Namibia 2016 Day 10

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How can we describe day 10, a six and and half hour African massage, if you don't know what that is read on, if you do you can stop now, or you can read on and enjoy the other parts.

No early planned start today we were up and about well before the 'just in case' alarm, however some time was wasted trying to post blogs: you have to accept in Africa that WiFi is not what we In the developed world now accept as a minimum standard. As a result we will be posting this after it is written, but we will not revisit and alter what we write, it will be be first hand and raw and not changed by reflection.

We always knew today would be a long day on the road, the time available to us would always make it so, we could not break our journey along the way and the next two excursions are revisits to our first tour on Namibia that from my point of view were not complete, but you will hear of this in the blogs to follow.

The day started with a fuel stop. Last time we were here we had a vehicle with long range tanks, this time we are constantly looking at the fuel gauge and the distance to the next refuelling point. As we have said before, the maps here include petrol stations as well as town names. On our way to Aus we saw that the rail line had been buried in sand, such large sand dunes in fact that they would not have been out of place on a film set and will take days to clear. Two days ago when we came into town the line was clear, so it certainly shows you how quickly the weather can change your opportunities. At Kolmanskop they were commenting on how the opening date for the railway keeps being moved back - not surprising if they keep having to dig it out.

One of the options we decided to take today was to use the most scenic route in Namibia, and whilst this route has wonderful vistas, the surface that is constantly changing from hard gravel, to deep gravel to soft sand made the driver's job a wheel twisting, throttle modulating challenge. Unfortunately the roads did not improve after this either and the vibration gives you tingling fingers and a sense of fatigue you cannot experience elsewhere, hence the African massage.

We are now at our destination and after consumed a beer or two, a mojito, a G and T and some wine all to wash away the dust of the journey you understand, we plan to revisit Sousesvlei tomorrow without the time constraints of last time so read on to find out how we get on.

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