Gabon
I know there is a prior fuel and road warning, but it needs to be said the road until the border is absolutely atrocious. I crossed the border into Gabon having done the long stretch of unpaved road with ease. Once across though the road becomes almost impassable. There's a little less than 40km to the border, but when I went through it was completely muddy and full of water. There were multiple times where my engine (motorcycle) was completely engulfed in water. Just be aware depending on when you go the way may be extremely difficult. Once across though you'll find the road pretty agreeable depsite what the other posts have stated.
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easy peasy during dry season. 5 hours 15 minutes from ndende to dolisie and about an hour and half additional time to get through checkpoints, border control, eat lunch and take lots of photos (the route is very scenic). No problem at all in the dry season, a bit rough in places but you probably didn't come to Africa to drive pristine tarmac. The road wears the scars of rain season visibility, in places it's fairly rough, nothing horrendous, just take your time. Drivable in a 2wd car but it'll take you a while. On a bike the track is good fun, lots of fast, slidey gravel and few jumps to make you feel like Toby Price. If you're used to riding / driving in Africa, or have experience off-roading back home, this track will be nothing new to you. Looks a challenge in the rain season though, what was a 5 hour blast could well take two days in a big vehicle when it's wet.
Report Check-InIn dry season this road is absolutely nothing to worry about. Plenty of 2wd taxis ply the route as well. Timings for us roughly similar to the timings left by the travelburners in previous comment.
Report Check-InWe left Ndende having got stamped out at around 9:30am. It took around 3 hours to get to the border with lots of large potholes. The border was very easy and friendly, and having picked up someone wanting a lift it turned out his wife was the immigration officer, so we stopped for lunch. Having left the border at 3:30pm we didn't make Dolisie until 10:45pm, and this was with help from our friend doing some of the driving at night.
They are building a new road to the border in the R. of Congo but it is presently only tarred the last 50 miles before Dolisie. It may be sometime before it reaches the border.
The Congo side of the road is very bad, lots of potholes and even in mid June, in the dry season, there were large puddles and a couple of slightly deep sections to drive through. We encountered a few vehicles stuck / tipped over.
Otherwise, in June the road is drying out and doable, but I would recommend either a very early start, or wild camping.
Also, Google Maps is wrong for half of this road. We used OSMAnd+ which tracked the road perfectly.
Report Check-InBeginning of dry season.
What a challenging and tirering "road"
From Ndende to RoC border : 2h of easy track
From RoC border to Dolisie it was ... different haha. We needed 7h (including some photos stop, & 15 minutes lunch break).
We had 30 kilometers of really difficult track : really deep potholes & some sticky muddy parts
Then, from Kibangou the track is flat, ready to become a clean tare road. Then 15km after Mila Mila, its a perfect tare road until Dolisie.
According to us, this road/track is quite "easy", in dry season, if you have a good experience of muddy drive (If you arrive until here, for sure you have ^^)
En moto la route est extrêmement difficile, 20km avant la frontière avec le Congo et encore pire les 20/30 km après la frontière!! Un enfer à cause des trous d’eau ou plutôt des bassins d’eau, impossible de ne pas tomber une dizaine de fois sans avoir de l’eau jusqu’à la taille! J’ai été obligé de mettre la moto sur un camion pour rejoindre la route goudronnée.
Report Check-InJust drove the road from Ndende to Dolisie the last two days during rainy saison. Any yes it rained a day before to make it more adventurous, holy moly. However didn’t get stuck and nobody blocked the road 🙃
Track from Ndende to border was easy, all more or less good flattened laterite piste, waterholes aren’t deep, nothing to worry about.
However beginning at the border barrier the road condition changed pretty quick. First country we drove in with locked transfer case. As already mentioned here first 20km in RoC are crazy shit driving with long muddy parts and various water holes, but all doable. 2 really deep water holes (around 1m deep) at the worst point. Here locals build detours for small cars crossing their properties and asking for lot of money. We negotiated from 10.000 to 500CFA to cross with our 3.2m tall 4x4. Local 6x6 trucks went through the potholes. Afterwards everything doable again with some muddy drifting experience, but the track became more and more dry and solid.
Last 80kms to Dolisie are new prepared piste, last 40kms already paved.
BTW beautiful landscape and lots of little creeks with clear water to take a bath or wash the mud of your legs.
Report Check-InThe road is surprisingly good from ndende to the border. 4-5 muddy parts, but nothing serious.
But the first 20 km from border direction to dolossie are serious!!! Walk through every bigger mud hole to check!!!!
