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Day 1: We set
off early from home on our Namibian off road
holiday and 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.
Skeleton Coast,
Walvis and Swakopmund
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.
Namib and Sossusvlei
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 re-pressurising 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.
submitted by Edgar Bradley |
