I'd made arrangements to catch up with my friend Tam, an overland truck driver I went to Kruger with 3 months earlier. We camped with her crew, made up of a Danish guy in his 40's, a Polish guy about 50, and fifteen 19 year old Norwegian girls (one with a boyfriend in tow).
Not many of them knew eachother, they hadn't planned to travel with other Norwegians, however as Tam said, it's Norwegian season, just like 3 months earlier when I did my trip was German season. We joined them for a couple of nights, and went canoe paddling on the Orange River on the day in between. This was the main reason for staying with them. Tam and I taught about 5 of the Norwegian girls to play Grass.
With advice on the more interesting and scenic roads, we set off to visit Fish River Canyon. This is the second largest canyon system in the world, after the famous one carved out by the Colorado River. There is pretty much no flow here, ever, anymore, but once upon a time it must have been a very impressive river to have carved away and shaped so much rock.
It is possible to do a 5 day hike along the canyon during the cooler winter months, but definitely not in February. While it wasn't an exceptionally hot day, inside the canyon with no wind would have been an oven. I think 1-2 days hiking might be interesting, but whilst I am sure there are differences in the rock formations, it is totally barren, and 5 days without plants or animals would do my head in.
The photos don't do the scale and the view justice, it was impressive to just sit and admire the view for a while.
From Fish River Canyon, I tried to follow Tam's advice on roads, and after getting fuel for us as well as the car along the way, we set off again. I hadn't looked at the map closely enough and missed a turn I needed. By the time I got to the next town, after about the right distance I found I'd gone half way back to FRC by the roads Tam had suggested I avoid trying to take with my little hatchback. The car was fine, though it did bottom out a little on loose gravel a couple of times, the detour however meant an extra 200km, and by the time we arrived at Sossusvlei camping area it was too late to get in to see the dunes for sunset. I did however get the camera out later and take some star photos, with the clear desert sky perfect for this. For the rest of the photos go check out my Starry Starry Night post, if you haven't seen it already (posted a couple of months ago).
The next morning we got up extra early to be through the reserve gate at 05:20 and head in to see the great sand dunes. All the buses and overland trucks were stopping at Dune 45, so to avoid the crowd we headed all the way to the end of the road to the main Sossusvlei dunes. The last 5km is deep soft sand and 4WD only, so after parking in the 2WD car park we started walking, as hoped we were soon offered a lift. But first, a few shots of the rising sun.
We were amazingly fortunate as the German guy and Aussie woman travelling with him not only gave us a lift in, after hiking some dunes together, they fed us breakfast, hiked more dunes and out to a salt lake, and then gave us a lift back out. The first hike was to the top of this dune. No, not that one, the first one on the left, it was still pretty big, despite what it looks like here.
After eating, we had trekked over a couple of dunes, seen this salt lake in the distance and headed that way to check it out.
When we got there, Jill went for an upside down walk.
As we turned to leave, we found a well worn path from a different point than we'd started from, with a group of people heading in, including a bunch of 19 year old Norwegian girls heading over the dunes. We were all glad we'd taken a different path in, but took the easy route out. It was nearly midday, and the sand was becoming unbearably hot to walk on, so a quick way out was appreciated, even the locals were hitting the shade.
As I pulled back into our little camp area, I noticed a cut branch coming down from the tree that would be very close to the roof of the car if I went under it, not wanting to risk damaging the car I parked next to it. Right next to it. As I got out of the car, I stood straight up into the end of the branch, and pretty much fell straight back into the car. Luckily the branch was cut, and not a jagged break, but still managed to split my scalp just above the hairline, and gave me a cracking headache, not helped by the heat.
Later in the afternoon after lunch and a swim, we decided we'd seen enough and it wasn't worth paying another day pass to return to the park for sunset, so we set off again. I was reasonably confident that we could make Walvis Bay on the coast with the fuel we had, so long as I was conservative, besides on twisty gravel roads, I had no inclination to hurry. There were no fuel stops on the road passed Walvis Bay where I expected them to be. We trundled in to Swakopmund on vapours, having done about 30km more than I believed the car could manage, and at 21:30 at night. We managed to find a place to stay and quickly crashed for the night.
The other guy in the dorm room we stayed in was Finnish, and had shipped his motorbike to Cape Town, and was on his way home up the west coast of Africa, through Angola, Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal and many countries to cross from Morocco to Spain and then through Europe home. He was taking a tough route. The eastern African countries such as Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia is a more well travelled route, generally considered to be safer, and with better roads (i.e. something you can get down without requiring a tractor). I wished him luck, and hopes he makes it.
Swakopmund is the activity hub of Namibia, and considered to be more German than a town in Germany. Neither Jill or I were particularly impressed though. Being mid-summer, it wasn't peak season, so it was pretty quiet, but also with our own wheels, we didn't need to come to the 'hub' and join tours to any of the places offered, we just did it ourselves. So after a restful couple of days we set off up the Skeleton Coast. Just as we were leaving town we bumped into the Danish and Polish guys from the overland group. I guess when you are travelling in the same direction in Namibia you will keep meeting the same people. We had also seen a French overland crew at FRC, Sossusvlei and again in Swakopmund.
There was a seal colony, with too many seals to count. This is only one of many seal colonies along this barren and rugged coast, though I believe this one to be one of the largest.
When we got to the entrance to the Skeleton Coast NP, we found this very welcoming gate.
After a few minutes wait the gate was opened for us, and after paying the park fee we were asked to deliver the mail to the next gatehouse on our way back out the north side of the park. I had hoped to camp at Tora Bay on the coast, but the whole place was being rebuilt, and was not open to visitors.
Jill found a really nice camping spot on the Abu Huab river for us to spend the night, and amazingly in this most remote of places, there was about 5 other groups of people. The next morning we checked out the nearby rock site known as the Organ Pipes, worth a look if you're there, but not worth a big detour for.
And then a site I was much more interested in, the Petrified Forest. There was a number of stone tree trunks spread out over a large area, with many fragments scattered around. There was no evidence of branches, yet the trunk sections included all the way out to the bark layer, and surface marks like knot holes.
The trunks were believed to have been washed down in a pre-historic flood, which explains the clumping nature of the trunks and the lack of branches.
From here we were heading to Etosha NP, which I will continue in part 2 about Namibia, as I have plenty of animal photos to share.
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