Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Magnificent Namibia
After all the trauma earlier in 2008, it was nice to get away...
We flew in to Windhoek, and after a night in town, drove south-west towards Soussessvlei. The original car we hired wasn’t very good so we soon returned that to the airport, and they gave us a Toyota Yaris. The roads in Namibia are the worst I have experienced anywhere in the world. The whole country, which is several times the size of the UK, only has a couple of hundred miles of tarmac road, and the rest is gravel. Where these gravel roads are used regularly, the Government attempts to keep them flat -we saw plenty of "road-works" during our trip, with levelling trucks smoothing out one side of the road at a time - but in some of the lesser-used districts, the road becomes (very) bumpy and (very) rocky.
On our first day out of Windhoek, we had to drive along a long gravel road that was unbelievably bumpy. In our hire car, we struggled to manage 20mph (35kph) on this road, and a 60-mile section took hours to complete; what looks a short distance on the map can turn into a nightmare when planning journeys in Namibia! Even going slowly made the CD jump in the player!
We did arrive finally at the Kalula Lodge, where we stayed for a couple of days, and there we took trips out to into the dune area at sunrise, and on to Soussessvlei (left). This was a magical place, and one that is very difficult to explain. Extremely dry, the dunes have left low areas that used to be lakes completely marooned from water, yet the trees that used to live there are mummified somewhat. The area (as with all of Namibia) is also teeming with wildlife, and we saw springbok, ostrich, and many types of birds.
From there, we drove back to the east, to a small lodge on the Zebra River. This was a lovely house run by a very nice family, and all the guests joined the family for dinner each night. This house was also the centre for many walks that guests could take, ranging from the hour or so sunset walk we did after arriving (where we got lost and had to back-track), to the six hour marathon we did to find a freshwater spring high up the valley. We did encounter a Black Spitting Cobra on this trek, which came very close to us until it realised we were human and then ran for cover in the opposite direction to us! Who was more scared? We will never know!
We also climbed up to a quiver tree, sat atop one of the hills (left). From here, you could not see any (ANY!) sign of life in whatever direction you looked - no roads, planes, houses/buildings, farming, or paths - even though you could see for miles and miles and 360 degrees.
From Zebra River Lodge, we had a long drive to Swakopmund. Sadly our Yaris was no match for the riverbed we soon encountered that morning, and we got stuck! After 90 minutes of trying everything you would expect to have to do to try to dig the car out of the soft sand, we gave up, and decided to walk to the nearest habitation. We didn’t know which direction this was, not having passed anywhere much before we got stuck. I back-tracked down the road for five minutes - a kind of reccy - but there was nothing visible that we could aim for, so we walked back to the car to pick up water etc. Then, out of nowhere came a car! We were so pleased to see these German tourists, and they were so very helpful in attaching the tow chain and pulling us out. When you are stuck in the middle of nowhere, where a car has not come past for almost two hours, the relief is immense, let me tell you! Luckily, we hadn’t set off walking, for as we found out when we continued in the car, there was no habitation for another 12 miles or so, and we did not pass another car before hitting the main road some 20 miles from where we got stuck! Those lost in the desert movies nearly became a reality!
We continued our drive, but a long way behind schedule. The consensus is that you should not exceed 50mph (80kph) on gravel roads, in case you hit a dip that can easily roll the car if you are not careful. As the sun set over the desert - a beautiful mesmerising sight in itself - we were still many miles from Swakopmund, and my wife was driving ever faster in an effort to get us to the hotel that evening. Luckily, we didn’t have any more problems, though in hindsight we did drive way too fast...
Swakopmund is a strange little town, usually shrouded in fog, but the weather was good while we were there. I did a day trip down the coast to Sandwich Harbour, where the dunes are fun and accessible, and the pelicans and seabirds flock. In Swakopmund, we decided to switch our 2-wheel drive for a 4-wheel version, just in case we hit any more soft sand...
After this break, we drove north, along the Skeleton Coast at first, then back across the desert but in much happier mood, safe in our monster 4-wheel drive car. We then arrived in the Damaraland Mountains and at our favourite hotel on the trip - Mowani Mountain Lodge.
At Mowani, we did a long day trip searching for desert elephants, but sadly they had deserted us, moving up into the hills due to pregnancy it was thought; no worries, the hotel was wonderfully set up and had a fantastic sunset lookout/viewing area, and lovely bird-watching and relaxing areas that really did seem unworldly. On a local walk, my wife lost a ring; we reported it but after frantic searching around the main lodge,
it just couldn’t be found. We figured someone must have pocketed it, even though we didn't tell anyone what it was worth (about US$1000!). While at Mowani, we visited the Twyfelfontain rock drawing sight, which is just down the road, and saw very old rock carvings and the like.
On our last evening at Mowani, we arrived for dinner at 7pm, as everyone did, but were directed away from the dining area toward a table set up just for us. Here we had personal service that was so romantic, and it was terrific eating a good dinner under the stars with a bottle of local champagne.
The next morning, at breakfast, once more we were "prevented" from joining the other guests and were taken up to the lookout, where a special breakfast (left) had been set up for us. The fantastic views afforded will live long in the memory.
