Sesreim - Day 39


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Africa » Namibia
November 22nd 2008
Published: November 30th 2008
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We were off at our usual time driving inland and southwards, firstly towards Windhoek across the bleakest of deserts where simply nothing grew. The road at first was tarred but soon turned to the graveled surface we now expect in this country, and the standard was as high as ever.

After some 40 or 50 miles the desert changed to the more familiar sand with the vivid yellow grass covering, the very, very occasional tree growing, and a backdrop of dark, sometimes blue, hills. This scenery, in the crystal clear air and the clear sunlight will be indelibly imprinted in our memories. In the future, whenever I think of Namibia, this sort of vision will come to mind - although as yet we have not seen any of the sand dunes, so I may change my mind later.

We next drove a twisty hilly area with the odd gorge which was a pleasant change of scenery where we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. The junction set-up of Sesreim provided us with fuel, a small shop for touristy things and basic provisions, and of course cold drinks - very welcome. Around the parking area were some old car wrecks and I noted a Model A Ford, a couple of 50’s Ford pickups and, for me, the icing on the cake was a Morris Eight of about 1934 vintage! Most of its metal bodywork was there, together with a lot of its mechanics, but no instruments or furniture inside. An odd thing to find in the middle of the Namibian desert.

From there it was only a short step to our Camp for the night at Sesreim, This site we had to pre-book in Swakopmund and there were something in the order of well over 30, and many of them were occupied. Ours, No 28, was on the periphery of the setup, under a lone acacia tree with yellow grass beyond, red sandy desert beyond that, and a howling gale of hot wind blowing at us. Campsites are never the same!

Before establishing ourselves we drove about 4 kms to the south where there was a deep and narrow gorge cut into the ground by years and years of rushing rainwater. It was reminiscent of the access to Petra - deep, narrow and a little dark at the bottom. We walked along the bottom and eventually came to a small pool of standing water, obviously used by all sorts of animals and birds for drinking, even this far below ground level. Fortunately the wind dropped off as the evening wore on so supper under the acacia tree under the stars was most enjoyable.


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