Ep6 Namakwa 4x4 Eco Trail with The Runaway Blonde Part 1 ROAM Overlanding

[Music] so [Music] [Music] we are here in the beautiful plain pillar it is a magnificent morning with the mountains here right in front of us but we have to restock on a few things before we go on our next adventure and one of those things is water we have been watching this little red line for quite a few days now so we want to fill up the tank but what's really nice with the redox system i'm going to show you here quick i can actually view the water tank level live while i'm filling it up which is really nice so i'll go i'll turn the tap on quick so we can actually stand at the tap for example and then watch the water levels on your phone and then when it hits full and you're kind of happy with where it is you can then turn the tap off this has been a very very nice to have with the red version system [Music] this whole series is made possible by the power of redarc in part by bush tech canopies terrain tamer and ezion we had a massive day ahead of us we would kick off the morning by getting to the church at pella before exploring charles pass and getting our first glimpse of the orange river from there we would have a great drive along the namaqua 4x4 eco trail towards our campsite at rahman's drift this was going to be one serious adventure abigail off this road yeah it's giving us a little introduction to the trip a little bit of exercise in the morning yeah just let it warm up a little stretch and flex but it's lovely that we're going straight into the mountains like this it's uh very exciting we decided to start the morning drive with some mischievous exploration finding the most direct path to pela and going for it we had no idea what we had in store for us but this road hadn't been driven on in ages and had its fair amount of water damage this would throw us right into the deep end from the get-go plenty of rough rocky sections riverbed crossings and adventurous route planning lay ahead of us all before breakfast [Music] this is insane i've never driven in a place like this before it's like absolutely it's crazy is there a south also going to be your first time no i've done like this about before but this is very different for me we got out and inspected a few obstacles that morning just to make sure the route was safe for us i mean this is just the beginning of the trip so rather be safe than sorry [Music] something to bear in mind is that emma's pathfinder nala is completely standard all it has is airbags to help handle the weight of her camping setup and a decent set of all-terrain tyres otherwise no suspension lift so picking a good line and tackling obstacles responsibly was very important for her and hopefully what these episodes will show you is that you can have an epic overlanding experience with your 4x4 even if it's not as kitted as mine [Music] sometimes there's a little bit of wonder in just you know finding a road on the gps and going you know what let's go there let's let's see where that takes us and uh even though for a bit of the the road was actually washed away there was a downed power line um we still managed to find another little path and kind of get going and we went through going like going through these beautiful little river beds and everything it's awesome do a proper little bit of 4x4 wing and stuff like that to me this is over landing over landing we don't go and hit 4x4 trails and stuff like that necessarily intentionally you know i like to do 4x4 trails for a bit of practice and stuff like that but um it's more for preparation for when you get a road like this where it's been damaged by the elements and it becomes a 4x4 trail but it was just a little road and you know then you've got the skills to be able to navigate it and think carefully and cautiously when you're moving through places like this that you don't get yourself into trouble because we are quite far away from help well it's not necessarily far it's just that where are we how do you explain to people who you even are [Music] pela is an important oasis in the marco land and was a central point for the san people it got the name in 1814 when a missionary by the name of christian albrecht and his assistants escaped persecution in namibia and founded a mission there calling it the church impeller was consecrated in 1895 by a catholic bishop today this church is a provincial heritage site but still in service to the people of pilla and also serves as the official starting point for the namakwa 4x4 eco trail so that was a real adventure just to kick it all off but this is going to be the official beginning of the nomakwa 4x4 eco trail for us starting here at the church impella we're now going to be heading through to the charles pass which i'm assuming is going to go behind these big beautiful mountains here and show us the orange river for the very first time so we've stretched the legs and we are ready for some serious adventure [Music] we left the town of pela heading straight into the mountains with our sights set on tackling charles pass but first we had to cross one of many riverbeds for the day [Music] this little section here is actually a great way to really see the difference between the ground clearance of the two vehicles and it starts with a bang already crossing a river low ranging four wheel driving here we go [Music] and i mean in the scenery it is pretty spectacular on paper the past doesn't seem all that impressive but in person it was one of the most incredible 2.9 kilometers i have ever driven luckily because it's basically a cattle trail it takes a while to slowly navigate the rocky path through some dramatic scenery giving you just a little bit of time to soak it all in [Music] this is absolutely spectacular i say that a lot but you know what really the places we have traveled to on this trip so far have been absolutely mind-blowing just look at this hidden away in the charles pass absolutely absolutely amazing you know we always think of namibia and botswana and zambia and angola is this far off amazing travel destinations especially when it comes to overland but in south africa we've got all of this right here and the variety is incredible every 15 kilometers you're in a completely new environment to be in places like this it's precious that we can actually do this we can get out with our four-wheel drives and we can experience