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Apologies in advance if I am misposting. I have quite a few episodes of this particular journey and may post from time to time but will not continue if not well recieved. I am pasting in from my own original journal. Enjoy if you will.
The Beginning.
It is with relief that the city of Johannesburg is receding in my rear view mirror as I head out into the Magaliesburg hills and towards the Pioneers gate that is one of the many entrances to Botswana.
Passing through customs formalities I turn on to the Sir Seretse Kharma Highway which is part of what is called the Trans Kalahari Highway; running from the Indian Ocean at Maputo in Mozambique, to Walvis bay on the South Atlantic coast of Namibia. For the next 700 kilometres there is a straight tar ribbon that will cross the Kalahari Desert. There are many more interesting ways to cross this great dry expanse, but it is still the season of the rains, I will come back to Botswana. For now, I am anxious to be back to the Namib, there will be clear skies and that warm sun that always seems to welcome me back. I am driving a four-wheel drive pick-up truck, which will be henceforth known as a ‘bakkie’, the African term for such vehicles. I am pulling a bush caravan, which although similar in size to a small normal caravan; it is sturdily built, and will travel wherever the bakkie and myself are capable of going. This mesmerising stretch of tar is boring but it enables me to consume the distance at a steady 120 kph.
Kang: It is a pleasure to see the sign that welcomes a weary traveller to Kang. It is the centre of the Kalahari. Unless a detour is made to the small village that is host to this place, Kang is but a large filling station, it is the only place for fuel on this route, and a place to eat. It also has camp sites and some cabin accommodation which tempts me to stay as I am beginning to tire, but I have a transit visa only and must complete to next 400 kilometres this day and leave Botswana. So, after a short rest I must head out for the border post at Mamuno; there are a great many donkeys in this country and I want to be off the roads before nightfall.
It has been twelve hours since I began and I have covered some 1100 kilometres, the border formalities are completed with pleasantries and little fuss and this African sky is becoming dark. There is a rest camp just inside Namibia and Mamuno has changed it’s name to Buitepos, It is at the fuel station and there is a shop; I have passed this way before and not thought much of the guide books descriptions but having no choice this time, I pay my dues and am pleasantly surprised. Too tired to unhook the caravan and make proper camp, I make for the showers and take to my bed, The next twelve hours are to be peaceful and uneventful.
To Windhoek And Beyond
Today, there is 300 more kilometres of the Trans Kalahari Highway that must be covered to reach Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia. It is a small city by most standards but quite pleasant and relatively safe to walk upon its streets, but is typical of almost any city of its size anywhere in the world. My road to the interior passes through it and it is a good place to take on stores; the shopping malls are first class. One other reason to stay here for a while is that I have two jerry cans of petrol in racks on the back of the caravan. These contain petrol for my generator, which is to power my electrical equipment, not least my air conditioning unit, which, when temperatures in the desert can be as high as 50c, it is a very useful item. Now, my padlocks appear to have been too small for some of the inhabitants of Johannesburg, and the generator, along with much sundry equipment has been, shall we say, redistributed, and is no more. The petrol is of no use now and I shall refill with diesel, which will give me a safer margin to travel through areas where there is no fuel. I had planned to buy two more cans for this in any case.
Fuel stations in Africa are not self-service as in Europe; they have petrol attendants or ‘gas jockeys’, usually one for each pump, all of which will vie for your attention when you pull in as it customary to pay a small tip for the service. Today is someone’s lucky day. I have about 30 litres of petrol to dump so I can re use my cans, it might as well be to someone’s advantage. The bakkie and caravan is coated with brown Kalahari dust, and must make way for the white Namibian sand, so in about an hour, both are gleaming, tank and cans are charged, tyres, oil and water are all checked, and a smiling young man has enough fuel to take his girlfriend to Swakopmund in his battered City Golf for the Easter weekend!
