Day 18: Sesfontein to Opuwo.

Today was to be a chilled day. A 130km trip to Opuwo, estimated 3 hour journey.  We were relaxing, chilling over coffee, round the fire. The laugh this morning was on Panda, he alighted from our tent wearing a ‘2 tone’ khaki shirt – a BIG no-no in our circles. Then it started to rain, this only happens when the Morrison’s camp. As it let up, I went for an open air shower, rudimentary constricted, but warm.

Then it started raining again, so we packed up in the rain, dust turning to mud – camping can just be so much fun. As we set off off the rain stopped and the sun peaked through the clouds.

As we headed along the well maintained dirt road, we discovered the other half of Sesfontein; more houses, a school, a few shops and a police station. After a couple of kilometers we turned left onto the Opuwo road…..and it was closed, due to blasting. So much for the chilled day.

Plan B took us on a detour of the C43, it was a mountainous area, the mountains as opposed to what we were used to, were filled with trees. The road was stony and rutted. At our first travel break, I got out the car and stepped into elephant dung, wearing slops.  My Salamon’s are in serious need of a clean after yesterday's stuck vehicle episode – funny all the girls have different footwear on today.

We passed a tiny village with a few scattered huts. Outside one, was a lady dressed in traditional Herero dress, sitting on a chair with about 10 children, gathered around her, seated on the ground. The local school, no playground and no facilities – our children at St Stithians do not know how fortunate they are.

The areas we passed through were very rural, dotted villages with cattle, goats and donkeys. Some of the trees had started sprouting blossoms – I guess we are a week away from spring. Our second smoke break, had the bird watches all excited with lots of the little critters flying around the area.

We had passed over the Beesvlakte and through Ombombo. We saw kudu, springbok and ostriches.  As we got further north, I was excited to see my favorite trees, for the first time in Namibia, the Baobab. With 14 km to Opuwo, we turned left onto a tarred road and headed into the first roadblock of the trip, we were waved through and headed off to find a campsite for the night. 

Opuwo is the biggest town in the Northern Territory and capital of the Kunene Region – it is a typical African town – rural town merging with modern centers, bustling and busy. We drove through the town, passed through a suburb of small houses, with not a blade of grass. We drove up a mountain track, according to GPS coordinates, to the only camp place we could find (according to the Namibia  Book Guide). We arrived at a padlocked gate to a rather dodgy looking place. I phoned the number in the book and a central reservation person told me that they had sold the hotel and attached camp site a few years back…. Chilled day ??? Then Soxy, a guardian angel appeared at the gate, she informed us that there was a lodge was across the next hill, we made space in the car, she hopped in and took us along a rather precarious road to the Opuwa Country Hotel and Camp site. 

This looked a whole lot more inviting, in fact so inviting that the girls promised the men body and soul, literally, to stay in the rooms for the night.  I have always said I don't mind camping for 4 nights, then I want a proper bed and hot shower – wish granted. 

We moved into our rooms and headed off to the verandah for lunch.  It has a spectacular view over an infinity pool in to the valley below. Two o’clock and they refused to serve us lunch as the chef had knocked off. No problem, we ordered drinks, fetched crackers, cheese and cold meat from the car and made our own lunch at the hotel. 

Tony, Al, George and Sue headed into the hot, dusty, busy town for a few necessities; like new slops and a mattress for George, the former stolen and lost  - a lost mattress??...don't ask. For Al shopping is just a necessity.  Gray and I chilled on the verandah, playing with their charcoal grey cat and then in our air conditioned room – bliss.

As we had defrosted meat in preparation for our camp out,  we headed off to the camp area for a braai. Ironically this was the best camp site we have encountered so far – in our experience in Africa, camp areas attached to hotels are always the best and they give you full use of hotel facilities, such as the swimming pool, bar and restaurants. I think our braai was better than the hotel buffet. The meat from the butchery in Swakopmund has been amazing.

 We then returned to the hotel for coffee and to catch up on admin – with an extremely slow wi-if we eventually gave up. I really appreciated going to bed in a bed.