this in our own country it's fantastic let's see let's keep pushing [Music] there it is the orange river our stomachs were grumbling and with the orange river nearby we wanted to find a nice little spot to pull off and have a quick snack [Music] i've got cold water [Music] a kitkat [Music] yum [Music] [Music] all of these riverbeds would flood into the orange river and we had a good few to cross that day when these riverbeds are a bit wet and sloppy this is often where people get stuck on the trail so it's nice to travel around here with a buddy just in case you get stuck it'll be a little bit easier to get yourself out [Music] [Music] we were making our way back towards clean pillar and thought it would be fun to swap vehicles for a little bit well probably more fun for some than others oh it's awesome nice like how do i go forward okay [Music] those are fancy in all these gadgets i would look at this more than on the road and on the side oh he doesn't have a rear view let's take it slow first the first one [Laughter] i'm currently doing 70. it feels slow in your car actually needless to say we would be sticking to our own vehicles for the foreseeable future so we've just finished up you know with pillar we just drove through the date plantation and all that stuff lovely lovely scenery and now we are actually making our way back to the main road where we then gonna join it and start our drive towards our campsite now it is 2 30 so we're probably going to be pulling into our campsite hopefully not in the dark but later on in the afternoon for sure it's been a really full awesome day and i can't wait to settle down around the fire and just enjoy and just reminisce about the day so hopefully we'll be getting there relatively soon but we've still got quite a bit of adventure ahead of us today so for now we're going to get into that rhythm of the drive and kind of keep pushing and hopefully we'll be stopping and pulling in at rahman's drift campsite soon we still had some serious distance to cover that day before we could relax at camp the route had taken us back along the orange river for an incredibly scenic drive but the road was wild and there weren't many fresh tracks to follow so it really was turning into a choose your own adventure when all of a sudden the roads would just vanish in front of you [Music] [Music] obviously emma didn't attempt that she found another way around but i just thought i'd give it a little give it a little go why not have a little bit of fun out here so because a lot of this road is alongside the orange river and the orange river floods regularly the paths are pretty much a pick your own adventure type of thing there's a lot of times where you're just kind of driving and then oh there's a road and you've kind of cut into that so really we're using the gps in this sense for guidance but in terms of references so we know okay well this road is moving in this direction it's parallel to a road nearby even though this road that we're on right now is not on the gps this is a path that people have eventually taken out to get back to the main road so we've done a little bit of stuff there the road has just disappeared in front of us and we've found a way back to the main road and i think that's it for our exploration for the day we're gonna now just head straight to our campsite whenever i thought we had seen all there was to see and that the landscapes could not possibly get any more beautiful i was proven wrong this part of the drive had me feeling like we were somewhere up in northern namibia this entire day had my heart feeling full i was so satisfied so insanely content with the day i couldn't possibly enjoy myself anymore but there is just that thing of the nema 4 eco trail where it just gets better and better [Music] i had no idea what the campsite would be like but it surpassed every expectation it's wild and beautiful and this is over landing this is what it's all about these are the moments that it's all for [Music] uh [Music] i mean what a magical city [Music] [Applause] so [Music] so this little weber takes up a huge amount of space but when we get the chance to actually get it out and use it it works like a bomb and it is actually so fantastic [Music] it was time for a bit of practice this morning was the perfect time for emma to learn a new skill nala doesn't have any long-range tanks so she had been carrying around her jerry cans this whole time and this would be her first time filling nala with a jerry it's always a tricky thing to try and not spill everywhere but she managed perfectly [Music] basically what i'm going to do here because yesterday was rough on the road we've been working on the car we've had wheels off wheels on stuff like that so i'm going to go around i'm going to loosen the wheel nuts and i'm going to re-torque them and then i'm going to check our engine oil as well just to make sure that everything's good there we do have an extra little pint of oil just in case because i did service the vehicle pretty recently but we've done about 4 000 k's now so i just want to check it make sure everything is happy we've got hard roads ahead of us tough tracks so these are little things that you know just in the morning go around check make sure everything is you know good and be confident in that okay all the wheel nuts are fine the last thing you want is a wheel coming off while you're hitting hard tracks or something like that the wheel nuts on these bad corrugations literally vibrate off or if they've been over tightened by a tire shop or something it can actually end up sheering off the wheel stud so it's a small thing but it's going to help you in the long run [Music] today we head towards fuelstrip we now tackle the last bit from rahman's drift we're going to be going past places like kamcab and things like that that are on the actual route i don't know what we have ahead of us um but yesterday was just mind-blowing stuff so we did about 250 k's or something yesterday and the scenery just changed all the time around us this morning we've got 168ks so it's a bit of a shorter drive and we're kind of hoping to arrive at camp a bit earlier to do a bit of washing and you know just have a bit of chill time by the orange river because we're going to be staying around the orange river again tonight so it's going to be really really nice [Music] the beauty of the trail is the