On the back of a mule is the only way he’ll ever consider returning to Van Zyl’s Pass, admits Rony Desodt, after having faced the angel of death on that infamous pass in Kaokoland. But never again on anything mechanised.

At daybreak I make my way towards the dry riverbed and, using a metal dish, dig a hole of about a metre deep in a shady spot. I’m hoping water will surge forth, but alas, nothing.

Back at our tent near the bottom of Van Zyl’s Pass my wife is busy praying. Things are getting serious.

At seven o’clock the temperature hits 31 °C. I lurch over to the other two. Steve can barely walk and has started to hallucinate. Olaf is quiet, he stares vacantly ahead. Encouraging him proves to be difficult.

We know the nearest water is at Orupembe but it is almost 120 km away.

Nobody speaks of it. Everybody struggles quietly. Some of us want to weep but cannot; the body has more important uses for its last bit of moisture…

With a song in my heart
When the five of us got together in Pofadder a week earlier, we had no idea that our two-week tour of Namibia could end in near-death, caused by dehydration.

The group consisted of my wife, Jos, and I (both 48 and from Wellington) on a BMW R1200 GSA, Tony Chasen (53) from Johannesburg on his Honda Varadero, Olaf Gaertner (51) on a BMW R1200 GSA and Steve Field (also 51) on his BMW R1150 GS Adventure, both from Somerset West.

The plan was to ride through eastern Namibia to the Epupa Falls, far north along the Kunene River and from there south and over Van Zyl’s Pass to Orupembe. From there we would come down the western routes through places like Sesfontein, Khorixas, Henties Bay and Solitaire before heading home.

Originally we were to be accompanied by a support vehicle but that plan changed when the owner of the vehicle could no longer join us.

We decided to continue on our little adventure despite the setback, but months of planning were thrown in disarray because now everything had to be loaded onto the bikes instead.

In all likelihood that was the moment things began to go wrong, even before we departed.

The first part of our journey went without a hitch. At Okangwati we had to say farewell to Tony as his bike didn’t have the fuel capacity to join ours for the trek over Van Zyl’s Pass.

We arranged to meet up again in Sesfontein two days later.

Little did we know…