(Apologies for the duplication of photos in Day 16. Comms, or rather the lack of them, make posts difficult at the best of times).

Day 17: Palmwag Concession to Sesfontein.

I woke to the sound of nothing, no loud Spanglish, not even a bird. I read for ½ an hour, then Gray and I got up, he lit a fire and we sat in the dark waiting for the sun to rise. A special time…. but not for long. The kettle boiled, George arrived, then the rest of the gang. Condensed milk coffee time in the morning is always a good catch up on how we all slept.

I had a hot bush shower (thanks Gray). Even a ‘boskak’- if joked about enough, it’s not so bad. I think I have gone over to the dark side, with the other girls edging towards the fence – I really enjoyed being self sufficient, in the middle of nowhere, with no one around.

We packed up, leaving only our footprint behind, and that would soon be covered by the desert sand. Our first sighting of the day – springbok again.

Once out the river bed, the terrain was stark and rocky with vey sparse vegetation. The track then led us into the valleys of a mountainous region, similar to the Kuiseb Valley. Here we passed another vehicle, the first we had seen in 24 hours. We then drove through the a river bed, a tributary of the Mudorib River. Stopping for a tea break, in a beautiful area, there must be underground water, as there are these beautiful old trees, that have survived for hundreds of years in harsh conditions. The drive through the valley was spectacular with lots of green trees.  We saw lots of desert giraffe, they are extremely light in colour.

Sue is a geologist and loved being able to see the different layers of rock in the surrounding mountains, free of vegetation (apologies to all geologically inclined - I'm know there are geological terms for the amazing areas in Namibia, unfortunately my knowledge on the subject is non existent, so I report it as I see it).

Our next stop was Amspoort Gorge, where we came across the first water hole in the park. Little water and lots of birds; we spent some time birding and admiring the view before heading into the Hoanib River bed for the next section of the days trip.

The Hoanib River Valley is truly spectacular.  We drove through a sandy river bed, filled with lush green vegetation and tall trees. We were dwarfed by high grey mountains and the odd sand dune. A great contrast of colours. There was lots of evidence of ellies, and then there she was a beautiful desert elephant foraging on the side of the banks. On the opposite side was a little steenbok.

At our picnic stop, under one of the tall old trees we saw lots of cat spoor. Then we saw springbok and a giraffe – this one was a lot darker than those we had seen before. Next, on top of a river bank, appeared 3 ellies. Two adults and a little one, I guess in this neck of the woods it would be considered a breeding herd.

Later we came across water, not a flowing river, but big pools surrounded by bull rushes, reeds and abundant with bird life.  We were fortunate to see Ellie again, a real breeding herd  this time of at least 10.

The only way to travel the Hoanib Valley is through the river bed and as the river was in flood on our last trip, we were unable to access the area. I am so glad we got to do it this time, it is a very beautiful and special place. I could spend weeks exploring this remote area.

On exiting the park, we went through 18km of very fine desert sand, it was like powder and we saw a herd of desert giraffe. We also had a few drops of rain.

The Camelmen loved their 4x4ing today; from rocks to sand to mud and water… but the valley driving was not the end of it !!!

12km to our destination for the day we hit a 100m hilly patch of deep talc sand. 20m from the end we bellied up on the fine sand, our chassis was stuck on a sand bank.  At the same time Tony radioed in to say he was stuck on the previous hillock. Spades out, wood collected, much revving but we were stuck fast. I tried to walk in the track and the sand took me up to mid calf. During all this it started to rain – in the desert!!!.  George managed to pull Tony out, the girls found the best route out for  him and then it was our turn for the Pajero Recovery unit. As this was going down Tony got stuck on the hill coming up to our Discovery. Three / Nil to the Pajero – yah George!.. And in the rain.

Sesfontein, named after the six fountains found in the area, is a tiny rural place with a few mud houses and lots of goats.  After checking out one or two of the local camp sites (literally clearings under trees with the goats). We selected Camel Top (the boys insisted on calling it ‘Camel Toe’), named I guess because we are camping at the base of a camel hump shaped mountain. The camp site is community based, they have gone to a lot of trouble to make it nice and we were happy to support them.

