Namibia: What Worked

After a really long and thorough preparation, the Namibia / Botswana / Zimbabwe trip went way over the initial expectations. Over three weeks we covered almost 4000 miles, more than 80% of that was gravel and off road. There are close to 2000 photos, which I'm trying to reduce down to about 300 before publishing. I could go for hours telling what worked (many things) and what didn't (almost nothing...), but here is the list of the indisputable winners:

1. The Hankook DynaPro MT tyres. They carried our HiLux Dakar through the entire distance with no single puncture (although we had two spares). This is a phenomenal track record and those of you who do some off road trips know how important it is to have absolutely dependable tires.
   
2. The Tracks4Africa maps, both paper ones and the electronic edition loaded on the Garmin GPS platform. It is just unbelievable how precise and dependable they are. Nobody should even think of self driving there without these maps.
   
3. The Delorme inReach GPS communicator. We never had a need to use it in emergency, but it served great as a track logger (for geotagging photos) and we could be followed on-line in real time by family and friends. One feature I love about it is it lasts about four days on a charge. More than any other GPS logger I know of, not to mention smart phones...
   
4. USB Power. I took two (primary and backup) 4.2 amp cigarette lighter chargers with cable splitters. They were in use all the time, recharging the phones, the satellite logger, the Petzl headlamps, the GoPro and even the DSLR cameras - both the big and the small Nikons via the clever KingMa cradles (both for EN-EL15 and EN-EL14). Yes, today everything low voltage can be powered by the Universal Supply Bus.
   
5. The Tamron 15-30mm lens. Was perfect for the MilkyWay shots as well as the landscapes of the Namib Desert. Amazing build quality as well as the optical performance and vibration compensation. I wish it was even wider. Well I could take the 8mm Sigma fisheye, but then changing lens was not really an option.
   
6. The Nikon 750. Unbelievable low light performance. Also what really worked (and this is not Nikon's marketing, believe me!) was having two bodies and never changing the lens. Africa is extremely dusty. No matter how you try to protect it, everything is soon covered by a uniform layer of dust. Changing lens requires a session with an air compressor to blow everything off the camera before opening the bayonet. The other set I took was the D7200 with the AF-S 80-400mm. I was using the BlackRapid Yeti system to carry both cameras. It is the kind of gear designed to never fail.