From Cape Town to Nairobi on a Land Rover, Part 2: Namibia South to Central

We haven't had an internet connection for along time so I'm posting as much as I can. Here you go, parts 2 is ready:

We continued from Augrabies Falls along dirt roads towards the Namibian border crossing on the 25th of December. Along the way we spotted some springboks and lots of other small deer like animals, possibly steenboks. I’m not very good at identifying animals, not even with an ID book at hand (all the deers look the same!) We also saw a few gemsboks (oryx gazella). I think they have very handsome horns. We also saw huge bird’s nests that seemed to belong to a community of little weaver birds .They all lived under this big :thatch roof”. Clever builders, some of the nests we saw were massive.

The only, or almost the only, sight along a 100km drive along
dirt roads from Cape Town to Augrabies Falls.

The roads were on both South African and Namibian side very much like this.
This picture is actually from the Nambiina side after we left Fish River Canyon
- but trust me, the road looks exactly the same also before the Canyion on South African side.

Fish River Canyon

On Christmas Day we arrived at our first stop in Namibia, the Canyon Roadhouse near the Fish River Canyon (for the Finns: Kalajoki. Funnily enough also here it’s in the middle of a completely flat landscape, just like in Finland). Canyon Roadhouse is a rather cool hotel and campsite in the Fish River Canyon area. The decoration is done with old car wrecks in the outside of the building and the courtyard areas, inside at the bar there are plenty of road signs, car number plates, and even an old American tractor. We set up camp, took a dip in a very cold pool (which was absolutely AMAZING after a day out on the hot, dry road). After our refreshing dip in the pool it was almost time for Christmas dinner. The dinner was set as a buffet table outside but since it was a windy day, we chose to dine inside sat next to the old American tractor.

After dinner we opened presents. To my disappointment it was a windy night and we couldn’t test the helicopter with a video camera that I had bought for Claudio for Christmas. I got a Victorinox knife, which was great - especially since I forgot my old one in Singapore and the new model is far nicer than the old ones. I will definitely be using this present! I also have to confess, I was so relieved I did not get any cute and girlie presents like perfume or jewellery – what would I do with that on a road trip? Luckily Claudio is a far more practical man and knows exactly what a girl needs ;) All in all we had a lovely Christmas Day at the Canyon.

The next day we first drove over to look at the Canyon itself and then continued towards Aus.

 

Fish River Canyon, Namibia.

Another photo of the Canyon - taken with the iPhone panorama function,
hence the horizon is not quite linear.

Aus

On the way to Aus both of the car batteries started giving low charge issues along the way, and eventually Claudio stopped on the roadside to check for what the issue was. We spent over an hour at the roadside. His end conclusion after a lot of testing and adjusting was that the problem is with the cable quality - which means that to fix that we need to buy new cables once we arrive in Swakopmund (the next city on our route). If we are unlucky, all the stores are closed between Christmas and New Year.

 

Claudio checking on the auxiliary battery and trying to fix the issue
on the roadside on our way up to Aus.

 Eventually we arrived in Aus, cooked some dinner and showered. After a long day on the road and issues with a car we did not quite manage all of this without again starting to quarrel. I thought Claudio was giving me ridiculous advise (hello, I can choose myself where I wash the dishes, I’m a grown-up woman) and he in turn probably could have done with a bit more help with setting up the campsite in the wind (I’m unfortunately not as strong as him so he ended up doing quite a lot more unpacking than me).

Sossusvlei

The next day (27 Dec) we drove over to Sossusvlei.  The highlight of that drive was that we saw a lot of oryxes (gemsboks) and even zebras along the road. One group had 44 zebras in it! Although we saw a lot more later, it was awesome for someone like me who has never seen a live zebra in her life.

On the way to Sossusvlei.

Gemsbok i.e. oryx (oryx gazella)

Those little dots are zebras on the roadside.

We camped at the same site where Claudio had stopped on his motorbike trip. The campsite is big, with a reception/bar/restaurant area near the gate and then the campsites in the back with several shared shower rooms and toilets. All very neat and tidy. We set up camp, and then Claudio started working on the car batteries again. He inserted an additional cable which resolved the issue. Both of the batteries were charging again. I blame the cable issues on the quirky little creatures that examined the car engine at Augrabies Falls. I bet the klippsleefers had chewed on the cables.

Campsite at Sossusvlei.

 I made pasta in tomato sauce for dinner – and almost ruined it with trying out a new spice that Claudio had bought earlier in Cape Town. Didn’t notice it had lots of salt in it and I overdosed – we had a rather salty meal. Oh well, maybe it was good in the to climate, combats the dehydration a bit with tying in the fluids. I was also a bit afraid the pasta might have an additional crunch to it. It was so windy and the campsite is very dry and sandy at this time of the year when it’s the end of the dry season. There was again sand everywhere. Luckily the food was saved from any larger amounts entering it. We had Finnish chocolate for desert – that made my day.

