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.
Click on images to enlarge
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!
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.
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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment