Navigating Angola with the DeLorme GPS

For more than 30 years, Angola was ravaged by war. This has left transport infrastructure in a poor state. Travelling to the remote eastern regions without information on the condition of roads, or a guide, would be challenging. The World Map loaded on our DeLorme PN40 GPS and Xmap software was clearly insufficient for this purpose. Experience has taught us that road and town name signs are absent in remote parts of Africa. This makes it difficult to establish your whereabouts as there are no signs indicating which town or village one has just entered! Furthermore is it unlikely that secondary roads will have any road identification numbers. We also anticipated travelling tracks which may not be indicated on maps, so needed to have an idea of the topography of the area and locality of rivers to be able to navigate. The challenge was thus to create a base map for our GPS. To create a base map, you need to find a suitably scaled map. If you are going into unchartered areas, the finer the scale the better. The design and colour of the printed map should allow for a clear and easily readable scan. The map should finally have sufficient geo-reference information in order to geo-reference the scanned map into the Xmap software. Although not commonly available, three paper maps of Angola were obtained. To add to the difficulties, the names on the respective maps were different and so were the roads! One of the maps was discarded as we have previously experienced errors on these maps. Eventually this map proved to be one of the more accurate ones! We decided on an map of Central and Southern Africa at a scale of 1: 4 000 000, realizing that this scale may be inadequate. It did however corresponded with other sources researched and presented a good scanned image. Once a decision was made on the map to use as base map, the extent of the area to be travelled was determined. The paper map was scanned and saved as a jpeg (you can use tiff or any other image file). The map was then geo-referenced using the DeLorme X-Map software. We opted for the Enterprise package as it has data-form functionality we were going to use for research projects. If one merely needs to navigate, the Professional version would be sufficient. Known points are marked by the curser in the ImageReg mode on the original image file and the coordinates loaded. You can use longitude latitude intersecting points, marked corners of the map or any other known points to geo-reference your maps. The software then shrunk and stretched the image accordingly to the known coordinates so that the whole image is georeferenced. The image can now be loaded as a map package on any of the DeLorme handheld GPSs.

Perfectly aligned with World Map

Latitude/Longitude intersect point

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Scanned and geo-referenced map on top of World Map

For our Angola trip we opted to use an Acer Aspire One Netbook with a DeLorme LT40 GPS receiver to navigate. As the files containing the maps for the whole of southern Angola were quite large we decided not to load it onto the handheld but rather use the handheld to log tracks and use it for data collection on a few data forms. The larger screen of the netbook also provided an easier picture to work from. The Acer Netbook has a long battery life, but it also works well from the 12V charger which plugs into the cars cigarette lighter socket. The LT40 plugs with a USB into the Netbook and does not require any other power source as it is powered through the Netbook. The LT40 has a 2m cable which is sufficient to position it at any convenient place on the dashboard while still handling the netbook on your lap or place it on the seat or even at your feet Once through the border post the netbook was switched on and the XMap7 Enterprise software activated. Remember to declare your electronic equipment when entering a foreign country as it may be confiscated or taxed on your return if not declared. Within seconds we had a satellite fix and as we travelled could see that we were on the main road heading for Luanda. At Odjiva we decided to turn east and not continue on the main road. As no detailed street maps for the towns were available, it took some head scratching to find the correct road out of town. The road was established and we were on our way. We followed the road and after a few kilometres just checked that we were actually going in the intended direction. From here we were travelling on a secondary route but it was still recognizable as an official road and even in some places quite good. Whenever entering a village one can check on the map to see if a name is indicated. As our map did not have all the town names we drove through numerous towns which could not be identified from maps as they were simply not indicated on any map and there were no signs. On reaching Luena we turned east towards Luau on the DRC border. Here things became more vague. The road disappeared and became a track and often it would split without any signs. On our map we were still on the road so we continued. The map indicated a road under construction, but we never found this road. The route we eventually travelled followed the railway line, or should I say the redundant railway line. Had we not had the map and GPS receiver we probably would have turned around as it just did not appear logic that this track could be the main east-west connection between Luena and Luau, but it was. We reached a place where the bridge no longer existed. It appeared to have been blown up during the war and was

