SWAKOPMUND TO SPITZKOPPE

After losing our clutch in Palmwag and literally “hitching” tows for a large part of the 270km to Outjo rather than mess up the trip for the others, we met up with them after three days in Swakopmund. What was a really quaint little German village when John and I were in Walvis Bay in the army in the mid sixties is now a very sophisticated ‘almost’ city with plenty to see and do, and we spent three very pleasant nights in the campsite there. 

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Swakopmund is blessed with some really good Colonial German Architecture which can be found all around the town

Really comfortable camping in Swakop

Bill and Jules doing some obligatory sightseeing

Forty odd km’s down the road is Walvis Bay, also considerably changed since our military sojourn there, and now also an ‘almost’ city. The desert outskirts where our camp used to be is now a luxury suburb literally across the road from the lagoon where we used to watch a rich blue ocean inlet with great swathes of pink flamingo layers from a couple of kilometers away across the desert sands.

The Flamingos are still there, and the others all patiently waited as I went a little crazy with the camera …………. they really are amongst the most photogenic of birds. 

We also visited Dune 7 where as ‘Troopies’ I think our intake invented the sport of sand skiing, and at the base of which I picked up a huge clear topaz after my piece of hardboard came to rest on the pebble bed that was at the base of the dune in those days. I took it home to Pretoria after training and had it faceted and set in a silver ring for Pat’s birthday the following year. It was huge. Unfortunately she lent it to our friend Lisa in London a few years later for a night on the town and it somehow got lost - but that’s another story!

John and I at the base of Dune 7

The base of the dune has since been planted with quite a few large Yucca & Palm type plants (apparently to make it all look more attractive???), and the tour operators that have set up shop there told us that they were doing sand skiing as an activity until a woman skied into one of the trees and died as a result ……. so no more sand skiing. Rather sad.

Our next stopover was going to be Spitzkoppe which Pat and I had visited twice before, but which no trip to Namibia should miss out on. Rather than go by road I suggested we take the Welwitschia Drive out of Swakopmund and up to the viewpoint overlooking the ‘Moonscape’ …………… an area of aridity that cannot be believed until actually seen. 

There a little bird joined us in search of water ..... we tried desperately to identify it  and even got it to pose with the bird book - all to no avail. It was only after we got home and sent the pic through to African Birdlife that we identified it as a Tractrac Chat.

From there we drove down into the Swakop River bed and followed it until we reached the Khan River tributary which headed generally in the direction of Spitzkoppe. The Khan River literally cuts Namibia in half and can be followed almost as far as Outjo - a trip I really would still love to tackle some time. 

The river bed is an amazing geological mind-blow, with littered volcanic rocks falling down hillsides and huge sheets of rock carved out over centuries of flooding assaulting the senses at every turn. What an amazing place…………..one that I would like to think will one day be my last resting place.

A little way before Arandis we drove up and out of the river bed and headed up the B2 before cutting overland to Spitzkoppe.

John taking a relief stop in front of the Landy as we started climbing up out of the river bed

The Spirit of this Place is almost beyond description ……… Pat and I agree that we have both only felt a similar sense of overall awe (albeit on an entirely different scale), and sense of ‘Place’ in one other location that we have visited in the world, viz., Le Corbusier’s Chapel at Ronchamp in Eastern France, just a short drive down through the mountains from Basel in Switzerland. Ronchamp we have gone out of our way to visit three times, and would happily do so again if we were ever to visit France again. 

Exactly the same with Spitzkoppe. In both of these places, whatever your religion - or lack of it - God belongs to you.

The road to Spitzkoppe

Bill and Jules decided that our campsite in amongst the rocks was a good place to spend the night in their hammocks (see picture insert) - though I’m not entirely sure that it was a very comfortable one. 

Pat and I rose well before dawn and went out in search of some good sunrise shots, but Murphy must have stayed over that night as well as we were dogged with overcast skies until well beyond the magic hour and never really got what we wanted. Maybe next time!

From there we headed up towards Outjo and a lodge owned by a cousin of Julia’s where we stayed in the old farmhouse. A very pleasant sojourn with some lovely people and an amazing story about how this magnificent lodge had burned down on the eve of its original opening, and had to be entirely rebuilt. 

