The road to Moyale
Russell writes on 4/9/11, pics by Darren:
Our time in Nairobi at Jungle Junction had been quite productive and provided an ideal place to relax, wash out the desert dust from everything, buy the Sudanese visa, tinker with the bikes and swap movies with other overlanders. There is a fully kitted commercial workshop on site, which was handy when I needed some help with my seized rear brake and changing the destroyed bearings in my rear swing arm. Darren also had a few odd jobs to do as well, like replace his leaking water pump and put in new steering head bearings. The bikes have been about the bush a bit by now and work seems to be getting more and more regular. Just as well our mechanical confidence and skills are rising to meet the growing challenges of taking two F650 GS Dakars around Africa.
One of the little luxuries we enjoy while on the road is being able to watch a movie on the netbook, and meeting other overlanders is like finding a little movie club. At Jungle junction I hit the jackpot with a lovely Spanish couple and their 7 Top Gear episodes we’d not seen, amazing! So we left Nairobi heading north towards the Moyale border crossing with Ethiopia rather than the Uganda / South Sudan route which was an option for a while. We chose not to take this option as it was much further and we didn’t know how long it would take considering the rains, river crossings, unknown border situations and known inter-tribal killings. The ‘bad’ road north into Ethiopia seemed to be the most sensible and timely choice.
Cheers to the northern
We made good progress on the tar road northward and past Mount Kenya, which sadly was shrouded in its cloud blanket. A few kilometres past it we stop at the equator as it’s a bit of a landmark for us, crossing back into the northern hemisphere. In fact a little celebration was in order with a drop of the local brandy. A few more kilometres down the road and we were starting to see evidence that we were entering the rainy season. Bush camp that evening was hiding on the side of the road north of Marsabit dodging the thorny bushes. No tea tonight but an early night with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, thank you José.
At least the suspension won't go on them
The next morning, no punctures, so we set off on the ‘bad’ section of road to the border, and yes, it is as bad as everyone says it is, especially for motorcycles. Not quite the 50km in 5 day slug through the Congo jungle, but it’s the unavoidable corrugations that rally slow you down and destroy your rear shock absorbers. About 20km into the corrugations Darren pulls over, oil pouring from under his bike, I’m thinking this looks like a show stopper. The shock absorber reservoir had popped as it over heated, and as it’s a seals unit there was no road side fix. I checked on mine, it was ok but red hot after absorbing all those corrugations. We let it cool, loaded what we could onto my bike to take the weight off Darren’s and steadily rode on. The corrugations continued into two gravel ruts with various gravel passing points, this was hard enough on a working bike, I didn’t envy Darren at all on his bouncing bike.
Bush camping goat pen style
This gravel section had taken us into far northern Kenya and into a very rocky desert peppered with stone walled goat pens. We pulled off the road for another bush camp, clearing out one of these pens we put the ground sheets down to camp under the stars. So this evening we had a noodle bush meal followed by snuggling down to Deathly Hallows part 2 with all the stars in the sky as our movie backdrop, lovely.
Back in camel territory
The problem with this road is that you can’t avoid the corrugations, even on the bike, you just have to aim for the least affected part. You can try off road, there is usually a track on the side but these are just as slow and very often deep fluffy dust. The last day on the bad road was very tiring as we had to do 170 bone shaking kilometres. We stopped to fix a pannier after Darren came off on a gravel rut, stopped to let my suspension cool down, and we also didn’t eat anything that day until we reached Moyale that evening. What did cheer us up, despite the annoying border town hassle, was Manchester United unleashing 8 goals into Arsenal against their 2. Tea that evening was a large zesty pancake type of thing with a bowl of spicy stew, a very typical Ethiopian dish, normally meant for sharing, but we had one each of course.
And into Ethiopia
In the morning as we went to complete the normal border formalities I noticed water dripping from my bike, the water pump seals were leaking and would need replacing, great more spanner time. Thankfully both bikes would be able to make the next 800km on the tar road to Addis Ababa where we could order parts and do the work ourselves.
Africa Orbital 