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Day
1: We set off early from home an travel west through Herman Charles
Bosman country to the Botswana border. Things don’t seem so good in the
Groot Marico anymore. It is not just our cities that are in trouble –
the words of W B Yeats come to mind – “the centre cannot hold and
things fall apart”. Example: At the Caltex garage in Zeerust, only one
pump in five had petrol. All the cars queue for the one pump. At the BP
Garage in Groot Marico town there was no
petrol – that is because there was no electricity. And the toilets
were too dirty to use. It reminded me of Swaziland twenty years ago ( I
wonder what that place is like now?)
We cross into the Land of the White Bakkie (Botswana) and proceed
towards Ghanzi in north-western Botswana. This is a very empty country and
the roads are very long and straight. A 1000 km leg this, so quite
strenuous. Fortunately the country is pleasant green bushveld, rolling on
for kilometre after kilometre. Half way along the Trans-Kalahari Highway
we stop at Kang for fuel . A sad site greets our eyes – a seized three
door Disco, but the diesel, not the petrol-engined version like mine. The
car had blown a radiator hose. (The diesels are prone to this, not the
V-8’s.) The owner had phoned Land Rover on Call and they were sending a
truck from Gaborone to collect the vehicle.
Day
2: We cross into the Other Land of the White Bakkie (Namibia) and
spend the night at Windhoek. That is the advantage of the Botswana route
– it cuts a day of the Johannesburg-Windhoek run. Windhoek is very
impressive in some ways: no litter, few hawkers, those that exist are in
controlled areas. The cleanest city in Africa, for sure. In other ways,
however, Namibia is just like home – we passed through Gobabis on the
very day that there was a horrific murder of a farming family in the area
– mother and father shot, children of six and seven beaten to death with
a stick. Several other murders reported in the papers – we soon stopped
reading.
Day
3: We overnight at Palmwag, in the rock desert south-west of Etosha.
One of the famous desert elephants is in attendance at the camp. How these
huge beasts exist in these food-scarce surroundings is a wonder of nature.
They make use of the roads to forage – the footprints are visible on the
roads all over, taking a turn off road here to eat from
a bush, then we see the tracks return to the road, etc.
Palmwag
is rustic, but not cheap. The food is excellent. We have gemsbok for
dinner – delicious! Pity the management have such an attitude.
Day
4: West to the Skeleton Coast. While still in the rock desert we see
Ludwig’s Bustard, a new one for my list. We also see Welwitchias for the
first time (That’s a plant, not a bird.) They form an ecosystem in
themselves, providing food and shelter for ants and two types of beetles,
one bright red. That gecko, the one you see in the advert with the
windscreen wiper tongue, hangs around, presumably eating the ants.
As
we near the coast all the colours change – we experience the strangest
shades of blue, grey and white in sky, sea and earth. Sometimes the sea is
the most brilliant light blue you could imagine – a pity the photos
taken with our point-and-shoot photograph technology cannot do the place
justice. An artist would use a simple palette here, with a few, but
brilliant, colours.
One
photo, worthy of mention, is
of the Disco climbing back up from the coast, a small green object in an
expanse of white sand, with the brilliant blue sea and sky behind it. It
looks like a photo out of a
Land Rover advertising brochure. I am sending in the picture
to Land Rover, to see what they think of it.
We
visit Toscanini, where they used to mine for diamonds and then move onto
Cape Cross. Here the Portuguese mariners planted a cross over
five hundred years ago, in the 1400’s. ( Makes van Riebeek look like
the new boy on the block). It is also a African Fur Seal colony. Life is
tough for fur seal pups – 20% of them never make it off
the beach, usually killed by being crushed by the clumsy males. The
little black pups have the saddest faces in the animal kingdom, I think.
They also must have a peculiar sense of smell to be able to live in their
environment! The stench of a seal colony cannot be described, only
experienced. It is the strongest smell I have ever smelt, bar none.
We
end the day at Walvis Bay, a sort of Brakpan-by-the-Sea. Architecturally,
Swakopmund up the road is a lot more interesting with its 19th
century German buildings.
We
stay at the Protea Hotel in Walvis where we get two nights free
accommodation because of our previous stays in Protea hotels. This Protea
card system really is quite good. We are also surprised by the service.
The manager could just be the Best Hotel Manager on Earth. Talk about
customer service. Nothing is too much trouble. A German chap, he could
teach his compatriots at Palmwag a thing or two.
Day
5: Walvis and Swakopmund and my second
new bird siting of the trip – the rare Damara Tern, on the beach at
Walvis.
Day
6: We move due east back into the Namib. I bag another two species,
Gray’s Lark and the Namib race of the Tractrac Chat. On towards
Sossusvlei, where I damaged my Kombi on the previous trip. Should I not
have said “I’ll be back”? Does the Namib have ways of making you eat
your words? Passing through a
river canyon en route to Sossus, there is a tempting little ramp off the
bridge down into the dry river bed and a 4x4 track in the river bed. So we
have a go – perhaps there were some good photo opportunities around the
corner, with the high walls of black rock on either side and the riverine
vegetation. Nothing interesting after ˝ km, so I turn around off the
track and the Disco sinks into the sand up to the differential
at the back - and we are also in trouble at the front. I am amazed
by the power of the sand – it is like it bites at the wheels. In low
ratio first or second, when I take my
foot of the throttle, everything stops with a bang. It is like the
brakes are seized on. The Disco is like an ant in the grip of a giant
antlion.