We were the only people around and settled down for our evening drink. First we were visited by a mangy little puppy and then a cape turtle dove.  Cotton had wound the doves legs together and it was struggling to hop around.  The next hour was spent, using various methods trying to catch the bird. Eventually, the guys succeeded in catching it and another 15 minutes freeing it and one happy dove flew off.

We had delicious Oryx steak, salad and homemade bread and ice creams for dinner – pretty decent considering we have been off the grid for 4 days.

There were some great birds in the area; we saw a Monteiro’s hornbill, crimson breasted shrike and went to bed to the sounds of a pearl spotted owl.

Day 16: Palmwag Concession

I didn't have a great start to the day. I was woken at 04:45, with a headache (unusual and not caused by alcohol) by the Spaniards, clearly they had an earlier start than we did. Before my day, starts – anywhere – I have to have a shower, today it was coooold.

Gray has toured this area before and found camping spots in the bush to set up camp, his plan for this part of the trip…..however, with much pressure from the girls and extra planning along the way, he has found designated camp sites. So if we have noise and cold showers – we need to suck it up.

Having bought permits for the Palmwag Concession, we entered the area at 8:30. The concession is a protected wildlife area. Our first sighting was springbok. The terrain is rocky with interesting vegetation and the biggest Melkbos plants I have ever seen.

We were fortunate to have seen a herd of  desert elephants in the river bed. These ellies appear to have longer legs and slimmer bodies than their South Africa cousins. Next was a herd of mountain zebra, they have a white undercarriage. Then gemsbok, ostrich, giraffe, jackal, kudu – loving this game reserve, I was back in my happy space – lappet faced vulture, herds and more herds of zebra. 

At one point we were looking at this mirage (heat haze) ahead of us, it literally looked like sea in the desert. Before we knew it, we had 4 gemsbok galloping across the plain in front of us – such an awesome sight.

It took us 3 ½ hours to do 45km. It was a very pleasant drive through the conservancy, with some definite 4x4 areas, specifically in and out the rocky river beds. There are 8 designated camp sites, basically clearings, as you have to be totally self sufficient to camp here.  We stopped at ‘Camp 3’ for our picnic lunch.  The highlight, besides Al’s veldie, was George producing Magnum ice creams from his freezer.

The afternoon drive ended at Camp .. ‘In the middle of nowhere’.. in the dry Hunkab River bed (it was not a dedicated site). The area was desolate with very little vegetation and far less animals, fewer river beds and obviously less water. The only signs of life were sparsely scattered welwitchias. 

At around 3 we stopped in the river bed next to a cliff and set up camp.  The first thing we saw were lion spoor, we've had worse; we've had the actual lions outside our tent in Botswana and ellies and hippo in Zambia. The boys have been dreaming about this night (sorry for the girls – it was too far to go to any camp site). I have to be honest, sitting in the river bed, just the 6 of us, sipping on our drinks, watching the African sunset, this is a piece of heaven.

We finished eating around the campfire as the last of the daylight merged with the waxing moon. We were tucked up in our tents by 7:30, after another hard and exciting day.

Day 15: Brandberg to Palmwag

Considering my sleeping conditions, the desert floor is very hard, I had a fairly good nights sleep. We woke to a chilly winter morning and an amazing sunrise, literally a red ball rising in the east. After a shower and breakfast we disassembled the camp site. The first night of set up and take down is always a bit rusty but we were ready to leave by 8:30, after jump starting Tony’s car.  

Today we travelled from Damaraland into the Kaokoveld. 

The first stretch this morning was along a freshly graded road, what a pleasure. There is a fair amount of vegetation around. We came to a T-junction,  with the mountain behind us we turned left to Khorixas. We passed villagers of Hereros and Ovahimbas posing on the side of the road. We passed over mountainous regions with a variety of biomes, including areas of euphorbia and mopani. 

We stopped for a quick leg stretch, George headed off to find bird species, the girls discussed welwitschias – so academic – and Gray & Tony had the bonnet of Tony’s car open, sorting out battery systems.  Al joked that that the Discovery driver has spent lots of time fixing the Prado.