Sadly we had to leave Mowani, but the most exciting parts of the trip from a wildlife perspective were yet to come. We drove to Ongava Lodge near Etosha National Park; Etosha is a salt-pan than has abundant wildlife. On game drives from here, we saw lion, black rhino, zebra, giraffes,
warthog, vultures, and many forms of "deer" - springbok, gemsbok, oryx, impala, etc. We got so close to 13 lions at sunset one evening (left) that it just couldn’t be real - sat in a truck surrounded by these beautiful creatures as it got darker and darker. Magical! The male lion was in bushes eating a kill, and while he did that, the rest of the pride sat and waited on the track, watching us watching them!
At least Ongava is in an area which has tarmac roads, so our worries in that area were mainly over.
From Etosha, we drove south to the Waterberg Wilderness Lodge, and we did an amazing game drive with them that bought us very close to black rhino. At first we walked through a thicket to where two rhino were grazing and, calmly I
might add, when they started to walk toward us we were advised to get back on our truck. The two rhino came through the thicket and right up to the truck, where they "sharpened" their horns on a big rock (left) for twenty minutes or so while we took loads of photographs! You would never expect to get that close I can assure you, whatever safari you go on!
We also did a nice walk/hike at Waterberg up onto the top of the plateau that was fun, and from here you could see the Kalahari Desert in the distance.
The last stop on our trip was possibly to be the best I guess - Okonjima. Here they have areas where they look after lion, cheetah and leopard that have been found too close to local populations, and if they hadn’t been moved to Okonjima, they would have had to have been shot.
On some very cold game drives early in the morning, we were taken to see lions up close (left), plus the cheetah (which we tracked on foot) and leopard too.
It was amazing that there you were sitting very close to these wild animals, knowing that if they really wanted to they could tear you to bits! Luckily, they had plenty to eat locally, and they did not need any fancy foreign food when we were there!
During our stay at Okonjima, we had a phone call from Mowani telling us that they had found my wife’s ring; this was fantastic news, and Mowani eventually had it flown down to Windhoek where we retrieved it from the local airport on our way back to drop off the hire car.
That was the perfect end to a lovely trip, and we have vowed to go back again soon to Namibia; maybe not next year, but soon...I promise!
PS All the pictures on here are my own shots (and therefore copyright), which I hope give some idea of how close we got to the animals. I took about 2000 pictures in total, and could have taken hndreds more. We spotted over 70 different types of bird species, and didn't even try to count the animals we saw. I fully recommend a trip to Namibia, and the company we used (Expert Africa) if you fancy it!
We flew in to Windhoek, and after a night in town, drove south-west towards Soussessvlei. The original car we hired wasn’t very good so we soon returned that to the airport, and they gave us a Toyota Yaris. The roads in Namibia are the worst I have experienced anywhere in the world. The whole country, which is several times the size of the UK, only has a couple of hundred miles of tarmac road, and the rest is gravel. Where these gravel roads are used regularly, the Government attempts to keep them flat -we saw plenty of "road-works" during our trip, with levelling trucks smoothing out one side of the road at a time - but in some of the lesser-used districts, the road becomes (very) bumpy and (very) rocky.
On our first day out of Windhoek, we had to drive along a long gravel road that was unbelievably bumpy. In our hire car, we struggled to manage 20mph (35kph) on this road, and a 60-mile section took hours to complete; what looks a short distance on the map can turn into a nightmare when planning journeys in Namibia! Even going slowly made the CD jump in the player!We did arrive finally at the Kalula Lodge, where we stayed for a couple of days, and there we took trips out to into the dune area at sunrise, and on to Soussessvlei (left). This was a magical place, and one that is very difficult to explain. Extremely dry, the dunes have left low areas that used to be lakes completely marooned from water, yet the trees that used to live there are mummified somewhat. The area (as with all of Namibia) is also teeming with wildlife, and we saw springbok, ostrich, and many types of birds.
From there, we drove back to the east, to a small lodge on the Zebra River. This was a lovely house run by a very nice family, and all the guests joined the family for dinner each night. This house was also the centre for many walks that guests could take, ranging from the hour or so sunset walk we did after arriving (where we got lost and had to back-track), to the six hour marathon we did to find a freshwater spring high up the valley. We did encounter a Black Spitting Cobra on this trek, which came very close to us until it realised we were human and then ran for cover in the opposite direction to us! Who was more scared? We will never know!We also climbed up to a quiver tree, sat atop one of the hills (left). From here, you could not see any (ANY!) sign of life in whatever direction you looked - no roads, planes, houses/buildings, farming, or paths - even though you could see for miles and miles and 360 degrees.