It is another day. Until this point, all has been but a task. Many thousands of kilometres, by ferry, planes, transit hotels and by road. It has taken a week, in all. Today I turn off the tar, lower the pace, take the gravel roads among the central mountains of Komas and descend by the very beautiful Gamsberg Pass to the desert floor. The guest farms and lodges fall away, and by the time I cross the Kuiseb Canyon there is nobody here but me. For most of the day I head to the west, sometimes rattling on corrugated gravel, sometimes padding softly on the sand. I travel the northern banks of the Kuiseb and finally, to an oasis of trees called Homeb.
Homeb is a small settlement, less than a village, of Topnar people who live in basic houses alongside a few kraals of goats, together with some very noisy donkeys. The location is on the river bank, after an impressive decent of a kilometre or two through the walls of the canyon. As soon as I made camp under some camel thorn, a dust cloud approached, under which trotted several hundred goats of every colour, behind which, I expected to find some goatherds, probably children waving sticks, but there was no one. Then to my amazement, I saw a solitary dog. The dog looked rather weary, he took no notice of me, it was he that was the goatherd, and he seemed rather good at his job. For all the beauty here, there is a drawback, that the shade must be shared with the goats, and the mess they make, but nonetheless, it is one place to which I will return.
I must now explain about the Kuiseb River. It carries the water to supply the coastal town of Walvis Bay. But it is, or appears to be, a river only of sand; the waters, as in most of Namibia’s rivers, except the Orange, which is the border with South Africa, and perhaps 2000 kilometres to the north, the Kunene, which forms the border with Angola, flow beneath the surface, unseen by all except the roots of the trees that occasionally line the banks of the river. The Kuiseb is one river of distinction; it runs from the high ground in the centre of the country, roughly bisecting the North of Namibia from the South. On the northern side for quite some way the terrain is flat gravel plain, but on the southern side, all the way to the Orange River, are the massive red sand dunes of the ‘sand sea’. Because, from time to time during flash floods, this river does flow with surface water and it cuts the ever-northward encroachment of the sand.
The next camp on my list, the closest to the ocean, is Vogelfederberg. It is granite inselberg, a sort of grey version or Ayers Rock in Australia, although much smaller. Having driven around the perimeter, about a kilometre, I don’t find much to my liking. It would be interesting to explore; there are pools of water and life of the reptile kind, it would be nice for a day out, a picnic, perhaps. But there is certain eeriness about the place, I do not feel comfortable to stay here overnight and press on, albeit late in the day, for the coast, Walvis Bay, and the fog!
Where The Dunes Meet The Ocean
Two of Namibia’s most important towns lie close together here on the coast, separated by 35 kilometres of coastal road.
The first that I encounter is Walvis Bay. It is the port for the country, in fact the only deep water port from Cape Town in the south, to Angola in the north. It is the home for the fishing fleet of Namibia, which are boats of considerable size. Lately it has become a port of call for the luxury cruise ships, in fact the QE2 is berthing here tomorrow morning and the desert will be crowded with designer sun hats. Of the two towns, Walvis Bay is more industrial and except for a great many flamingos in the lagoon, it offers little for the tourist. Here, the sand dunes have started to build their mountains once more and gain in stature until the Swakop River performs a protective barrier in a similar way to that of the Kuiseb. The road to Swakopmund is pinned between sand and sea and is often covered with wind blown sand that is kept clear by the never-ending task of men and mechanical diggers. The railway used to run this course too, but the battle has long been lost and it has been moved some miles inland to escape the relentless march of the sand. The other notable feature here is the fog; yes, there is fog in Africa. The fog forms every morning by the heat of the land and the cold sea; cold because of an ocean current sweeping up from Antarctica. If you dip your toe here, you will think you are in Scotland. This fog is very important to the flora and fauna of the desert, many of which have evolved to make use of the precious morning moisture. It is mandatory to drive with headlights on at all times in this area, but the fog will usually lift by mid morning; in any case, one can always escape my moving away from the coast by 20 kilometres or so.