 

Finnish chocolate. Om-nom-nom-nom. (By the way, it's
much better than Swiss chocolate, haha)

To our disappointment there was no internet at the bar.  We sat down for drinks anyway (in my case a drink meant an apple juice). It was again a windy night   and it was nice to sit for a while at the bar where we didn’t’ have sand blowing into our eyes, ears, mouths, laptops screens, phones, books – basically, it’s everywhere. You do get used to it rather quickly – although I don’t think that my laptop and phone will enjoy it.

The next morning we got up at 4.30am to drive over to Dune 45 for sunrise (at 6am and it’s a 60km drive even from our campsite which is nearest to the national park). We had made coffee and tea in our thermos bottles the night before and packed biscuits and granola bars along. The evenings and mornings in the desert are chilly – both of us were wearing our fleece jackets. Taitti the  pea brain had already misplaced the park permit – luckily they didn’t ask for it when we went through the gate. I got a scolding from Claudio though – but this time for a reason. Waking up at 4.30am and not being able to enter the park would have been ridiculously stupid, and it would have been entirely due to my scatter brain. I found the permit later after the day break, when I could see better inside the car. It had fallen between the cubby box and my seat. We needed it when we left the area so it was good I found it.

The sunrise over the dune was beautiful. Dune45 and some of the nearby dunes are over 300m high, making them the highest sand dunes in the world. It is a bit of a climb along the ridge in soft sand but since it was before sunrise the air was cool and the sand was still a little bit harder. We sat down on top, took out our cameras (Claudio has such a professional one it makes my little Canon S95 look ridiculous) and enjoyed a cup of tea and coffee with biscuits. There were already a lot of other spectators on the site and more were arriving. I think in total we had around 30 people on top of the dune by sunrise. It was funny though – last time when Claudio came he and his friend were the only ones there.

Before the sun rises above the horizon we climbed to the top
of Dune 45 to find a good spot for taking pictures.

The Dude, his camera and his breakfast. On top of Dune 45.

Yay, it is the sun! 

After the sunrise we continued further into the park to go see the dead forest, Deadvlei. Driving into the parking area near Deadvlei was good fun – in particular the last bit of the road is more challenging and requires a proper 4x4 vehicle. I was in good hands with Claudio as the driver and in his beautiful landy. I could just sit back and enjoy the desert drive. We parked the car, searched for the right direction for a bit (in the end it was quite easy – also here there were a lot of people heading for the same destination. We walked along the ridge of the dune all the way to the end of the valley and then descended – coming down on a sand dune is sooooo much fun. The soft sand cushions and slows you down – you can’t fall over even when going down a steeper slope.  We walked through the valley and past the group of dead trees (there aren’t that many left left) and took photos along the way. A lot of people were still arriving when we were leaving. I don’t think they had a good timing – the sun was getting hot and the light was no longer good for taking photos. It was definitely worth it getting up at 4.30am.

Deadvlei valley (another iPhone panorama and a wonky horizon).

View of Deadvlei from the bottom of the valley.

One of the many dead trees in Deadvlei.

Also in Deadvlei.

We made a quick stop at the campsite on the way out to clean off the worst sand (it was in the shoes, outside the socks, inside the socks, in between the toes, on the trousers – everywhere…) After that we made a stop at the petrol station to get some internet – and Claudio discovered the pocket he had put his new iPhone 6 in still had sand in it! Luckily no damage had been done yet, and he managed to clean up both the phone and the pockets.

Tsauchab

Our next campsite was Tsauchab, only a short drive away. Claudio had originally planned to only stay one night here and then drive to Swakopmund, but all campsites there were so full already when we made the bookings in October that we had to stay two nights at Tsauchab (28-29 Dec). We decided to make it a break for doing some more fixing – we took our laundry to the reception, aired the bedclothes and Claudio continued operation Perfection of the Landy. Amongst other things, we now have a perfectly organized kitchen cupboard. It doesn’t fit quite all of the kitchen equipment – pots, pans and most utensils are still in a different box but it gives good access to cups, plates and other most frequently used items.

Our rooftop tent at the campsite in Tsauchab.

Sunset at Tsauchab.

Our campsite at Tsauchab in the morning

Sunrise in Tsauchab.

The newly organised kitchen cupboard.

