African Odyssey: South Africa & Namibia

Thirteen nights one way from Cape Town to Windhoek, with roughly sixty per cent of it on gravel, which makes this the operator’s most demanding African tour. Fly in and hire a bike.

The route starts south to the Cape of Good Hope, with the first night in the winelands, then runs north through the Hawequa reserve and over the Ceres mountains to Mount Ceder. The Cederberg range and the Olifants valley carry it to the Namibian border, on roads that are already more dirt than tarmac.

Fish River Canyon is the first stop in Namibia, the second largest canyon in the world at around 160 kilometres long and half a kilometre deep in places, with almost nobody at the viewpoints. Aus follows, with a day trip to Kolmanskop, a diamond mining town abandoned in the 1950s and now half buried, where the dunes have come in through the windows and filled the rooms.

Swakopmund comes next on the Atlantic, a German colonial town of pastel facades sitting between the desert and a cold sea, then the coast north and inland to Vingerklip, where the Ugab terraces rise more than sixty metres out of the plain and get called the Monument Valley of Namibia. Etosha closes the riding, a salt pan the size of a small country with waterholes around its edge where elephant, black rhino, lion, leopard and giraffe all come to drink, though nothing can be promised. Windhoek takes the final night and the celebration dinner. The bike hire, hotels, breakfasts and the dinners listed are included, with fuel, flights and other meals separate. The price is quoted per person.