Southern Namibia

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Christmas holidays and I found my self doing a Southern Namibia self drive holiday.

Now, I'm used to driving long distances to go on holiday, ask anyone in the family, chirps from the back seat of 'are we nearly there yet' were heard regularly.

We drove from Stellenbosch to the border post of Namibia, what an experience. Firstly no one actually explains which room to go to first or what your actually meant to get there. 3 rooms later and several trips back to other rooms and we cross the boarder! Well actually we drive to the next boarder post!! This one is to enter Namibia. We join the long line of tourists wanting to go on adventures and try and find out what we need to fill in and where you get the forms from. We English love a q, but we were qing to get a form to fill out at the counter. Give us the forms to fill in while we q!

"any OLD people follow me" a Namibian official calls out. One of the ladies I was traveling with, who normally wouldn't like to be called old, or even behaves like she is of retirement age, chirps up and off she goes to an office so she doesn't have to wait in line!! OMAR (Afrikaans for nan) didn't live that down for the rest of the trip.

We get stopped at the barrier for the obligatory "have you got anything you shouldn't"!! and off we drive to our first nights sleep on the Orange River at Amunsi trails.

The next day we wake bright and ready for the next leg. Take down the tents, load the cars and pack the roof rack and we head off towards Fish River Canyon and our camp for the next 2 nights, Canyon road house. Along the way we spotted a Sheepdog standing on the roadside of the fence. We kept driving until we thought NO we can't leave the poor dog. So we stop the other car in our convoy and turn around. Omar also has a sheepdog so there was no way she was going to keep driving, but confessed she hadn't seen it. 4 women, a pack of biltong, a bottle of drinking water, a bowl and a dog!!! well we finally managed to get the dog to go through the gate we had opened and off she ran towards the shepherd and herd of sheep. I just hope she belonged to them!

This is an awesome camp site. The shop and bar are an attraction in themselves. There is an ablution block for every 2 camp sites and you have plenty of space. From here we drove to the canyon and walked the top paths and drove some of the others. In the hight of summer you can't venture down in the canyon as it is too hot. Our resident geography teacher taught us all about the rock formations and the surrounding land. We drove the pass by Ais Ais, which is know for being dangerous. We survived. I can see if you go too fast then its a problem but otherwise its a beautiful drive.

We spent many an hour sitting at the bar drinking an ice cold Tafel beer. To get your camp fridge to get your beers that cold wasn't happening so we propped up the bar.

day 4

Back in the car and heading off towards Luderitz, Kolmanskop, Aus and our camp site for the night.

Aus is home to a prison which was used during the many wars of the country. The prisoners were housed in tents but soon started making more permanent houses, using tin cans for roof tiles. A good place to stop for an ice cold tafel and get out of the car. We had been told that biltong and meat was easy to find along the route. I think we were driving with our eyes closed as we didn't find any!!!

We headed back out towards the coast and Luderitz. The main purpose of this was lunch, a seafood lunch, and to see Kolmanskop.

Lunch was lovely, fresh fish and best of all you didn't have to cook it! Kolmanskop shut at 1! I think even if we had made it before then we would have been blow away and sand blasted. Yes it was windy. I got out of the car to take a picture and nearly got blown over. As you drove along the road the cars swayed in the wind and you could here the sand blasting the side.

At one point we drove past a digger. He was moving sand from one side of the road to the other!!!!

Along the road near to our camp site was the viewing platform for the wild horses. Ive never seen anything like it. There was a mare on heat so the noise of the horses was immense. We counted 80+ horses and we could see more coming over the hill. We spent 1 &half hours watching these horses. and they come right up to the cars and the platform where you stand.

Our camp site for the night was Clein Aus Vista. What a night we had. The camp site is a drive away from the main buildings and swimming pool. Theres no electricity, camp fridges and cold beers soon warm up, 2 showers and 3 toilets for the whole site, 15+ camp sites.

We had decided that we were all still full from lunch and therefore didn't need to make a fire to braai on, & that to put up 3 tents for one night was too much like hard work. So omar said she'd sleep in her car and the 2 small, 2 person tents would be put up. 2 people is a squash in these tents & one of the tents had the wrong poles with it, so wasn't at full height.

We pitched the tents so we had a nice look out to watch the sun rise in the morning. We snacked on cheese and tafels and then headed to bed. The wind had started to get up but we all thought it would die down shortly.

Oh MY WORD. How those 2 little tents survived and how any of us, apart from omar in the car, got any sleep was a miracle. I got out of the tent twice to put the fly sheet back and re peg, my tent buddy did it once and Lydia, who was on her own in the other tent, decided that the tent couldn't blow away with her in it so stayed put! These tents were battered by the wind, they were nearly horizontal in the wind!

We survived and in the morning enjoyed a cooked breakfast in the main house, chuckling about the previous night and how omar really didn't feel the wind in her car!!

