From Okiep to the Kalahari

---

Woke up, had delicious breakfast and headed off towards the Namibian border. It’s a 120km drive to the border from Okiep and we were in good spirits about crossing the border. We were thinking of Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor crossing the border from Namibia into South Africa, no doubt doing their customary wheelies.

When you get to the Orange river you stop at Vioolsdrif, on the South African side. You don’t do much here, you get a form from one of the border guards and you have to go into some small buildings to get several stamps. You then drive for about 200m and come to the Namibian border at Noordoewer. This was slightly stricter. You had to fill in a form of where you are going, who you are, your occupation etc. You also have to pay 180 Namibian dollars to enter the country. All in all the border formalities took around 40 minutes.
Just after the border there are 2 petrol stations on your left hand side. We filled up with petrol and stocked up on some drinks and junk food. They also sold mangos and bananas.

Petrol stations.

Both in South Africa and in Namibia you don’t have to do anything at the petrol station. An attendant will come to you, ask what petrol you want and they will also wash your windows. You can also have your tyre pressure checked. In general they expect a tip of between 5-10 Rand or Namibian dollars. We tended to give around 10-20, which is only about £1-2. The attendants are also very helpful if you need to know about road conditions, or where the nearest shop is etc.

Toilets.

I have to say that one of my worst fears was about toilets on this trip. I could imaging being stuck in the car for hours, and being female having to visit the loo!!! I could see myself squatting in the desert and exposing my bum to the entire world. Ladies, fear not. I have never seen cleaner toilets than those I saw at the petrol stations in Namibia. They are clean and always worked. They have soap and toilet paper. Not one toilet let me down.

Food on the road.

Be prepared to bring some with you when you find a shop that sells food and water. Many of the petrol stations only sell junk food and I got a bit sick of eating biscuits and crisps and longed for proper food. Some sell fruit, but it’s not easy to eat a whole mango in a car!

Once we had crossed the border we had a 425km drive north to Mariental. You are driving on the B1 which is the main tarmacked road through Namibia. On the way you pass Grunau and Keetmanshoop which are major towns. In reality they are very small but worthwhile stopping to fill up on petrol and the vital junkfood and water.

After Keetmanshoop (I’ll talk more about this place later in the blog!) you will drive past the Brukkaros volcano on your left. It’s an amazing site. One book told us that this volcano was extinct, but another said it isn’t. Nevertheless, you can hike up into the volcano, but you must allocate a day for this activity. Apparently there is no shade during the hike, so it’s best done early morning and take plenty of water. The turnoff for the volcano is near Tses. We wanted to do this on our way back, but I’ll tell you more about that later. If you look on Google Map and choose the satellite option, you can clearly see the volcano. Definately one for our next visit to Namibia.
Remember I mentioned exposing my bum? Well. The traffic in Namibia, even on the B1 is nearly non-existent. You are lucky if you see a car every 30 minutes or so. Most cars are white 4WD or pick up trucks. There are also a few lorries that let you pass. The roads are long and straight, and it can be mesmerising with the sun and heat shining on the road creating strange special effects. There are plenty of parking areas along the road where you can stop and admire the scenery.

The scenery continued to change quite dramatically. Upon entering Namibia you think it’s all sand and dirt. But there are special succulents growing in the desert, and a very diverse plant life. The roads now all have fencing to keep the animals from wandering onto the road. We didn’t see any of the famous ostriches darting onto the road. A bit of a shame, but hitting one would not be good for the car. Or the ostrich.

Passing Grunau to your left you have some spectacular hill top scenery. If you are heading towards Fish River canyon you have 3 options of getting there. Either take the C10 before Grunau, or the C12 by Grunau or the B4 and then C12 (from the north) from Keetmanshoop. We tried 2 of these roads - more of those later.

Passing Keetmanshoop you see some Quiver trees. These are special trees growing in Namibia and fascinating! In Keetmanshoop there is a ‘Quiver tree forest’, you have to pay a few dollars to park and go in to have a look, but I suggest you just drive past the farm and look at the trees from the road. You can stop anywhere and take photos. More on this later too.

Once we got to Mariental, we continued north and then turned into the C20. We were heading to the Intu Afrika game reserve where we had booked ourselves into the Zebra Lodge. From the C20 you make a left turn down a D1268 road. This road was very wide and gravelled. In some places it was of quite poor quality and there were unexpected dips here and there. It took us around 1 ½ hours to drive the 22km. This is just the entrance to Intu Afrika. Once you have told the guy at the gate that you have booked in, he will ring the lodge to announce you. We had a further 6km inside the gates to our lodge. This bit was the most hilarious bit of our journey. The road was pure Kalahari red sand and we went over and around little dunes. Often we could feel the car skidding and we couldn’t help giggling all our way to the lodge. When we arrived a man came out with a tray serving ice-cold apple juice to us in champagne glasses. It was quite a surreal experience!

May I add here that whilst booking our lodges and planning the journey, we found it difficult to work out distances between places. On the map it looks like something is ‘just’ 150km away, which in Europe you can drive in just over an hour or so. In Namibia things take at least 3 times longer, if not more. Roads are very poor in comparison, and even though a road is good quality gravel, you will be driving anything between 30-70km max. On the main B1 road we were doing around 100km on average. To help with planning our trip, we used the Cardboard Box Travel shop which helped us book lodges and gave us an idea of what we could achieve in our 6 days in Namibia. They were brilliant and replied immediately to all our questions. We still organised everything ourselves, but felt reassured that they knew the lodges and their recommendation was of great help. To add, they do not charge for their services. They have now also added additional services to their remit, such as car rental. You can even book balloon rides with them!

Right, back to the Kalahari! We were mesmerized by this beautiful area. Our lodge was stunning. It had a genuine African theme to it, several small gardens with interesting plants, a pond, many seating areas, and inside the main building (with no outside walls) a bar, restaurant area leading out onto a beautiful swimming pool (freezing water). There is also a water hole for animals next to the lodge.
We were staying in room number 7. There are 8 rooms attached to the main building (sort of a terraced building). Each room has its own terrace. Our room was spectacular. It was furnished with dark wooden furniture. The bed was super king size. The bathroom has his and her sinks, a great shower and of course toilet. The rooms do not have tv or a minibar. Not that we cared! We would not be watching tv. The room also had air con. Well impressed. The first night we were there there were just ourselves and another family staying.
For dinner, once I explained I was vegetarian (they recommend you tell them at the time of booking, but they still cobbled up a great meal for me) I had local feta cheese, a local dish with sweet potato and chutney, potatoes, bread and some side vegetables and olives. It was delicious. We had some lovely South African wine. As the sun was setting we saw some shadows of animals by the water hole. It is really exhilarating to sit only a few metres away and watch animals drink water.

We grabbed ourselves a lovely drink from the bar each and sat on our terrace and watched the African sky. It is one of the most unbelievable sights that you cannot imagine until you experience it. Surrounded by complete darkness we gazed at hundreds of stars. It was amazing to imagine that around you were wild animals getting on with their own lives whilst we were sitting there appreciating that this is what earth is about, the flora and fauna and feeling very small in a very large space.

Suddenly, lightening to our right. The lightening show went on for a long time. No sound, no rain, just a show over the Kalahari. Our first sundowner in real Africa.

---

Photos

Namibia
Southern area

Intu Afrika
Arriving!

Garden
By Zebra Lodge

Garden
Inside Zebra lodge seating area