On entry into the Khorixas  District we crossed the dry river bed of the Ugab River and into an area with Mopani tree vegetation.The area is more populated, the main mode of transport is donkey cart.

The last 8 km into Khorixas, was on tar. It is a neat, clean rural town. We stopped for fuel and headed along a hilly dirt road to the petrified forests. This morning we decided to forgo an arduous 2 hour mountain hike to visit the rock painting of the ‘White Lady’. We were however very happy to take the 800m tour of the Petrified Forest. A forest, it is not, it is dry and rocky and fascinating. The area boasts petrified pine trees that were washed down into the valley 280 million years ago. There are various minerals embedded in the wood. It is also an area of fascinating flora. The guide got a little concerned when I backed into a euphorbia bush (to take a pic), the poison of which is used by the bushman to dart animals. There are also a number of Welwitschia, but they are are smaller than those we saw yesterday. Our guide explained the difference between the male and female and their form of pollination. We really have become fascinated with these plants. We saw a few bird species and an agama (gecko).

The next gravel road stretch took us over an attractive mountain pass to Bergsig. We saw ellie dung but unfortunately no ellies.

Our final destination for the day was Bergsig. The town consisted of a few buildings, no shops or other amenities. Here we passed into a veterinary controlled area – we are not allowed to take meat or animals out this area – animals won't be a problem.

We camped at Palmwag under some beautiful….palms. After setting up we went for a walk along the river area. It is luscious and green along the river bed and we saw an elephant in the distance.  

Unfortunately an overlandtruck full of Spaniards arrived that evening and camped next to us. They were rather loud.

Day 14: Swakopmund to Brandberg

We left Swakopmund around 9, after filling up with diesel and water and making final preparations for the next leg of the journey – a 5 day trip to Epupa Falls. Today’s journey was 300km to Brandberg.

As we left Swakop, the sun came out for the first time once our arrival in the town. The first stretch out of Swakop was a 70 km drive, on a salt road, past Henties Bay. We passed salt pans and a salt works near to the sea, on our left. Then we came across miles of beach littered with ablutions, I thought this rather strange, until Gray explained that this was a popular camping area in summer. Next was either Mile 14 or Wlotzkbaken, I'm not sure as it was not signposted, but it was a quirky area with a colorful array of houses. To our right was flat desert area dotted with a seaweed looking type plant.

This area is not called the Skeleton Coast for nothing, we stopped at the Zeila Wreck, a fishing trawler that was stranded, almost to the day, 7 years ago. It was sold to an Indian Company for scrap, but came loose from its towing line on the way to Bombay. It cannot be rescued any further, as it lies just off shore. We walked down the beach and I dipped my feet in the cold Atlantic Ocean.  The wreck has become a bit of a tourist attraction and there are peddlers selling stones and crystals. Unfortunately, one of them stole George’s slops that he had left near his car, we left the area decidedly irritated.  Our first bad experience in Namibia.

From Henties Bay we headed north along the coast to our next via point, Mile 108. Along this stretch we passed more salt pans on the sea side and the area to our left was covered in black dunes – dunes covered in black volcanic rock. There were homemade tables with large salt crystal chunks with honesty boxes dotted along the road.

We turned left to Cape Cross Seal Reserve. The history of which is important as it was thought to be the point of the first European landing in January 1486 by Diogo Cao/Diego Cam. He was a navigator under the command of King John 11 of Portugal. He was probably attracted to the coast by the mass of seals and erected a limestone cross. The original is in a German Museum and a replica resides in its place. The seal colony consists of thousands of seals basking on rocks and on the sand. The surrounding sea is also filled with seals, surfing the waves, at first I thought I was looking at kelp.  The smell was disgusting and left you with a metallic taste in your mouth, there was also a continuous plaintive, baby like, cry that permeated the colony. Despite this we spent a good ¾ of an hour ogling over them. 

My experience with seals has been rather hairy at times. I was once attacked by one, while scuba diving on a wreck, at 30m in Hout Bay. Luckily he preferred my pink fins (that bear the scars of his teeth marks) to my blue wet suit.

