Great hiking on the Nakuluft area we did the Waterkloof trail through some stunning gorges (some scrambling down rocky slopes). This was the first river in Namibia we have seen with any water in it (but not much of it!). We then moved on to Sesriem, the gateway to the dunes at Sossusvlei on the edge of the Namib desert. The campsite was fully booked and we were given three telephone numbers in turn to try and book an overflow space. However when we arrived there was loads of space (this is Africa and this is how things are done!). We went to see the dunes at Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei at midday when it was just too hot. The last bit to Sossusvlei was 4×4 only in deep sand in places (the guidebook said they were going to stop people taking their 4×4 three years ago but nothing stops a South African in a Toyota!! The following morning we got up at 5am to drive into the park to see the sunrise. We climbed Dune 45 and watched as the sun rose at around 6.30am, spectacular! The light at this time of the morning is lovely. I hope to put some pictures on the site when we get the chance.
I have given up on MTC (Namibia’s mobile network), I phoned them to say that their WAP service hadnt worked for about a week and I dont think customer services even knew they had one! They told me their servers had been down for a month!! They did say I could shortly have GPRS and when I asked if that was from 1st August they replied I would try on around the 3rd (Yup, this is Africa and thats how they do things!). I may investigate a modem for the Sat phone in Cape Town.
The Land Rover is going well, it will soon need 1st maintenance and oil change. There have been a couple of loose connections (on these roads not at all surprising, amazing I have any teeth left!). One of these was very worrying as it was to the second battery circuit and could have meant warm beer so was soon sharply resolved!
Went on to Aus where we found an excellent campsite with hot showers and a restaurant that served excellent 3 course meals for around GBP10 so had a couple of nights break from cooking on the fire (and, no surprise, some excellent South African wines to go with it). We also went to see the wild horses at Garub pan around 100 of them. They rather took a shine to the Land Rover and started chewing the bumper, the wire mesh we had put up front to keep seeds out of the radiator and even started licking and knawing at the side of the truck with their teeth! We shoo-ed them off but eventually we decided to leave before they did any real damage. Just before we did one of them managed to get into the viewing hide and we had some fun persuading him to leave the shade of the hide!! We are now at the Orange River on the Border with South Africa.
We plan to go to Fish River Canyon and Ai-Ais hot springs before going into South Africa…