Namibia

General The journey to Namibia began with a night flight and ended on a very small airfield in the middle of a high plateau. The plane came in over country that looked like nothing else the passengers had seen from a window: a flat, pale, stony plain without a single tree in sigh …

General The first full day of driving went south from the capital towards the Kalahari and the country of the quiver trees. The road leaves Windhoek through the hills of the Khomas Highland, drops off the plateau, and then runs in a long straight line across a plain of red sand a …

General The third day stayed in the south and went looking for the deep history of the country. The camp of the night stands on a farm among outcrops of grey and orange rock north of Keetmanshoop, and the rocks are full of fossils: not the bones of large animals but the impressio …

General The fourth day was the day of the great canyon. The road from the south climbs through the country of the Great Karas Mountains towards the Fish River, and the landscape changes as it does so: the flat sand of the Kalahari is left behind, the rock comes closer to the surf …

General The fifth day went to the bottom of the canyon and the hot springs that come out of it. The road from the rim drops through a gap in the mountains into the valley of the Fish River, and at the end of it lies a green place in the middle of the driest country of the south: …

General The sixth day was a long drive west, from the canyon country into the desert. The road leaves the Fish River behind, crosses the dry interior of the south, and joins the line of the Orange River where the country opens for a few kilometres into a corridor of green: the wa …

General The seventh day crossed the escarpment into the Namib proper. The road from the lodge climbs through the hills and then drops into a country that is different in every way from the one before it: red plains without a single tree, ranges of dark mountains on the horizon, a …

General The eighth day was spent crossing the inner Namib towards the Naukluft, and it was the emptiest drive of the journey. The road runs for hours across a plain of red earth and golden grass with a single line of purple mountains on the horizon, the vehicle is the only moving …

General The ninth day crossed the Namib to Solitaire, the settlement that is the only place of any kind between the dunes of Sossusvlei and the coast. The road from the camp runs north west across the gravel plains, the dunes appear on the left in long orange ridges, the mountain …

General The tenth day stayed in the valley and did very little. The camp stands among the low hills of the country between the Naukluft and the dunes, the pitches are set in the trees beside a dry riverbed, and the day was spent walking the farm tracks, sitting on the rocks with …

General The eleventh day was the one that the traveller spends inside the landscape rather than passing through it. The camp lies among the low hills between the Naukluft and the dunes, and the whole of the day was given to the country around it: a walk up the dry watercourse beh …

General The twelfth day went to the coast and came back to the mountains, and it was the longest drive of the journey. The road runs from the valley across the gravel plains to the sea, through the dunes of the coastal belt and the salt pans behind Walvis Bay, and then turns inla …

General The thirteenth day went to the rock engravings of Twyfelfontein, and it was the day of the journey with the most history in it. The site lies in a valley in the sandstone country of the Kunene Region, the engravings are on the flat slabs of rock on the slopes above the ol …

General The fourteenth day went looking for the elephants of the desert, and it found them. The road from the camps of the Twyfelfontein area follows the valley of the Aba Huab, a river that exists as a bed of sand for most of the year, and the animals of the region come to it fo …

General The fifteenth day went east along the road of the north, from the sandstone country of Damaraland to the bush and the farms of the Kamanjab area, and it was the day of two of the strangest plants in the world. The first was a forest of stone, the second a plant that grows …

General The sixteenth day entered Etosha. The gate, the fence and the road of the park are the boundary of a different country: the bush of the north west gives way to a plain of pale grass and dry pan, the animals are suddenly everywhere, and the whole of the day is spent at the …

General The seventeenth day was a full day in Etosha, and it was spent the way the park wants to be spent: driving from waterhole to waterhole, stopping whenever something moves, and waiting. The camp of the morning has the waterhole and the shop, the roads of the western part of …

General The eighteenth day was the last morning in Etosha and the drive out of the park to the south. The light of the early hours is the best of the day in this country, the gates open with the sunrise, and the first hour on the road belongs to the animals: the ostriches on the …

General The nineteenth day was the last full day of the journey, and it was spent at a camp on the plateau of the Erongo Mountains. The road from the north climbs into the range, the granite and the bush of the hills close around it, and the camp stands high on the shoulder of th …

https://youtu.be/FjmK-TdfJMQ A film about a visit to a Damara village in Namibia where the life of the inhabitants was introduced to us. We were shown a game, the processing of animal skins, medicinal plants and their application, the work of a blacksmith and his products in the …

Shortly after the return from Tasmania we thought about where the next vacation could take place. We looked at the world map, but there was not really any country we were interested in. In many countries there are too many negative aspects, which cannot be reconciled with our kin …