not as yet rebuilt. The locals indicated to us that we should turn back and take a track that turned off to the south. We found the track and followed it and later could see on our map that we were in fact following the railway route again. Travelling through forest country with forest where you cannot always see past the trees along the road, it is good to have a map indicating if there are any other land features such as wetland, rivers and lakes in the area. By using this information we could look out for such interesting places. After six days we finally reached Cameia National Park. We were still hoping that there would be some infrastructure such as roads (or at least tracks) and campsites left after the decades of war. The administrator of Lumeges concern that we had a GPS had us wondering what would await us. Once inside the park, the track disappeared totally. We had a look on the map and noticed that there used to be a campsite further east, but on the other side of the river. A bicycle track used by the locals to transport their dry fish to the market was the only indication of an easterly route. It was thus decided to follow this route. We reached a point where we thought that the old road would have crossed the river and turned in that direction, but soon the grass became too high and as we were nearing the river, were concerned that we may get stuck in a swamp. The short distance to the river was inspected by foot and only about a 100m further on found the place where it appears the road used to cross the river. There was an avenue of trees and a very visible crossing. It was however obvious that vehicles no longer cross the river at this point. The crossing was also over-grown. Without the map indicating the old roads and our position on this map, we would certainly not have found this crossing. We were disappointed as we realised that the campsite was not accessible, which meant another bush camp was awaiting us. The next day we continued to follow the bicycle track and then noticed that the track turned further south, away from the old campsite, but potentially in the direction of another campsite. At this point we did however stop and walked to the river to discover a beautiful lake. This time of year the upper regions of the river varies between simply swamps and these depressions which remain as lakes. One cannot always see the rivers from a distance, but often a row of trees will reveal the possible presence of a river. We could see such rows of trees in the distance and from our map could see that we were reaching the convergence of two rivers. It was uncertain whether we would be able to cross these rivers. Information from the locals was not clear, but eventually got the message that vehicles would not be able to cross the river and had to turn back. The following morning we switched on the DeLorme PN40 and backtracked to the entrance of the reserve.

Having a map with your real-time position on the map, provides one with the opportunity to explore an area and find places which would otherwise have been unknown. Should one merely follow a track without a base-map one would have no idea what lies ahead. With the accuracy of such a map it is fairly easy to find for instance the previous river crossing, which is now in disuse but still have the potential to be used with some effort. This is a real advantage for the explorer who seeks to find new places and not merely follow in other peoples tracks. While travelling, the software also allows you to make notes on the map, add waypoints, draw etc. All these can be directly converted to routes, loaded back onto a handheld or converted to GIS for future mapping and interactive map creation. Using this map, distances to the next town can also be measured. In an area like this, it is quite useful as we always tried to camp a distance before reaching a town as otherwise in higher populated areas it is more difficult to find a campsite along the road.

Mark point on the way either as mere notes on the map or a waypoint or collect data through a data form (XMap7 Enterprise) directly in the software

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From Luau it is fairly good road to Saurimo and Malanje and eventually Luanda. From here down south, road signs are found on most of the main roads, but every now and then one has to revert back to the map when a split in the road appears with no signage! At Xangongo we turned west towards Calueque with only a coordinate for the border post. We noticed on the map that we should keep along the river and just south of Calueque will have to turn south. This was fairly easy as there was only one track to follow for the first section but then we started getting those unmarked splits again and we had to rely on the direction of/on our GPS indicated on the map. We found the turn to Calueque and soon had cleared the border post and were back in Namibia on tar road and clear road signs! _____________________________________________________ Contact: sales@delorme.co.za or visit www.delorme.co.za for Southern African Agents for DeLorme and XMap