Swakopmund, although sharing this unusual climate is the place for the tourist; it has good shops and restaurants, attractive architecture of Bavarian design and is Namibia’s main holiday town by the sea. The roads are surfaced here with salt, as other materials are expensive to import. This is made from seawater pumped in to large shallow lagoons and allowed to evaporate. It is not too dissimilar from tar when dry, but impossible to mark; when wet, it is more like an ice rink, and it is unwise to purchase any vehicle that has lived here too long.
Before I leave, I must re-visit the ‘Landscape of the moon’. Just outside of Swakopmund, the Swakop River carves a canyon out of the desert rock; one is not supposed to drive there, but merely gaze upon it from a tourist viewpoint. I leave camp early before the hat bedecked hoards descend upon it, as I know they must, move one of the white painted stones that block the trail and quietly disappear into the depths of the canyon. This is a wonderful place to be; there is no wind, no sound, there is the occasional Welwitsia Mirabilis, unique to Namibia, it is a desert dwelling plant that can live for 2000 years. Apart from the presence of oxygen, one could indeed be on the surface of the moon. I might have driven the riverbed, that always brings me pleasure, but the surface water flowed not many days ago but gave up the struggle and fell back into the sand just 15 kilometres from the sea; there might be quicksand, there will be another time. Five years ago, the first time I saw these massive dunes, the first time I saw my own footprints on the crest of one, just outside the town. It would have been almost the last before the river and temporary oblivion. It is not on any map but this morning I am to stumble on the place again. There are many rough tracks that lead from the back road between these towns and the one I follow fans into many; suddenly there are mountains of sand on three sides. To drive as far as I can appears to close them completely around me. This is the place. It has moved a little perhaps and my footprints have gone, but I will lay them down again.
For all the fog, the cold sea and the rusty vehicles, it is still a very pleasant and popular place to be and it would seem that the entire population of Windhoek descends on the town at holiday times to escape the heat of the interior. This is a something known to me as it is Easter in a few days and there is not a bed or campsite to be found. Perhaps the young man from Windhoek will sleep on the beach, but for me, it will be time to move north, and into the searing heat of the desert once more.
The Sand Rivers: 01
The Beginning.
It is with relief that the city of Johannesburg is receding in my rear view mirror as I head out into the Magaliesburg hills and towards the Pioneers gate that is one of the many entrances to Botswana.
Passing through customs formalities I turn on to the Sir Seretse Kharma Highway which is part of what is called the Trans Kalahari Highway; running from the Indian Ocean at Maputo in Mozambique, to Walvis bay on the South Atlantic coast of Namibia. For the next 700 kilometres there is a straight tar ribbon that will cross the Kalahari Desert. There are many more interesting ways to cross this great dry expanse, but it is still the season of the rains, I will come back to Botswana. For now, I am anxious to be back to the Namib, there will be clear skies and that warm sun that always seems to welcome me back. I am driving a four-wheel drive pick-up truck, which will be henceforth known as a ‘bakkie’, the African term for such vehicles. I am pulling a bush caravan, which although similar in size to a small normal caravan; it is sturdily built, and will travel wherever the bakkie and myself are capable of going. This mesmerising stretch of tar is boring but it enables me to consume the distance at a steady 120 kph.
Kang: It is a pleasure to see the sign that welcomes a weary traveller to Kang. It is the centre of the Kalahari. Unless a detour is made to the small village that is host to this place, Kang is but a large filling station, it is the only place for fuel on this route, and a place to eat. It also has camp sites and some cabin accommodation which tempts me to stay as I am beginning to tire, but I have a transit visa only and must complete to next 400 kilometres this day and leave Botswana. So, after a short rest I must head out for the border post at Mamuno; there are a great many donkeys in this country and I want to be off the roads before nightfall.
It has been twelve hours since I began and I have covered some 1100 kilometres, the border formalities are completed with pleasantries and little fuss and this African sky is becoming dark. There is a rest camp just inside Namibia and Mamuno has changed it’s name to Buitepos, It is at the fuel station and there is a shop; I have passed this way before and not thought much of the guide books descriptions but having no choice this time, I pay my dues and am pleasantly surprised. Too tired to unhook the caravan and make proper camp, I make for the showers and take to my bed, The next twelve hours are to be peaceful and uneventful.