Heading south in dry season in a big rig, no problems, would be fun in the wet!!
Report Check-InUpdate on border crossing, Land Cruiser followed us through with no major issues. Bets are off if it rains a lot more.
Update on road from Nyanga to Dolisie, bad gravel for most with very bad gravel from the Niari river (90km from Dolisie) until about 30km from Dolisie (gravel with continuous holes, ruts, corrugations that are not big rig friendly, very slow!). New road is growing from the Dolisie end and looks like it will include this bad section in the coming years. Expect route to be smoother after a lot of rain but not in a good way, lots of clay.
Report Check-InAs a beginner (did not drive a mud road before) we had to drive this road in the rainy season which was at moments quite terrifying, especially when a truck blocks your way...
But we managed and did not get stuck. If you are experienced skip reading, otherwise here are some tips that worked fine for us:
- take your time
- unless not possible always choose a side of the ‘pool’, preferably not through the middle
- we kept our normal tyre pressure and used only low gear when the going gets tough. Off course 4wd all the way.
- keep momentum, don’t go too slow
- most important of all, if it looks difficult, stop, check every part of the section, how deep is it?, if possible ask locals about their opinion, choose you strategy/route and go for it!
Good luck!
Just through after a good rain storm and it was wet! From Ndende to border we had numerous deep puddles (up to 700mm) and a detour around a broken truck for bonus points 😉. Not counting the three hours to get around the truck we spent 3 hours to get 40km to the border! First 10km inside RC was still bad with our deepest puddle of the day (mid thigh on my 1.86m frame) but all quite straight forward. After is rough gravel to Nyanga but a pleasure after the water holes. RC side seemed drier.
4x4 pick-ups, 3 axle trucks and motor bikes all doing the run today. We drive a Unimog.
Beautiful grassland countryside, pity no animals.
Report Check-Inthe road to the boarder is okay. there is only one small river crossing that was more deep then we thought but no problem with a snorkel. the 10k after the boarder ar more difficult. it didn't rain for 4 days but still we had to take our friend out of the mud. our idea is; don't do it alone during rain season. at the must difficult part they had a tractor if you really can't come out. but we know for sure that they will find a very good price for you. after the 10 k, in the direction of dolisie, the road is perfect! specialy if you have been in Guinea;-)
Report Check-InThe first 70 kms fron Ndendé are muddy but easy. Fore sure You'll walk in the mud but nothing really difficult with our 250kgs motorcycles.
The last 200 kms to Diolosie are just nice and easy with no difficulties.
We didn't see any custom out of Gabon, so no stamp on our CPD. There is one on Congo side.
We paid nothing out of Gabon nor In Congo
Did it in the rainy season, 24 h after heavy rains. Section Ndende-border is quite good only few puddles not deep. Border to Dolisie is much worse, bigger puddles and very bumpy.
Report Check-InRoad from Gabonese side to border is quite ok. I guess it has been redone recently. On the other side we found the road worse, mostly because it’s endless kilometres of deep washboard bumps that shake your car to pieces (rather than any individually terrible sections)
Report Check-InDid it in dry weather. It took me 10 hours from Ndendé to Dolisie. Including all border procedures. On the Congo side 50-60 km/h is possible most of the time.
Report Check-InMy friend and I passed this road and it is no doubt a shocker. The worst general quality was the 40km stretch in Gabon between the border and Ndende. That said, our experience was that the worst part was a 10km stretch back in the RoC where it had rained recently. It was shin deep mud, I went down twice and my mate burnt his clutch. This whole road between Dolisie and Ndende is very much dependent on whether it has rained recently. At times too the washouts were such that I thought my bike would stall they were that deep.
Report Check-InSame as described below , terrible road between borders. It starts around 50 km before Congo Brazzaville border. We cross it at the beginning of February. We found 2 small falling apart houses and stayed there overnight as this road is impossible to cross during the night. At 2 o clock started to rain very heavily so next day in the morning it was very difficult to cross.
We travelled by 2 cars so we could help each other when one of them got stuck.
I know there is a prior fuel and road warning, but it needs to be said the road until the border is absolutely atrocious. I crossed the border into Gabon having done the long stretch of unpaved road with ease. Once across though the road becomes almost impassable. There's a little less than 40km to the border, but when I went through it was completely muddy and full of water. There were multiple times where my engine (motorcycle) was completely engulfed in water. Just be aware depending on when you go the way may be extremely difficult. Once across though you'll find the road pretty agreeable depsite what the other posts have stated.
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