Is driving to South Africa possible?

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Osthagen
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Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by Osthagen »

So, I've made a decision to visit every inhabited continent before age 40.

This gives me just under 12 years to visit Africa, Oceania & South America.

I decided that I would have a look at Africa, specifically, South Africa.

So, I Googled 'London to Cape Town', the cities which I presumed that I'd be flying from and to, respectively.

The search results came up not only with the flights, etc, but also & far more surprisingly, driving directions from the UK to Cape Town, SA!

Presumably this involves a ferry from Dover to France, then one from Gibraltar to Morocco?

My question was (not that I'd consider something like that), once in Morocco, is driving to Cape Town, SA possible? Has it been done before?

I'd imagine that roads in the remote interior of the African continent are largely unsigned & have large unpaved sections? Also, you'd pass though numerous unsafe & unstable regions.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by Ruperts Trooper »

It can be done, it's a major expedition though not to be undertaken lightly - Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman did it on motorbikes for the TV series "Long way Down" - they used a ferry from Sicily to Tunisia.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by RichardA626 »

Michael Palin drove some of the journey down Africa in Pole To Pole, there was no public transport between Sudan & Ethiopia so the only was off-roading, as even the roads vanished along the way.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by KeithW »

It technically possible and in the 70's there used to be quite a trade in second hand vehicles being driven to Zambia, Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia at the time) and South Africa. That was however before the rise in Islamic Fundamentalism in many of the countries en route. The roads but still exist but the the problems today are political and security related.

Google maps WILL show you a land route from London to South Africa. The Trans Sahara Highway (a fancy name for a route which is only 85% paved) will get you to Niger. Providing you stick to the recommended routes across Cameroon, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo you should be OK

Angola is pretty safe and once you get to Namibia you are home free.

You need to make a LOT of research to pick the right vehicle and make a list of spares you need. Particularly make sure you have lots of spare tyres, dirt roads can be hell on them and the chances of finding a 16" 205/40 tyre in a Nigerian village are small.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by Osthagen »

Thanks Keith for the information!

Initially, I was just asking out of interest, really.

The route actually appears to be a lot more doable than I'd thought. Therefore, I may consider it at some point down the line.

Then again, it is a long way. Fuel & accommodation are a concern. There's also the long drive back.

I'll definitely take a look, but in the event that I go to South Africa, I'll more than likely be flying.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by J--M--B »

Forty years or so ago a friend drove across Asia. There are lots of complications as you pass through each country but from I remember, the problems really start if you need to dispose of the vehicle in a foreign country because of crash, breakdown etc. Perhaps things have got simpler now.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by jackal »

McNessA720 wrote: So, I Googled 'London to Cape Town', the cities which I presumed that I'd be flying from and to, respectively.

The search results came up not only with the flights, etc, but also & far more surprisingly, driving directions from the UK to Cape Town, SA!

Presumably this involves a ferry from Dover to France, then one from Gibraltar to Morocco?

My question was (not that I'd consider something like that), once in Morocco, is driving to Cape Town, SA possible? Has it been done before?

I'd imagine that roads in the remote interior of the African continent are largely unsigned & have large unpaved sections? Also, you'd pass though numerous unsafe & unstable regions.
The trickiest part of Morocco to Cape Town may actually be in North Africa rather than the interior. From Casablanca Google maps routes you back up to Spain and then down to Algeria, from which you can pick up the trans-Saharan Highway. The Sahara, and especially disputed Western Sahara, is not to be taken lightly.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by ChrisH »

There look to be some substantial missing links in the Trans-African Highway Network, even in the more developed West African section through Ghana / Nigeria.

Clearly it can be done - and has been done in the past more often. The political situation through Sudan and Kenya makes that axis less ideal than it would have been 20 years ago.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by KeithW »

jackal wrote:The trickiest part of Morocco to Cape Town may actually be in North Africa rather than the interior. From Casablanca Google maps routes you back up to Spain and then down to Algeria, from which you can pick up the trans-Saharan Highway. The Sahara, and especially disputed Western Sahara, is not to be taken lightly.
If I were contemplating the trip I think I would drive to Spain take a car ferry to Algeria. Almeria to Oran seems a popular route
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by Comstock »

I don't think Algeria is the safest of places. Indeed anywhere apart from Northern Morocco and South Africa itself is expedition territory.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

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KeithW wrote:
jackal wrote:The trickiest part of Morocco to Cape Town may actually be in North Africa rather than the interior. From Casablanca Google maps routes you back up to Spain and then down to Algeria, from which you can pick up the trans-Saharan Highway. The Sahara, and especially disputed Western Sahara, is not to be taken lightly.
If I were contemplating the trip I think I would drive to Spain take a car ferry to Algeria. Almeria to Oran seems a popular route
There are the security issues and the closed borders. If it were done and security not a problem the better route is the one Michael Palin and Ewan McGregor used, the east coast. The DRC has less than 2500 km of paved roads, in the 11th largest country in the world.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by KeithW »

Comstock wrote:I don't think Algeria is the safest of places. Indeed anywhere apart from Northern Morocco and South Africa itself is expedition territory.
Nowhere in North Africa is that safe but the Trans Saharan Highway is at least heavily policed not least because they are building a gas pipeline along it from Algeria to Nugeria. The most dangerous section is pretty much the last 400 km to the Niger border. The east coast route takes you through Sudan and South Sudan which is pretty dodgy too although its apparently pretty much OK from Tanzania. The trouble is the situation is highly volatile in that part of the world what is safe one year could be dangerous as hell another.

