Zambia - shouldn't my bike have a clutch?

 We just had to add this picture as the caption - 3rd world countries are notorious for overloading their vehicles.. whether bicycle or bus!

Below is a pic of the bridge connecting Zimbabwe and Zambia

 This is the best view we could get of the falls. the river is in flood and the falls are huge!  Most lookout points are covered in torrential rain, from the mist created by the falls - 10 seconds and we were drenched to the bone!

 Here is another angle of the mist/spray generated by the falls, resulting in a beautiful rainbow.

 Of course the customary food pic - here we are having a burger at Steers in Livingston.

 In Livingston I noticed i don't have a lot of free play on my clutch and adjusted it to the absolute max... a little worrying... Having gotten to our overnight spot in Choma (Gwembe Safari Lodge), I had NO more free play... the clutch was on its way out... We have had no heavy riding.. no sand nothing up to now... I had an issue with the clutch back home - adjustment nut came loose... and the clutch suffered as a result. I had it checked out and it was given the all OK...  anyway - nothing we can do about it now... here I am making a plan, just so we can get to Lusaka... removing the upper adjustment nut so I have 4 more mm of cable to work with...

OK, it's Friday morning - my netbook ran out of battery power - now I can continue the blog.. ;-)

Before we left Stellenbosch, we bumped in to Richard art BMW, and he gave me the name of a good mate of his, just outside Lusaka, Ray Wilson, who also has the KTM dealership in Zambia - as luck would have it, when I phoned Ray, it turns out his place is about 2km from the Eureka Camp site that we intended to stay at anyway...

On Monday evening, we went to Ray's place, took the clutch apart, and measured up all the parts (friction & steel plates and springs) as well as looked for any other issues... None that we could find... except that the friction plates as well as springs were all at the wear limit (according to the K7x Rep ROM that I thankfully purchased last time I was in the States!). The only conclusion we can make is that the stint were the adjustment nut had come loos, did in fact cause more damage than initially assessed...

Now for the "good" news... a clutch for the 800 is ex stock BMW Germany... hmmm...  a couple of calls and the good folks at Donford, cannibalized a secondhand F800GS with 4000km on the clock and my ultra reliable crew back at the office had the package ready for FedEx just minutes later.. 

Now, hoping that customs don't get their knickers in a knot, we might have the package in hand later today - All fingers crossed!

The Eureka camp site has its own little reserve, with buck, giraffe, zebra and buffalo.. We haven't seen the buffalo yet, but the other game easily spotted..

Yesterday a German couple arrived at the camp site Markus on a KTM 990 and Ellen on a KTM 640.  They've been on the road for 8 months, and gave us some great info on the roads, routs and placed to stay in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.. You can check them out at http://www.time-2-travel.de

Till next time - with a little luck, the next post should be from Lake Malawi!