To Windhoek And Beyond
Today, there is 300 more kilometres of the Trans Kalahari Highway that must be covered to reach Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia. It is a small city by most standards but quite pleasant and relatively safe to walk upon its streets, but is typical of almost any city of its size anywhere in the world. My road to the interior passes through it and it is a good place to take on stores; the shopping malls are first class. One other reason to stay here for a while is that I have two jerry cans of petrol in racks on the back of the caravan. These contain petrol for my generator, which is to power my electrical equipment, not least my air conditioning unit, which, when temperatures in the desert can be as high as 50c, it is a very useful item. Now, my padlocks appear to have been too small for some of the inhabitants of Johannesburg, and the generator, along with much sundry equipment has been, shall we say, redistributed, and is no more. The petrol is of no use now and I shall refill with diesel, which will give me a safer margin to travel through areas where there is no fuel. I had planned to buy two more cans for this in any case.
Fuel stations in Africa are not self-service as in Europe; they have petrol attendants or ‘gas jockeys’, usually one for each pump, all of which will vie for your attention when you pull in as it customary to pay a small tip for the service. Today is someone’s lucky day. I have about 30 litres of petrol to dump so I can re use my cans, it might as well be to someone’s advantage. The bakkie and caravan is coated with brown Kalahari dust, and must make way for the white Namibian sand, so in about an hour, both are gleaming, tank and cans are charged, tyres, oil and water are all checked, and a smiling young man has enough fuel to take his girlfriend to Swakopmund in his battered City Golf for the Easter weekend!
It is another day. Until this point, all has been but a task. Many thousands of kilometres, by ferry, planes, transit hotels and by road. It has taken a week, in all. Today I turn off the tar, lower the pace, take the gravel roads among the central mountains of Komas and descend by the very beautiful Gamsberg Pass to the desert floor. The guest farms and lodges fall away, and by the time I cross the Kuiseb Canyon there is nobody here but me. For most of the day I head to the west, sometimes rattling on corrugated gravel, sometimes padding softly on the sand. I travel the northern banks of the Kuiseb and finally, to an oasis of trees called Homeb.
Homeb is a small settlement, less than a village, of Topnar people who live in basic houses alongside a few kraals of goats, together with some very noisy donkeys. The location is on the river bank, after an impressive decent of a kilometre or two through the walls of the canyon. As soon as I made camp under some camel thorn, a dust cloud approached, under which trotted several hundred goats of every colour, behind which, I expected to find some goatherds, probably children waving sticks, but there was no one. Then to my amazement, I saw a solitary dog. The dog looked rather weary, he took no notice of me, it was he that was the goatherd, and he seemed rather good at his job. For all the beauty here, there is a drawback, that the shade must be shared with the goats, and the mess they make, but nonetheless, it is one place to which I will return.
I must now explain about the Kuiseb River. It carries the water to supply the coastal town of Walvis Bay. But it is, or appears to be, a river only of sand; the waters, as in most of Namibia’s rivers, except the Orange, which is the border with South Africa, and perhaps 2000 kilometres to the north, the Kunene, which forms the border with Angola, flow beneath the surface, unseen by all except the roots of the trees that occasionally line the banks of the river. The Kuiseb is one river of distinction; it runs from the high ground in the centre of the country, roughly bisecting the North of Namibia from the South. On the northern side for quite some way the terrain is flat gravel plain, but on the southern side, all the way to the Orange River, are the massive red sand dunes of the ‘sand sea’. Because, from time to time during flash floods, this river does flow with surface water and it cuts the ever-northward encroachment of the sand.
