In the Namib-Naukluft Desert

An extraordinary day. Full immersion into desert life. We’ve seen some incredible sights and some of Namibia’s most famous views. Not our usual kind of day though, as we’ve had to join the throngs of other people all want to see the same thing, so although the desert is empty in almost every direction, we’ve sort of been surrounded by other people all day! At 06:20 we were parked outside the National Park gate in the pitch black (having stayed the night at the inner camp). This gave us an hour head-start on everyone else, but it felt like a Grand Prix race the minute the barrier lifted at 06:30!

It’s a 60km drive along a tarmac road to reach the main desert dunes, with a strict 60km/h speed limit. Strict that is, unless you’re desperate to get to the end of the road before sunrise! Headlights whooshed past us at great speed for almost the whole drive, but with big animals like Gemstock wandering onto the road out of the dark, we took it steady.

Even driving conservatively, we had plenty of time to hike up ‘Dune 45’ before the sun breached the horizon.

I took 250 photos today and spent a good while this evening ruthlessly deleting many of them. Still, the morning light was glorious and at every turn seemed to look better than a minute before! It is worth being there early as even though the views are marvellous all day, the morning light does have the magic touch.

We walked past the summit of the dune to get some space to ourselves, leaving the tour groups sat together on the main summit.

On the way down we took of our shoes and ran barefoot! A wonderful feeling.

Another 15km got us to the end of the tarmac.

Only4x4 vehicles with experienced drivers are allowed to proceed from here! Unsure as to what qualifies one as ‘experienced’, we had planned on taking a shuttle truck at this point, but the car park attendant told us that the track was in reasonable condition and that we ‘probably’ wouldn’t get stuck today! Feeling somewhat gripped, but quite keen to ‘give it a go’, we let the tyres down to 1.5psi and tentatively set off on the final 4km of sandy track.

Clare was at the wheel and did a sterling job of keeping us moving! At times the truck wobbled from side to side as if slipping in snow or aquaplaning, but the trusty 4×4 kept us ploughing forward despite some alarmingly deep sandy sections and not knowing which of the many sets of tyre tracks to follow!

It was tense stuff and we were very relieved to reach the far car park at Sossusvlei. After a quick ‘shake out’ from a stressful 4km, we followed footprints in the sand over to the strange flat white pan of Deadvlei, where the remains of 900 year old trees are still standing in the dry air.

The main sand dune (and highest peak) is called ‘Big Daddy’ and involves a climb of around 325m – which in reality is more like 1000m of climbing, considering that you sink back about 70% of every step up you take in the sand! It was energy sapping stuff, which is why there was a bit of a rush to get there before it got too hot.

Not wanting to follow the trail of people heading up the dune, we walked across the flat pans by ourselves and then ascended the dune from the opposite side to everyone else.

This gave a very satisfying ascent and a feeling of being a desert explorer.

The views from the top were great despite the summit crowd, but running down the steep face was super fun!

Back at the flat lands of the dried up lake, we walked across the baked white mud towards the trees feeling the sun beating down on us.

We were glad to have started early!

A final view of the trees and a few more photos to try and capture the contrast in colours, then it was back to the truck.

I drove us back to the tarmac, through the shifting sands with plenty of guidance and enthusiastic encouragement from Clare!

To say we were glad to reach the security of the tarmac would be something of an understatement! The truck was fine, but I’m not sure our nerves would have handled much more sand driving!

But we still had a 65km straight line drive through the empty desert to reach the park gate. With our tyres still soft, we stuck to the limit and saw a few herds of Springboks and a lone ostrich.

Once through the park gate, we pulled over at the campsite cafe feeling utterly beat, exhausted, wired and jittery! But we’d made it! We went in and ordered a slap up lunch which we ate in the cool shade of the thatched roofed building.

There is a canyon nearby which apparently is worth a visit, especially in the heat of the afternoon, but we didn’t quite have the energy to get there. We’d been given some good advice before we left home which rang true today. ‘You won’t be able to do or see everything, but what you do do/see, will be amazing’. Quite right.

We got the tyres pumped back up to the correct pressure at the garage and checked into the campsite (outside the gate this time).

The campsite is called the Oasis and really feels like one. Each ‘pitch’ has a hotel standard toilet/shower/sink area and rooftop seating. There’s even a swimming pool, which didn’t look as inviting as the shaded sun beds.