From Zebra River Lodge, we had a long drive to Swakopmund. Sadly our Yaris was no match for the riverbed we soon encountered that morning, and we got stuck! After 90 minutes of trying everything you would expect to have to do to try to dig the car out of the soft sand, we gave up, and decided to walk to the nearest habitation. We didn’t know which direction this was, not having passed anywhere much before we got stuck. I back-tracked down the road for five minutes - a kind of reccy - but there was nothing visible that we could aim for, so we walked back to the car to pick up water etc. Then, out of nowhere came a car! We were so pleased to see these German tourists, and they were so very helpful in attaching the tow chain and pulling us out. When you are stuck in the middle of nowhere, where a car has not come past for almost two hours, the relief is immense, let me tell you! Luckily, we hadn’t set off walking, for as we found out when we continued in the car, there was no habitation for another 12 miles or so, and we did not pass another car before hitting the main road some 20 miles from where we got stuck! Those lost in the desert movies nearly became a reality!
We continued our drive, but a long way behind schedule. The consensus is that you should not exceed 50mph (80kph) on gravel roads, in case you hit a dip that can easily roll the car if you are not careful. As the sun set over the desert - a beautiful mesmerising sight in itself - we were still many miles from Swakopmund, and my wife was driving ever faster in an effort to get us to the hotel that evening. Luckily, we didn’t have any more problems, though in hindsight we did drive way too fast...
Swakopmund is a strange little town, usually shrouded in fog, but the weather was good while we were there. I did a day trip down the coast to Sandwich Harbour, where the dunes are fun and accessible, and the pelicans and seabirds flock. In Swakopmund, we decided to switch our 2-wheel drive for a 4-wheel version, just in case we hit any more soft sand...
After this break, we drove north, along the Skeleton Coast at first, then back across the desert but in much happier mood, safe in our monster 4-wheel drive car. We then arrived in the Damaraland Mountains and at our favourite hotel on the trip - Mowani Mountain Lodge.
At Mowani, we did a long day trip searching for desert elephants, but sadly they had deserted us, moving up into the hills due to pregnancy it was thought; no worries, the hotel was wonderfully set up and had a fantastic sunset lookout/viewing area, and lovely bird-watching and relaxing areas that really did seem unworldly. On a local walk, my wife lost a ring; we reported it but after frantic searching around the main lodge,
it just couldn’t be found. We figured someone must have pocketed it, even though we didn't tell anyone what it was worth (about US$1000!). While at Mowani, we visited the Twyfelfontain rock drawing sight, which is just down the road, and saw very old rock carvings and the like.On our last evening at Mowani, we arrived for dinner at 7pm, as everyone did, but were directed away from the dining area toward a table set up just for us. Here we had personal service that was so romantic, and it was terrific eating a good dinner under the stars with a bottle of local champagne.
The next morning, at breakfast, once more we were "prevented" from joining the other guests and were taken up to the lookout, where a special breakfast (left) had been set up for us. The fantastic views afforded will live long in the memory.
Sadly we had to leave Mowani, but the most exciting parts of the trip from a wildlife perspective were yet to come. We drove to Ongava Lodge near Etosha National Park; Etosha is a salt-pan than has abundant wildlife. On game drives from here, we saw lion, black rhino, zebra, giraffes,
warthog, vultures, and many forms of "deer" - springbok, gemsbok, oryx, impala, etc. We got so close to 13 lions at sunset one evening (left) that it just couldn’t be real - sat in a truck surrounded by these beautiful creatures as it got darker and darker. Magical! The male lion was in bushes eating a kill, and while he did that, the rest of the pride sat and waited on the track, watching us watching them!At least Ongava is in an area which has tarmac roads, so our worries in that area were mainly over.
From Etosha, we drove south to the Waterberg Wilderness Lodge, and we did an amazing game drive with them that bought us very close to black rhino. At first we walked through a thicket to where two rhino were grazing and, calmly I
might add, when they started to walk toward us we were advised to get back on our truck. The two rhino came through the thicket and right up to the truck, where they "sharpened" their horns on a big rock (left) for twenty minutes or so while we took loads of photographs! You would never expect to get that close I can assure you, whatever safari you go on!We also did a nice walk/hike at Waterberg up onto the top of the plateau that was fun, and from here you could see the Kalahari Desert in the distance.
The last stop on our trip was possibly to be the best I guess - Okonjima. Here they have areas where they look after lion, cheetah and leopard that have been found too close to local populations, and if they hadn’t been moved to Okonjima, they would have had to have been shot.
On some very cold game drives early in the morning, we were taken to see lions up close (left), plus the cheetah (which we tracked on foot) and leopard too.It was amazing that there you were sitting very close to these wild animals, knowing that if they really wanted to they could tear you to bits! Luckily, they had plenty to eat locally, and they did not need any fancy foreign food when we were there!
During our stay at Okonjima, we had a phone call from Mowani telling us that they had found my wife’s ring; this was fantastic news, and Mowani eventually had it flown down to Windhoek where we retrieved it from the local airport on our way back to drop off the hire car.
That was the perfect end to a lovely trip, and we have vowed to go back again soon to Namibia; maybe not next year, but soon...I promise!PS All the pictures on here are my own shots (and therefore copyright), which I hope give some idea of how close we got to the animals. I took about 2000 pictures in total, and could have taken hndreds more. We spotted over 70 different types of bird species, and didn't even try to count the animals we saw. I fully recommend a trip to Namibia, and the company we used (Expert Africa) if you fancy it!
Labels: black rhino, cheetahs, lions, Mowani, Namibia, Okonjima, Ongava