Had I let the tyres down to 100
kpa? the smart guys will say. Well, no – I only have a foot pump for
repressurising and anyway I had just been doing this on the beach at
Walvis the previous day without
any trouble while watching
a two wheel drive bakkie getting stuck and being pulled out. What
the real experts will tell you is that there will always
be that bit of sand that will get you, no matter how
experienced you are. I read in a recent edition of one of the Land Rover
magazines of a brand new Discovery that had to be left in the desert in
Dubai, sunk up to over the axles, with the recovery logistics and
economics ruling out any salvation for the stricken vehicle. Do not fear
the desert, but respect it – it is a worthy adversary.
It is 11.00 am, the air
temperature is in the middle thirties and getting hotter – the dark grey
sand in the riverbed is too hot to touch, probably at about 50 degrees. I
have no shovel, no sand ladders, no winch. I advise my wife and daughter
to wear jerseys, despite the heat, to protect their arms and shoulders
from the sun. I find a flat rock and with it remove the top layer of very
hot sand then start digging with my hands, while my wife and daughter
collect flat rocks from the canyon sides and floor, wherever the shade
ensures they are not too hot to touch.
 It
takes five separate jacking operations to free the stricken vehicle –
seven if you count the two failed attempts when the car slid sideways off
the jack. Do you want the details? – jack the right hand back chassis
– yes, I know the manual says not to jack on the chassis but I have to
jack where I have access and there is no way I can get the jack under an
axle. So, jack up under chassis, place rocks under chassis, remove jack.
Place jack under middle of chassis on right hand
side and jack. Place rocks next to jack. Remove rocks from rear of
chassis. Let chassis down on rocks in the centre. Axle is now high enough
to get jack under axle. Jack and place rocks. Remove rocks from chassis.
Dig under wheel by hand and place rocks under the tyre. Let jack down.
Remove jack, and so on and so on…. After about an hour , with the family
pushing, I ride the car out on a hand-made road of rocks, back onto the
original track. I tell my family that once I get going, I am not stopping
for anything. They have to walk the ˝ km back to the road with jack, and
other tools. No Sandton pavement parkers, we.
Day
7: So we finally make our return
to Sossusvlei after three years. Sossusvlei is, I think about art and
atmosphere, more than anything. It is about shades of red and brown and
yellow, about light and shade. Our point-and-shoot photos, developed in
these automatic machines in the malls once again cannot do justice to the
place. A painting by David Shepherd might. Sossusvlei is about huge red
dunes standing behind fields of bright yellow grass with impossibly blue
sky for a backdrop and gemsbok in the foreground.
And it is about heat; 40 degree plus heat. You visit the dunes
early in the morning or late in the afternoon. The rest of the day is
spent in the lodge pool, for reasons of survival as much as enjoyment.
Day
8: The next day my daughter and I
take a balloon trip – our pilot is a young Belgian and the other nine
passengers are TA’s (travel agents) from England, getting a free ride
courtesy of one of the local lodge owners, in the hope that they will
market his lodge in future. One of the agents is very specialized – he
organizes birding safaris and has a life list of over 5000 birds. Apparently
birding is very big in the UK. This gentlest and most eco-friendly of
pastimes fits the stereotype of the polite English I suppose. ( “..and
laughter learned of friends, and gentleness in hearts at peace, under an
English heaven “ – as in the poem by Rupert Brooke).
The reality of course is different – one of the TA’s was closer
to the stereotype of the English soccer fan – flippant, loud, extrovert
and annoying, with everything a bit of a joke. It takes all kinds of
course.
But to return to the balloon-
has anybody ever explained to you how you get into one of these things?
They first blow up the envelope with engine driven fans, then start the
propane burner. As the thing starts to fill and rise from horizontal to
vertical you crawl sideways into the basket, which then upends with most
passengers now standing on their heads! If this is not done smartly, so
that not enough people get in, then there is not enough weight and the
whole thing just drifts away across the sand while the air in the envelope
cools down. We all make it in OK and then we refire the burners and have
liftoff, to use NASA terminology.
After about an hour at 400 m
above the Namib, and 240 litres of propane later, we land behind a dune.
The ground crew of four has to scramble up and down the dune to reach us.
We then re-ascend above the dune and are pulled over it with a tether. Our
pilot then asks for volunteers to help the ground crew pull the balloon
back to the launch vehicle. ( Why it could not come to us, is not
explained.) I and two others jump out and assist the ground crew in
pulling the basket, at about a metre above the ground, back the km or so
to the truck. Splendid and imperial and grand for the remaining passengers
but very hard work for the pullers. We
float the balloon neatly onto the trailer of the Unimog and it settles
down as the air cools. Then it’s breakfast in the desert.
And for the second time I see
my last new species of the trip – the Ludwig’s Bustard. I had
hoped to break 500 on this trip but with the four new sightings, my list
is only at 494.
Day
9: The holiday is over, now for the long trip home. Our first stop is
at Keetmanshoop,
a
bedraggled, sun blasted dorp in southern Namibia. The only thing the place
has going for it is a reasonable hotel where we overnight. (The hotel is
reasonable, not the food – forget about the food) And still the 40
degree heat.
Day
10: Next stop Upington, back in the RSA. This place is also 40 degrees
in the shade and would look like Keetmanshoop if it wasn’t for the
Orange/Gariep/Groot River (Groot seems the name of choice in the town).
This is the kind of place where if you don’t speak Afrikaans you will
feel as lost as if you were in Paris. But it is a very pleasant town. We
spend the rest of the day buying dried fruit and looking to buy indigenous
succulents
Day
11: The last leg home – exactly 800 kilometres, making about 5500 km
in total. Now to plan for the next trip.
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