And from there it was back to Cape Town for us with John taking the Transkalahari back to the Big Smoke and Bill following the more conventional route. All in all a really terrific trip that encompassed a lot of what we had not seen before in the form of Epupa Falls and the Marienfluss ………….. and of course, the main purpose of the exercise to begin with: To tackle Van Zyl’s Pass. Whoop, Whoop.

EPUPA FALLS

The majority of visitors to Namibia who carry on up to the Etosha Pans enter the reserve either from the east at Namutoni, or from the south at Okaukuejo. Not a hell of a lot of people choose to bypass the Pans in the west and continue via Kowares and Opuwo up to the Cunene and the magical Epupa Falls - a place with a Spirit all its own - found very specifically here, and nowhere else that I have had the good fortune to find during our travels south of the Cunene and its magnificent sister, the Zambezi.

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The Aussenkehr - Magnificent home of dry dust and rocks

The Fish River Canyon - only beaten to the line by the Grand Canyon in the USA

The Canon Cafe a little ways North of Hobas boasts some beautifully rusted old cars

On this trip Pat and I travelled up through the magnificently parched Aussenkehr for a quick stopover at the Fish River Canyon which we try to visit somehow on every trip to Namibia - it is simply out of this world. From there we headed on up the back roads through Khorixas to Kamanjab where we fortuitously spent the night in a really beautiful lodge .......... but that is another story...............and from there headed on up to Opuwo where we camped overnight and met the rest of the group.

We spent quite a bit of time with this Porcupine who had come in search of food at the lodge in Kamanjab

We were fortunate to get to Epupa  within a week of  some serious floods that had ravaged the entire Cunene Province in southern Angola, so the river was swollen to its maximum after subsiding to a level that allowed us to camp barely 50cm above the level of the really fast flowing water that gurgled and ripped its way along the front of our site.

This taken from about 2 meters from the waters edge at our campsite

The falls in the early morning sunlight

Rising even before the crack of Mary we took off on a really nice hike down along the river bank to catch the sunrise and the really stunning myriad of waterfalls that engulfed the entire area. 

There were Baobabs caught up on tiny islands of stout rock and chunks of precarious soil surrounded by rushing water that dived here and there into deep pits before shooting out again geyser-like into any opening that could contain its desperate flow.

Each fall had a roar all its own and managed to produce a mist that the early morning beams of sunlight turned into veils and frames of beautiful diffusion - each one lasting only a few minutes as the sun made its way over the hills behind the falls, and in a very short period of time the heat became almost overbearing as the mighty flaming ball of a full sun scaled the top of the hills. 

Reaching the small lake that had grown at the foot of the falls following the flood my cousin Bill and I decided to cool off in an eddy off to one side of the main stream - it was wonderful - but we were seriously taken to task by the owner of the campsite when we returned, saying that if we had any idea how many crocs were washed down from upstream in the flood we would never have been so stupid as to even put foot in the water. Perhaps he should have informed us when we arrived the day before?

Bill and me cooling down - oblivious to the possibility of crocs in the water

John and I taking a break on the hike back up

Pat wondering if we could take a Baobab back home with us

I believe that there are plans afoot to dam this area ………….. something that would be a real shame should it become a reality - another of the world’s really magical places will be lost forever.

The Epupa Falls were in some ways incidental to the the real purpose of this particular trip - which was to tackle the legendary Van Zyl’s Pass. Pat and I had watched a whole bunch of videos about the Pass on You Tube, but nothing that made it beyond ‘mildly daunting’ …………. and not a soul mentioned the 73km hell-hole of a road that it takes to get there from Okongwati where we stopped to fill up with fuel out of plastic bottles sold out of a derelict garage. 

My contribution to the cairn at the end of the 73km nightmare road

It was at Okongwati that I was lucky enough to grab an image which I have dubbed “Elements”, and which remains my favorite pic of all the many thousands I have taken. Today still it has Pride of Place above our mantel in the lounge.

"ELEMENTS" My personal favorite of all my photographs - taken at the 

Okongwati fuel stop

The 72 kms took us the best part of seven hours, with extensive road building as we moved along to the Van Zyl’s campsite where we had a bit of fun with a fairly substantial python that had lodged itself behind the cistern in the Ladies loo, providing them with somewhat more action than a slab of Brooklax might have.