Back on the road we passed Doep se Gat, Predikant’s Gat, Adri se Gat, Bakleigat and so on. They are just names on a map and fishing sites, I guess, as there is nothing there but a barren coastline.

At Mile 108, there are 5 basic holiday chalets, we turned right onto a gravel road, leaving the sea behind us. A few kilometers down the dark grey/brown road we were rewarded with pronking springbok. It is a miracle that they survive out here, the area is reminiscent of pictures of the surface of the moon.

We stopped to take pics of the amazing welwitschia plants. The plant is endemic to this area. It is a unique plant and is protected by Cites.They live between 1000 and 2000 years and the leaves grow from 2m to 4m. The plant grows only 2 leaves over its lifetime, the bunches of leaves seen are actually splits of the original pair. It was a pleasure to have some respite from being rattled around on the badly rutted gravel road.

Sometime later, in the middle of nowhere, we took a sharp right turn onto a track, to the middle of nowhere …. The road was so bad we were traveling at around 20km an hour. We did eventually land up at the Messum Crater, after having stopped for a picnic lunch around 1 o’clock. Yesterday's homemade rolls and Marula drink tasted great. The road to the crater was lined with various sizes of welwitschia plants.

We stopped at Bakkrans, an historical cave sight at the side of the immense crater that was hit by a meteorite millions of years ago. We then headed along the crater floor, surrounded by mountains, probably pushed up by the blast.

The journey continued, a fair amount of the time, we had no tracks on follow, we were following GPS coordinates. At one point we rounded some mountains and Brandberg, our destination and Namibia’s highest mountain, could be seen in the distance. The route around the huge mountain took us the rest of the afternoon and travel weary, we arrived at White Lady camp site at 5.

Rather than camp in the middle of nowhere, or rather somewhere at the base of Brandberg, we elected to drive on for an extra 50km to a camp site attached to the White Lady Lodge.  We had dreamed of seeing one of the desert elephants, rhino or lion. It was only a dream … as we arrived at White Lady, there was a desert elephant foraging in their garden area. We were warned that he had trashes 2 tents the day before and to be careful about leaving food, specifically fruit lying around.  Undeterred we set up camp in the bush, had a great braai and were in bed by 8:30.

Much as I enjoyed and appreciated the great restaurants, shops and comfortable bed in Swakopmund, lying here on my thin mattress on the hard desert ground – I can't help thinking that today I had explored well – lived life to the full.

Day 13: Swakopmund and Walvis Bay

I love the boat harbour trip around Walvis Bay.  We have seen amazing bird and sea life, including a southern right whale. Unfortunately the weather was windy and inclement this morning and we would have been wet and cold if we had gone on the cruise. We therefore had a chilled start to the day before heading off around 10:30 to explore Walvis Bay.

The city of Walvis Bay (meaning Whale Bay) lies along the bay, which is a safe haven for ships because of its natural deep water harbour and has a colorful history, having been administered by South Africa for many years.

Our first stop was Pelican point, where we spent some time watching the thousands of pink lesser flamingo and their cousins, the white greater flamingo. We also saw pied avocet, a greenshank, gulls, ducks and other species. The area around Pelican Point is definitely upmarket part of town and has big beautiful houses. The town doesn't boast any of the German influence of Swakopmund and is more like a South African seaside town.

We then wondered off to the waterfront harbour area where we pottered around the few tourist shops and settled down for a lunch of oysters and calamari at ‘Sarah se Gat’ pub on the water edge. We watched boats come and go and were visited by Pelicans. There are a number of oil rigs that have been anchored off shore, they apparently are too expensive to run at present.

We were excited to have George and Sue arrive this afternoon to join us for the remainder of the trip.

We went to the German ‘Brauhaus’ for dinner – long awaited for by Graeme.  I had booked a reservation 2 weeks earlier to ensure we had a booking.  With beer boots and eisbein for the boys for diner – the evening did not disappoint and a good time was had by all.

(Tomorrow we head into off for 5 nights of desert camping and communications will probably be scarce).