Gamsberg Pass Route: Kuiseb Pass to Windhoek

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Kuiseb Pass

   The Kuiseb is a river that mostly isn't. For most of the year its bed is a broad strip of dry sand, lined with ana trees and camelthorn, running west from the Namibian highlands toward Walvis Bay, and only after heavy rain in the interior does water come down it, sometimes in a brown flood that reaches the sea. Along its course, the river has cut a deep canyon through the edge of the plateau, and the road, the C26, drops through it at Kuiseb Pass, at about 905 metres, in a series of bends with views over rocky ridges and dry valleys.

   Read the complete Kuiseb Pass write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kuiseb Pass is where the day begins. Next is Gamsberg Pass, climbing 760 m.

2. 2. Gamsberg Pass

   Gamsberg is an odd mountain, a huge flat-topped block of rock that rises abruptly from the plains of the Khomas Hochland, almost 2,350 metres high, and it can be seen from kilometres away. It is an inselberg, a survivor of an older landscape that has been worn down around it, and its pale sides, glowing red in the evening, dominate the horizon. The pass that takes its name, at 1,665 metres, is on the road from the coast to Windhoek, and it marks the point where the land drops from the highland plateau toward the Namib desert.

   Read the complete Gamsberg Pass write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Gamsberg Pass comes up 209 km in. The road climbs 760 m on the way up to it, steadily. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Windhoek, mostly downhill.

3. 3. Windhoek

   Windhoek sits at about 1,700 metres in the middle of Namibia, in a bowl of hills that gives it a cooler, drier climate than most of the country. It is the capital and by far the largest city, with a population approaching three hundred thousand, and a mix of German colonial buildings, modern shopping centres and sprawling townships. The Christuskirche, a Lutheran church with a pale stone facade, stands on a hill in the middle of the town and has become the city's best-known landmark.

   Read the complete Windhoek write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 248 km.