solitude we were completely alone in our camp and the roads were just as lonely this is what we were after real solitude i thought it would be great to see how emma is enjoying the experience so far i've never done a 4x4 course ever before my dad asked me to quickly watch some andrews and peer videos just to get myself familiarized some techniques basically everything i've learned is from just going on the trail learning stuff from myself even with the people i'm going with they are very advanced and experienced i'm actually using their guidance as well to learn any new tricks and adrienne has been really hands-on in terms of guiding me through these stuff especially from where i need to switch from four high to four low and where to put on my traction and take it off so that's been quite helpful on this journey this is probably like the most one-on-one i've gone with someone on a trip like this um into a remote area so it's been quite fun and the people i'm with it's just as fun so i can make the company makes worthwhile and so i've been enjoying it quite a lot [Applause] so [Music] so this is the promise of the namako 4x4 eco trail for me with the orange river right here this is what we've kind of been trying to find the whole of yesterday yeah this is amazing [Music] we passed through the town of good hope and made our way back inland away from the orange river the settlements out here in the mako land can hit temperatures as high as the mid 50 degrees celsius in summer when you look around the area and see how barren these landscapes are just understand that the things that do live out here are extremely strong the only trees you will really see growing out here are the humble kookaburra or also known as the quiver tree which like a baobab is actually a succulent [Music] we've been driving through this beautiful canyon and it's not thick sand it's like red river sand so it's like it's okay but you've got to be aware and as it gets hotter in the day the sand just gets thinner and thinner and thinner um but this area is pretty damn barren reminds me a lot of the rustus felt with the type of terrain we're going through here so we're probably going to see more of this on our journey these harsh rock formations all around us just been beaten by the sun for thousands if not millions of years it's crazy [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] our journey today had been quite long and intense and it was time for a bit of a break but i thought i would share my treats with our guests but i think i would come to regret that very soon oh these have had a hit [Music] um [Music] so that was like a little lunch stop and i think all we got to do now is it says about 56 k's until we get to our campsite for the night so hopefully we can get there early and just chill out a bit yeah i think that would be very nice nearing the end of the first part of the trail my thoughts on it so far are just incredible this truly is an epic overland adventure worthy of any overlanders bucket list it just gets better and better every kilometer and there is no such thing as wasted time out here if you believe that over landing is all about the journey and not the destination then the namakwa 4x4 eco trail is the perfect adventure for you because it just doesn't stop but our time on this side of the trail would soon be over as we neared the highway again and closed in on fuel strift but i wonder what the next part of the trail holds for us [Music] part one done [Music] so this is a remote controller for my compressor so i don't have to walk around and turn on the switch the whole time it works perfectly and so convenient so i was actually at this very spot in my amarok on my first trip into the rectus felt i don't know how many years ago i think it was 2018 april 2018. and i actually have a picture right here with old emerald i didn't realize that this road actually came out here and i didn't know what it was actually anything about what was going on behind this bloody building but we are now off we're back onto the n7 now now we make our way through to fuels drift and to our campsite for the evening we're gonna be hopefully staying at fiddler's creek [Music] um [Music] so we made good time on our travels today and we've arrived at our camp we are at the fiddler's creek it's a very quaint little spot right on the beautiful banks of the orange river here and i've come to this exact spot before so it was really cool to get this but basically it's really just a grass patch andy's over here he's got his tent here um we've squeezed the two over landing rigs in here so i'm here and emma's just behind me there it's it's not an ideal situation for us but you know what it's fine we're just here for a nice stop over and you know just to get a little bit of civilization and then we back out and we wild camping again tomorrow so just to get here kind of settle out clean the vehicles a little bit clean ourselves a little bit and they've got a little bar here we're going to sit right on the orange river have a couple of beers just soak it in we're here to enjoy ourselves so it's just nice to have a little a little bit of a break in between the wilderness so yeah that's our goal for today is you know we're not going to do too much around the camp on the vehicles we try to use the facilities and stuff here as much as possible so we back out and we add it tomorrow and we can continue on the nema 4 eco trail we'll catch up with you probably tomorrow morning when we are ready to get out of here and continue the namakwa 4x4 eco trail [Music] thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of rome over landing i really hope you enjoyed it and would 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 [Music] you

Channel: Roam Overlanding

Views: 66,160

Keywords: 4wd, 4x4, offroad, travel, overlanding, toyota, hilux, adventure, camping, Adrian Abrahams, Roam Overlanding, South Africa, ROAM, toyota hilux, Rooftop Tent Living, Garmin SA, Overland, Overlanding Gear, 4x4 adventure, South African overlanding, South africa Adventure, 4x4 overland south africa, Overlanding Southern Africa, 4wd Action, Expedition Overland, Overlanding AFrica, Overlanding Travel, Overlanding Destinations, offroad adventure, namakwa 4x4 eco trail, orange river, redarc

Id: hGYoou_DPJ8

Length: 32min 54sec (1974 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 07 2022