Day 5

We headed out and towards Sossuvlei. We drove through some amazing landscapes and found a lovely little stop, shop, petrol place called Bettys. A must for anyone on the road around there.

Sossusvlei would be our home for 3 nights, thank you very much. No up and down of tents or climbing on the ladies roof to pack.

We stayed at Sossusvlei Oasis, opposite the gate to the park and the municipal campsite, which looked very nice.

Our camp site was amazing, each pitch had a wooden structure with a big are for dinning and chilling, a sink and work top and best of all a shower and toilet. these were amazing. You were pretty much showing in the open air. The only down side was that when we were pitching the big tent the ground was rock solid, we moved 3 times before we could get the tent pitched.

New Years eve was spent drinking Tafels around the pool and then Moet with dinner!! oh yes.

New years day and were up a sparrows. 4:45am! dressed, clean teeth and make hot drink to drink while we wait for the gates to open.

We were 3rd inline. the gates open at sun rise, 6am and close at sunset, 7:30. Just as the gates are about to open omar decides she needs the loo!!! REALLY. So we watch as all of the cars drive past. all those who only got up half an hour ago, go past us!!!

We drive in, its a tarred road for the majority of the way. You drive for ages. The sun starts to appear above the dunes to the left of the car. Really quite beautiful. Dune 45 is probably the most famous and its the first stop. Well it was for everyone else. We had insider information. Do that on the way out.

So we pushed on the pan and big daddy. You can either get a safari bus to the pan or drive the 5km through sand. Warning, don't take a Range Rover Evogue and think its a 4x4!! that car didn't make it. but Simba, Land Rover Defender, did! proper British engineering!!! I have to say I was shaking at the end. I really didn't want to get stuck.

We were probably the 4th car there. Quick wee stop in the bush and off we went. We decided to walk around the pan first. The petrified trees and the expanse was unbelievable. The light took a little while to change, but hey we were there around 7:30!!!

JK had a brilliant idea. Lets climb the dune here rather than walk back to the start! OK

So I led the way, trying to make steps for the others to walk in. Oh my word. it was a crazy idea. the higher we got the deeper your feet disappeared. We got about half way when 2 of us said they were going down. "why, your half way" I said. It was the hardest half ever.

Forget zigzagging and go straight, on all fours!! at 8:45 I finally got to the top. The views are worth it. However I would recommend that you climbing the dune first, at the start point and then go straight down its side to the pan.

We walked for about 10 minutes along the ridge and the 3 said they were going down. I wanted to carry on and said Id meet them at the start. That soon changed when about 20 minutes later I meet a group of Germans who said it had taken them 45 minutes to get to where they were!! So down I went. SUCH FUN.

On our drive back, through the sand! on to the tar we stopped at dune 45. All the tourists had left and it was ours!!

Day 6

Our relaxing day. Theres a little town known for its apple pie in the area. So we headed off to Solitaire, population 92!!!

We walked around the drive area which is littered with old cars, photo opportunity. Then It was time to go to the bakery! Im not one for apple pie so i had a kind of jammy dodger. The apple pie slice was ma hoo sive!!!! and apparently very delicious.

Solitaire also has a pub! Which happened to serve cold tafel beers!! So we sat on horse saddle stools at the bar and had a couple of beers as you can't fly on one wing!!

Our driver decided no the way home that we should pop into some of the lodges along the way to see what they are like. AKA pub crawl all the way back to the camp site. We did stumble upon a very nice couple who own a lovely chalet and camp site. Agama River side lodge. We spent a couple of hours there, chatting and finding out about the area.

When we finally got back to town, we popped into Sossusvlei Lodge. It was a little out of our price bracket but we stopped in and had a drink before going to look around the municipal campsite!!

Day 7

Our last day and night in Namibia. We were driving towards the Mata Mata boarder but had planned to stay over in a farm homestay before we moved into the Kalahari. It was Saturday and we stopped at the last big town just the otherside of Maltahohe to stock up in the Spar.

Food shopping done, lunch eaten now to buy tafel to take with us!! only problem was the bottle shop shut at 1 and it was 1:05!!! So a little sad we moved on to our next quest. Find accommodation for the night.

I had no idea what to expect from a home stay, but what we got was ..............................

We popped into a couple of really nice places where the rates didn't include food so we carried on. Then came the HUNTERS LODGE!!

R100 per person per night. Alarm bells were ringing in my head but we went to have a look. Omar, says perfect well take it. Now it could have been a really nice place, but they would need to open some windows and make sure it had been cleaned int he last month!!! on the surface it looked great, a nice big house, 2 bathrooms and a big kitchen and bar area.

The shower in the one bathroom was a kitchen tap fitted high, the sink plug hadn't been taken out in a long time and we couldn't open any windows!!! We all joked it was like something out of Texas chainsaw Massacre!!!! That night I slept in my own bedding and sweated the majority of the liquid out of my body, it was soooooooo hot!!!



Namibia is an amazing country. Make sure you go prepared and take a suitable vehicle for the lack of tar roads.

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