mountain scenery bring us to one of Namibia's most beautiful private game reserves, Erindi, our last destination on this journey, which will leave hardly anything to be desired: the 70700 ha game reserve and the comfortable Erindi Lodge awaits us. Here you can observe Namibia's entire wildlife in peace and quiet.

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Day 12: Erindi - Windhoek

After breakfast we head south across beautiful mountain landscapes and central farmland to the small town of Omaruru. From here the route continues on larger gravel roads through the old mission village of Otjimbingwe, situated on the wide Swakop River valley. From here we return to the hilly Khomash Highlands and finally to Windhoek to our base, Windhoek Mountain Lodge. Our team awaits us with a well chilled sundowner, bidding farewell to the sun and one last great day of riding. The dinner offers us a delicious "Braai", where we can end the tour also with current photos certainly very cozy.

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Day 13: Departure from Namibia

This day is completely at leisure at the lodge or for a stroll in Windhoek, depending on when your return flight departs, often in the evening. So you can visit some of the sights in the capital and numerous street cafés, as well as bazaars and shops with typical handicrafts, invite you at least to watch the colorful hustle and bustle around. We organize the transfer to the airport from the lodge.

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Day 14: Arrival in Germany

Arrival in Frankfurt/Main in the early morning and if necessary onward journey by train or flight to your home town.