Walvis Bay or Durban, then a long road. Price the road first.
Botswana has no coast, and the two realistic sea doors are Walvis Bay across Namibia and Durban across South Africa. Both involve a long inland haul, which is why the transport quote should come before the machine decision rather than after it.
Walvis Bay is efficient and the Trans Kalahari road is well used by heavy loads. Durban is bigger and busier, with more sailings but more congestion. Ask your haulier to price both, because on a heavy machine the difference is real money.
Diamond and coal mining and the contractors working for them take large excavators, production loaders, graders and site tippers. Road and district council work takes rollers, graders and tippers. Gaborone and Francistown building takes twenty tonne excavators, backhoes and mixers.
The same two things matter here as everywhere dry. Air filtration and cooling. Keep filters on the shelf and service to the hour rather than to memory, because a machine a long way from a dealer is a machine you want to keep running.
Your machine moves in transit through Namibia or South Africa and clears in Botswana. Tell your agent that at the beginning so the documents are written correctly the first time.
So you can compare before you commit. Every machine shows its price, its hours, its engine and the yard it stands in.
What contractors and mines in Botswana ask us.
Walvis Bay or Durban, with the machine. We price the sea leg, your haulier prices the road.
