ANGOLA 2009 DRIVE IN TRIP

“The last great shore fishing adventure in Africa!” – that is how the ‘drive-in’ southern Angola desert fishing trips are sometimes known - and perhaps with just cause. Surf fishing in a truly wild environment, without the back up of any modern convenience and beyond all semblance of civilisation; in an area that few visit, and the fishing is almost untouched.

It really is a shore anglers’ El Dorado, 300km of virtually inaccessible beach – almost un-fished except by the few that have preceded you on this adventure. The place is really beyond description – and examples of fishing are viewed as just angler’s exaggeration, though that said it is an arduous task just getting to the fishing.

The following report is of just one trip with a couple of clients where we joined another party travelling up to sample the adventure of the southern Angolan Desert. Our party consisted of the two clients and the guide travelling from Henties Bay in just one vehicle, with the trips’ main guide and another client; we were to meet the rest of the party at Uis, just 150km from Henties Bay – our starting point.

We arrived at Uis in plenty of time, and had a slight taste of things to come with the dust travelling across the Namib Desert, but no problems. The rest of the group of 5 arrived right on time with the three further vehicles, and we set off north heading for the border at Ruacanna, in Namibia. The gravel roads soon highlighted the problems of convoy driving, with dust being the prevalent problem and the associated lack of visibility, but our main guide had the experience to furnish all the cars with 2-way radios for ready communication. After a brief refuelling stop at Kamanjab, we all arrived at Ruacanna for a final re-fuel and top off all the vehicles with water and oils.

We camped overnight at a local camp site and enjoyed our last real shower for the rest of the tour in Angola, and retired for an early start, as the border crossing is limited to 8.00AM top 5.00PM. Bright and early the following morning we struck camp for the short drive to the Namibian/Angolan crossing point. Paperwork and vehicles checked and scrutinised we were through, with a relatively brief hiccup on the Angolan side due to changing visa formats – well in truth it cost us 2 hours on that first day. Once clear of the border we travelled straight onto some of the most arduous terrain that you would wish to encounter – Angolan tracks. Despite the fact that our first target was the River Cunune mouth – a mere 450kms away, the journey took us 2 full days, camping overnight in a dry riverbed. It was as the sun was setting that we finally drove in to get our passports stamped at Foz Du Cunune Police Station, with a short stop for that formality we drove to the our chosen camp site in a depression in the salt marsh known as ‘Reed Camp’.

The following morning we were greeted with a most unusual situation - no wind, so the decision was made to head straight for the river mouth for a chance of Leerfish on light tackle as they feast on the hugely abundant Mullet shoals. Our luck was not in, though one small Leerfish was caught, as well as a number of large Mullet – foul hooked by the lures – we kept them for bait. Moving to the open beach we found plenty of fishy looking spots, and with a change of tackle to more traditional surf gear we were soon into Kob, Blacktail and Spotted Grunter. Our trio of anglers stayed faithful to the open beach fishing, and even tried our hand at light tackle bait fishing in one of the shallow gullies, with the rewards of many more Kob

The next day was a near repeat of the first day, but if anything the afternoon winds had increased further in strength, and the cross current had also increased, making fishing difficult, but not impossible. Our approximate tally for the first 2 days was over 150 Kob and various other species for the 3 anglers – not to mention a couple of hook ups with Turtles that appear around the river mouth. The planned move north for the next day was arranged during the pre-trip planning to coincide with the lowest tides of the month – a critical factor in every transfer from the Cunune mouth north to beyond Langewand.

Dune Faces

Slight Diversion!

Like all things in Angola on these trips, nothing ever quite goes to plan, and this day was no exception – the profile of the coast had changed significantly since the last trip, and a new lagoon had formed against the dunes. This impassable obstruction meant that we had to change from a fast beach drive to one that included some serious driving in the dunes, then across a salt pan to get back onto the beach. The whole diversion had caused a lot of lost time, and for the last stretch out of the hazard area we were forced to increase the speed of the convoy up to above 80 km/hr – which was quite a thrill as we were driving on the hard sand at the base of some seriously vertical dune faces. Had the tide pushed in, we would have been force to carry on through the water – as there was no possible way to drive up these dune faces – thrilling stuff!!!

Ahmed with Kob

Bilal and Basil with Kob

Once clear of Langewand, we set up our new base camp at ‘Dune Camp’, and set off for more Kob. Though down in numbers we found a better size of fish in this northern section, though the difficult conditions of current and wind had not moderated at all. The next day we found the conditions equally difficult, but after a few bite offs and trying various spots we found a small gold mine, the best fish of the day to a client was about 20kg, and certainly gave him a good fight. There were a few more double figure fish, but nothing quite rivalled the big one. The next day we move further north to the Vanessa wreck and by this time we were all getting a little critical on fuel, so a diversion into Tombua was called for to refill all the tanks and Jerry cans.

Tombua

This was the scene of the next unplanned hiccup – plenty of petrol, but diesel was not available, as the fuel station had run out, and the other fuel station had plenty, but the pumps had broken!!!!!!! This called our stay at Vanessa to a stop, and a quick check of fuels available to the 2 diesel vehicles saw that we would just make it to Namibe, then we could drive on to Pipas for our last night of fishing. Driving back from Tombua to Vanessa saw a number of Shad caught and lost, but we were running out of light and fuel to keep trying different spots.

Namibe

Early the next day we crossed the desert to the east of Tombua to join the tarred road and a steady drive to Namibe and fuel. To say that the differences between the poverty and lack of anything in Tombua, and the development in Namibe was huge – would be an understatement! Namibe had everything that you could wish for, even a fully functional 4 star hotel – while Tombua would perhaps be best developed by flattening everything and starting again.