The next camp on my list, the closest to the ocean, is Vogelfederberg. It is granite inselberg, a sort of grey version or Ayers Rock in Australia, although much smaller. Having driven around the perimeter, about a kilometre, I don’t find much to my liking. It would be interesting to explore; there are pools of water and life of the reptile kind, it would be nice for a day out, a picnic, perhaps. But there is certain eeriness about the place, I do not feel comfortable to stay here overnight and press on, albeit late in the day, for the coast, Walvis Bay, and the fog!
Where The Dunes Meet The Ocean
Two of Namibia’s most important towns lie close together here on the coast, separated by 35 kilometres of coastal road.
The first that I encounter is Walvis Bay. It is the port for the country, in fact the only deep water port from Cape Town in the south, to Angola in the north. It is the home for the fishing fleet of Namibia, which are boats of considerable size. Lately it has become a port of call for the luxury cruise ships, in fact the QE2 is berthing here tomorrow morning and the desert will be crowded with designer sun hats. Of the two towns, Walvis Bay is more industrial and except for a great many flamingos in the lagoon, it offers little for the tourist. Here, the sand dunes have started to build their mountains once more and gain in stature until the Swakop River performs a protective barrier in a similar way to that of the Kuiseb. The road to Swakopmund is pinned between sand and sea and is often covered with wind blown sand that is kept clear by the never-ending task of men and mechanical diggers. The railway used to run this course too, but the battle has long been lost and it has been moved some miles inland to escape the relentless march of the sand. The other notable feature here is the fog; yes, there is fog in Africa. The fog forms every morning by the heat of the land and the cold sea; cold because of an ocean current sweeping up from Antarctica. If you dip your toe here, you will think you are in Scotland. This fog is very important to the flora and fauna of the desert, many of which have evolved to make use of the precious morning moisture. It is mandatory to drive with headlights on at all times in this area, but the fog will usually lift by mid morning; in any case, one can always escape my moving away from the coast by 20 kilometres or so.
Swakopmund, although sharing this unusual climate is the place for the tourist; it has good shops and restaurants, attractive architecture of Bavarian design and is Namibia’s main holiday town by the sea. The roads are surfaced here with salt, as other materials are expensive to import. This is made from seawater pumped in to large shallow lagoons and allowed to evaporate. It is not too dissimilar from tar when dry, but impossible to mark; when wet, it is more like an ice rink, and it is unwise to purchase any vehicle that has lived here too long.
Before I leave, I must re-visit the ‘Landscape of the moon’. Just outside of Swakopmund, the Swakop River carves a canyon out of the desert rock; one is not supposed to drive there, but merely gaze upon it from a tourist viewpoint. I leave camp early before the hat bedecked hoards descend upon it, as I know they must, move one of the white painted stones that block the trail and quietly disappear into the depths of the canyon. This is a wonderful place to be; there is no wind, no sound, there is the occasional Welwitsia Mirabilis, unique to Namibia, it is a desert dwelling plant that can live for 2000 years. Apart from the presence of oxygen, one could indeed be on the surface of the moon. I might have driven the riverbed, that always brings me pleasure, but the surface water flowed not many days ago but gave up the struggle and fell back into the sand just 15 kilometres from the sea; there might be quicksand, there will be another time. Five years ago, the first time I saw these massive dunes, the first time I saw my own footprints on the crest of one, just outside the town. It would have been almost the last before the river and temporary oblivion. It is not on any map but this morning I am to stumble on the place again. There are many rough tracks that lead from the back road between these towns and the one I follow fans into many; suddenly there are mountains of sand on three sides. To drive as far as I can appears to close them completely around me. This is the place. It has moved a little perhaps and my footprints have gone, but I will lay them down again.
For all the fog, the cold sea and the rusty vehicles, it is still a very pleasant and popular place to be and it would seem that the entire population of Windhoek descends on the town at holiday times to escape the heat of the interior. This is a something known to me as it is Easter in a few days and there is not a bed or campsite to be found. Perhaps the young man from Windhoek will sleep on the beach, but for me, it will be time to move north, and into the searing heat of the desert once more.
