Van Zyl's & the Marienfluss

After braving a series of dramatic river crossings, the challenges of Van Zyl’s seemed pretty doable… and then there was the spectacular scenery of the Marienfluss to take in. This is what it’s like to travel with Simon Steadman of Ultimate Adventures.

- Simon Steadman

Having braved some serious crossings of the Kunene River and spent Christmas at Epupa Falls, it was time to pack up camp and head south away from the Kunene River to the ‘town’ of Okangwati, where we topped up our fuel tanks before heading into the real wilderness of Kaokoland. This stretch of road gradually becomes more challenging and slow-going as you get closer to the community campsite just before the start of Van Zyl’s pass and, in my opinion, can be more challenging than Van Zyl’s pass in some sections with its many cross-axles and dongas to negotiate.

Low-range engaged, we crawled our way along this very scenic track through countless Himba villages until we reached the Van Zyl’s pass community campsite at the top of the pass. This is a great place to stop-over before tackling the pass, with good but rustic ablutions and scenic campsites next to a dry riverbed (yes, it was dry). After a tasty chicken curry in the riverbed, everyone turned in early in anticipation of what lay ahead of us the next day.

A sting in the tail

Van Zyl’s pass is probably one of the most notorious mountain passes in Africa, with many stories of rolled vehicles and trailers, broken suspensions and other disastrous endings. Maybe it’s an experience thing, but I think there are more treacherous 4x4 trails in South Africa than Van Zyl’s pass if it is tackled correctly and shown the necessary respect. The pass can only be driven in an east to west direction and is 10-15 kilometres of hard driving over rocks and through ravines. Most of it is downhill, so traction isn’t really an issue; rather making sure you pick the right line and taking it slowly down some of the rocky steps along the way.