The Python in the ladies loo at Van Zyl's campsite

Getting to know some Himba women - and posing with them with the Marienfluss in the background before the descent

When we arrived at the head of the pass I calmly stopped, and being as petrified of heights as I am, decided that I would concentrate rather on the challenges of the track than what might happen if things went awry. None of the videos that we had watched prepared me for what we found, and when John (who has all kinds of experience hiking in high mountains and jumping out of airplanes at night teaching people to only open their chutes at 500 feet), walked quietly over to me and said “Jeez Nev - we can’t f…..ing go down there”, did I really begin to get a knot in my stomach ……… but I wasn’t turning back - “Not a donder”.

Yeah! It looks like nothing I know - but there is not a picture - nor a video - that does justice to this initial drop-off down Van Zyl's Pass

Re-building parts of the road before descending was an important part of the exercise

We walked around for quite a while, picking up rocks and filling holes here and there, and all that allowed me to take control of my ‘vrees’ - particularly the part that told me that if I get into a slide off the top I could end up continuing happily down the one hundred metre drop off down the left hand side of the header slope.

I trust John - I always have since we were in the army together and had various experiences that made me know this was a man I could trust . Taciturn beyond description he is probably the only person I would ever want to go to war with, so it was agreed that he would guide me down, and that I would concentrate on absolutely nothing else other than that which he was showing me. We made it with little or no drama - thank you John!

Looking out over the Marienfluss from the top of the pass

Yellow Drum at the bottom of the pass

At the bottom of the pass there was a bunch of Himba children waiting to beg from whomsoever made it down the pass in one piece:……… you drop one kilometer in one kilometer ……… 

and then you are in to what has become my favorite place in the whole world ………. the Marienfluss. It really is beautiful beyond description. 

But before taking off after waiting for Bill and finally John, I opened the car door and blasted Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” out into the endless landscape we were about to tackle. The kids loved it and all began to dance ……. what a send off into that magic world of yellow grass and fairy circles. 

The Himba 'Pikanins' at the bottom of the pass dancing to Willie Nelson and "On the Road Again" blasting out of our vehicle

A Marienfluss "Fairy Circle" - Nobody knows from whence they come

This land has been given to the Himba - it is theirs - it is fertile and provides natural grazing most of the year round, yet we saw no more than about thirty ‘painted’ cattle - the beautiful Nguni - whereas in Texas (or elsewhere), this tract of land might well have been managed to carry a million head or more. Fortunately for us the Himba have not yet developed any degree of business sense and we were able to enjoy this absolutely stunning part of the world in its purest possible sense, witnessing distant rainstorms across the Marienfluss over the Cunene (our destination), as we drove. 

There - on the Cunene - we spent the night once again right on the water’s edge, talking our totally ‘not understood’ language to the Angolans who were chopping wood on the other side.  My shouts of “Jy maak raas”, were interpreted as a greeting of sorts I think and returned with joyous shouts which meant absolutely nothing to us as we stood around our huge roaring campfire enjoying a braai of mammoth proportions after the day’s trials and tribulations.

An Angolan camp opposite us on the Cunene

Pat and John enjoying some refreshment

The legendary "Red Drum" - meeting point / cross roads / post box

The Hartmann Zebra in their natural environment on the Hartmann Plain

The Otjibab Plain heading down through the Hartmann Mountains to the source of the Hoarusib River

The trip back down through the Kaokoveld and Hartmann Mountains past such legendary landmarks as “Red Drum” was awe inspiring …….. we camped at Orupembewe and introduced a German couple on their first visit to Africa to the joys of a real South African Braai. 

We then followed the Hoarusib River and were lucky enough to see both Desert Elephants and Giraffe. We camped in the Purros river bed and had desert elephants pass within a few meters of where we were - we drove the Purros Canyon along the river bed and did the famed cutting ………. how many people have done that I wonder? It was only about three years later that I picked up a very old 4x4 magazine and read about two families that had been caught in a flash flood right about where we were camping - they got out alive fortunately, but had to walk all the way to Palmwag in search of assistance. Their two Landrovers were buried forever in the silt of the flood ……. right where we camped the night of the elephants.

Pat hitching a ride with John to the viewpoint above the Hoarusib

I had to go up the hard way

An Ellie inspecting our camp on the Purros

John trying to cool down in the Purros River - the water was warmer than the air

Driving through the Purros Canyon cutting

Talk about “Spirit of Place” ………… Namibia has it in bucketloads.