In general I’ve been very impressed by how good the campsites in Namibia are. They are always clean, they have showers, most of them have laundry facilities, you always get a barbeque pit – sometimes even two. This time we even had our own little toilet and shower building and no other people in sight. It was like camping out in the wild but with posh facilities. It was really hot on our second day in Tsauchab – I contemplated on going inside the bathroom building (about the size of a small walk-in wardrobe) and lie on the floor since it was the coolest spot on our campsite. In the end I ended up just lying down in the shade on the doorstep of the bathroom – the only shade big enough to more or less cover me.

Walvis Bay and Swakopmund

The next day (30^th December) we continued towards Walvis Bay and Swakopmund. We stopeed at a petrol station that has a bakery next door. The bakery is somewhat famous in the area for it’s carrot cake – or maybe it was apple pie. However, when we arrived at the bakery, we saw a large sign on the counter with a picture of the baker and dates –October 1957 – January 2014. The baker had passed away only just in January this year. Service seemed to have gone down as well – the girl at the counter was more interested in talking on her mobile phone with a friend than serving customers or chasing off the birds that flew in to peck on the fresh bread. We still ordered two slices of apple pie and sat outside to eat. It seems the apple pie indeed is delicious – judged based on the number of keen eyes that followed us while we were eating our cake.

A picture of the old baker on top left, and then the birds watching while
we were trying to eat our apple pie.

The Landy at the Tropic of Capricorn on our way to Walvis Bay.

 We did some shopping in Walvis Bay as we thought there will be less people there in the shops than in Swakopmund (which turned out to be the right decision as we found out once we arrived in Swakop). We also tried to look for some parts for the car and the camping but didn’t manage to find much. At least we got the bits Claudio needed for re-wiring the car batteries – our most important item.  We did still have time to go and look at flamingos on the beach.

Flamingos in Walvis Bay.

We drove off to Sophia Dale camping, which so far has been the most disappointing campsite after getting used to the high standard elsewhere both in Namibia and South Africa. The campsites were very close to each other, the water taps were few, the toilets had no locks on the doors and there was no barbeque pit. To be honest, it actually still was a reasonably well equipped campsite – we’ve just been spoilt here so badly that we are expecting a lot more. If I think about the campsites we had in the UK, apart from that we always had a nice, cosy pub nearby, they all lose out to even the site in Sophia Dale.  Then we had a nice meal in town – thought we could use that since we are planning to camp out in the wild for the next few days and won’t have any restaurants nearby. We went to a place called Fish Deli, which was affordable, cosy and the food was rather all right. I had a pigout and ordered both sushi and a plate of calamari rings with fries. I am already missing this kind of food from Singapore. Claudio also had sushi and laughed at the fact that for the price he paid for his sushi selection platter he could have got one handroll in Switzerland.

Off to the middle of nowhere – Cape Cross and Messum Crater

On the 31^st we did sone quick shopping in Swakop and then headed off to see some sights.  The wreck of the Zeila of Hangana and the fur seals at Cape Cross.

Zeila of Hangana wreck and a fisherman.

The highlight was the seal colony at Cape Cross – a home to about 80,000-120,000 fur seals. You can imagine the smell that greets you at that place! This was Claudio’s third time paying about 8USD for the joy of the company of the smelly seals. They were everywhere! The pups are usually born at the end of November and early December. 30% die within 35 days. As we were here at the end of December, there was quite a number of seal pup bodies lying around rotting, as well as dozens of seal pups looking for their mothers. Many fo the adult seals were quite hostile towards the little pups looking for their moms, barking at them like dogs and showing their teeth. Some of them had clearly been looking for a while and if they were not going to find her – they will join one of the piles of lifeless seal pups on the beach. I saw some seagulls pecking at the dead bodies. Mothers were looking for their pups or just enjoying the sun, whilst the bulls stayed closer to the waterfront, having fights with each other and showing off. We also saw a lot of seals in the water, catching fish and other sealife.  The place was a massive chaos of furry creatures of different sizes. Claudio said it was like an unroganised refugee camp. Having said it was chaotic, I do have to admit that the pups were cute too – some of them put their noses through the holes in the visitor path’s fence and peered at us inquisitively.

 

Too many seals on this beach!

Funny seals, dead pup and live pups and one curious little one
peering through the fence.

Here is also a little video of the fur seals. Unfortunately I couldn't capture the smell:

Then we headed off towards the Messum Crater. On the way we stopped to look at a rare plant, and while I was taking pictures Claudio inspected the car. It was not good news. The rear right wheel’s shock absorber had torn off. It apparently had ripped – welding had broken. Cranky! What to do now? It was 3.15pm on New Year’s Eve. Even if the Land Rover dealers had shock absorbers in stock, shops will close before we get back to Swakopmund. So, here we were – stuck for a couple of days in the middle of a Namibian desert in a car with a broken shock absorber.