Canyon Landscape

Pipas Wreck

Back in the land of full mobility and unlimited fuel, the cars headed north to Pipas, which is 20km down a tarred road, followed by 20km of rough terrain driving – in lands that mere photographs cannot do justice. To say that Stephen Speilberg would write a movie just to be able to shoot the movie in that landscape is possibly quite close to the truth – it is just so dramatic, huge and unspoilt.

Shad

Pipas was a known location from a trip 9 years ago, but that time we were in a boat on the backline of the surf – and even back then we had supreme Leerfish and Shad fishing. This trip was to be no exception, except we were on the beach. To say that the clients from Durban were in paradise would be an understatement – just for the size of the fish. The sun set and it had started to get dark before they would finally admit that they couldn’t get in any more spinning!! The winning combination was poppers, though spoons did account for a few fish – they really only wanted plain white chisel nosed poppers. The trick was to cast beyond the huge shoals of Mullet, and not into the shoals, then retrieve at medium speed and hold on!!! Miss the cast and drop the lure in the shoal and the mullet all shot into the air like inverted rain.

Bilal with Shad at Pipas Wreck

This was our last night before the trip homewards to Namibia, but even then we enjoyed the fruits of our labours, freshly grilled Shad for supper, it was very quiet around the camp fire that evening after the food was served – just the sounds of cutlery scraping plates – food fit for kings. Though we were due to leave early the next day, it did not stop a couple of anglers giving the Shad a last trashing – in 25 minutes they had another 4 or 5 shad to 7kg, and had to be dragged from the beach to pack up their gear.

Leba Pass

The Group at Leba Pass

The tarred road back to Lubango was a joy after so many hours and days of serious 4x4 rough terrain, and once we had ascended Leba Pass through the 21km to rise 1000 metres, we had a cooling wash in the spring fed pools at the top. Followed by a quick visit to the Portuguese statue of Christ overlooking Lubango – just like Rio de Janerio; we descended the hill into the city proper, and once through made good progress on the new highway down towards Namibia – that is until we caught up with the construction crew!

Statue of Christ

View down to Labungo

Fuel stop in Labungo

What followed was some 60km of seriously damaged old road which in places was non-existent. The end of the 60km saw us at Cahama, where we turned off back onto the 4x4 track, just as the sun was setting. We had managed 450km in just 10 hours, and that was despite a 2 hour wait for a petrol delivery in Lubango, they did have diesel there – just no petrol!!!

Babob Tree

40km down the track we found our last camp site under a huge Baobab tree at the side of the track, and we all settled down to a last night in Angola – with deep thoughts on the trials and joys of the past 9 days; for we had just 200km to go the next day for the border, and crossing would be tedious as any border crossing in Africa, especially when you don’t know one of the languages. We crossed the next day, at Ruacanna, filled with fuel and headed south for our last night of the trip – camping just west of Etosha National Park, we were grateful that the site had shower facilities – no matter how basic – we all needed and desired a serious wash. It was a sweet smelling and content group of 10 travellers that assembled around the campfire that evening. The lack of available water in the southern Angolan desert was beginning to tell, as well as all the dust from the tracks travelled.

The following day the group split up to go their separate ways home. However, like all these trips we started off as a group of 10 people unknown to each other, and ended as 10 good friends – not an unknown phenomenon of these sort of trips. We had helped each other out through various trials, and enjoyed the benefits of unknown skills brought to the group. Our secret mechanical wizard was very impressive when one of the vehicles developed serious wheel wobble when we were in the middle of nowhere, a number 22mm socket soon fixed the problem that would have challenged most reasonable minded mechanics – and with only a ½ hour delay to our progress. We all enjoyed the cooking skills of one of the group – he deserves a special mention – without his skills around the fire, meals would have been much less exciting – as would our secret comedian, he certainly brought a smile to everybody’s face, despite some of the troubles we had at times. The names of the participants have been deliberately left out to protect the innocent, and not challenge the guilty; but they are all now very good friends.

In final analysis – a good trip, we would all certainly do it again, and most probably will, though the experience will certainly sharpen some of our pre-trip planning for next time – despite the long range fuel tanks and seriously enhanced suspensions fitted to most of the vehicles. Through the 2900kms that we travelled, the indescribably awesome scenery we had passed through, witnessed the basic lives of the Himba peoples through most of our journey, and marvelled at their survival in such wilderness area, the fishing that to many is just another ‘fisherman’s tale’ – we had left only foot prints and tyre tracks. We carried all our debris and rubbish home, leaving the unspoilt beauty for all those that follow our tracks the same privilege. We had returned the vast majority of the fish we caught – enjoying the sport without taking for the sake of it, except a few for the table, but never more than we needed.

Himba People

One last thought for those that might wish to follow, this is not a trip for the faint hearted, it is some of the most arduous driving to be experienced at times. It is all wild camping with only those facilities you bring with you, and consider that we went during the dry season – at times during the ‘rains’, you can be stuck at the side of an un-named river for 2 days before the flood coming off the mountains subsides enough for you to cross. Pre-trip planning is the most essential part of this type of trip, and should be based on true knowledge, not that found in more commercial outlets – the roads and tracks are the match for any vehicle – despite how much you put into the preparation – and then you have to be honest with yourself – as to whether you are up to the challenge.

In closing, some photos from along the journey, just as a taste of some of the sights.

We would like to express our many thanks to Ahmed and Balil for allowing the use of their photographs on this web page.

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