Remember that in the 1970's the Hippy Trail took westerners through the 'safe' countries of Pakistan Afghanistan and Iran. In 1978 a friend of mine who was a historian who got his PhD on the campaigns of Alexander the Great was just about to set out on the expedition he had been planning for a decade to retrace the route taken by the Macedonians. Then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the Shah of Iran was overthrown.

Bottom line is that if 'safety' is what you crave Africa is not the place for it, the main risk is not so much terrorism as the abysmal standards of the roads and drivers and the fact that if you do have a prang you can be more than days drive away from a hospital. Not many air ambulances out there.
You should hear my brothers story about the bus he was a passenger on in Botswana and the bull elephant that charged it head on.

Annual road death rate 100,000 inhabitants.

Algeria 23.8
Niger 26.4
Nigeria 20.4
South Africa 25.1
Sudan 24.3
UK 2.9

Best bet in any case is to team up with other travellers so that if one bogs down they can be rescued. Such roads are not really suitable for solo travel even in 'safe' countries such as Australia.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by Comstock »

Interesting that SA is just as dangerous on those stats as poorer African nations.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by bothar »

Comstock wrote:Interesting that SA is just as dangerous on those stats as poorer African nations.
yes and no. The overall death rate is as high, but probably based on a significantly larger volume of traffic.
This figure is about the same as Montana in the USA.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by exiled »

bothar wrote:
Comstock wrote:Interesting that SA is just as dangerous on those stats as poorer African nations.
yes and no. The overall death rate is as high, but probably based on a significantly larger volume of traffic.
This figure is about the same as Montana in the USA.
The RSA also has a significant crime issue, including things like car jacking, meaning the police get stretched and not always trusted. When the police are not 'there' the driving standards tend to drop and the casualty rate tends to rise.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by RichardA626 »

KeithW wrote:
Remember that in the 1970's the Hippy Trail took westerners through the 'safe' countries of Pakistan Afghanistan and Iran. In 1978 a friend of mine who was a historian who got his PhD on the campaigns of Alexander the Great was just about to set out on the expedition he had been planning for a decade to retrace the route taken by the Macedonians. Then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the Shah of Iran was overthrown.
I remember the story of the couple who drove from Sri Lanka to the UK in an Austin Allegro(!) in 1979 crossed 4 countries in strife, as well as Afghanistan & Iran they went through Pakistan around the time Ali Bhuto was executed, & Turkey during a general strike.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by brombeer »

Comstock wrote:I don't think Algeria is the safest of places. Indeed anywhere apart from Northern Morocco and South Africa itself is expedition territory.
Some nations more than others, but on each route you'll run into expedition territory and some dangerous areas.

Going West to East:
  • Crossing the Sahara from Morocco was always relatively safe and I reckon that no Polisario and Islamists have really changed that. But from the South side of the desert, you'd have to cross Western African countries like Nigeria (a guy I know who did this 20 years ago said that this was where he felt unsafest) and pass the unchartered DRC.
  • Crossing the Sahara from Algeria eliminates some of those Western African problems, but you'd cross the Sahara the hard way.
  • Down through Egypt and Eastern Africa was a pretty civilized route for a long time, since it crosses stable Eastern African countries with reasonable infrastructure. But things have gone wrong in Libya (which you'd cross on the typical route from Europe: Genoa-Tunis ferry and then driving East). Egypt is tricky and I'm not sure about the areas of Sudan that you'd cross.
  • Final option would be through Asia Minor to Saudi Arabia, to cross the Red Sea from there (to Djibouti). Saves some Saharan turmoil, but Syria lies in the way.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by jackal »

Comstock wrote:Interesting that SA is just as dangerous on those stats as poorer African nations.
Far more so if you look at homicide rates, eg:

Algeria 1.5 homicides per 100,000 population
Niger 4.7
Nigeria 10.3
SA 33
UK 0.9

Note also that Algeria is about as rich as SA but much less unequal, hence the contrasting crime rates.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... icide_rate
Last edited by jackal on Sat Apr 08, 2017 10:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by Reading »

I had a school teacher who drove around in a LWB Landrover he had driven to the uk from Kenya over the period of a year. Had one of those long roofracks with the stays down to the corner of the front wings
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Re: Is driving to South Africa possible?

Post by Owain »

I'm sure it is possible, but it's probably not a good idea.
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