Namibia, Namibia, Namibia…..

Let me tell you about Namibia. I first visited this amazing country in 1999 when I hired a car and drove around for a month with my then partner. It was my first time in Africa and I fell hopelessly in love with the country and the continent there and then – a love affair from which I have never recovered.

Overtaken by Germany in colonial times and controlled by South Africa after the second world war, the Namibian people finally gained their independence peacefully in 1989 and have created a shining beacon of peace, success and democracy ever since. Relatively wealthy with diamonds and other minerals, fish and tourism, Namibia is a land of sparse, jaw dropping beauty, wide open spaces full of mountains and desert and some of the friendliest people on earth.

It is hard not to fall in love with this country so when we realised our original plan to restart our travels in Zimbabwe and head west put us in northern Botswana at the height of the wet season, our rapid change of plan inevitably led us straight to the place where, let´s face it, we have wanted to be since we left the UK last year – or rather, in my case, for the last 23 years!

Many of you will know that Namibia is where we got married 8 years ago, an event and a trip which had the same effect on James as my first trip here had on me. We were looking out over a waterhole in Etosha National Park 5 days after tying the knot when James turned to me and breathed ´isn´t the world an amazing place´. I knew there and then I had married the right person and our nomadic future was sealed.

The closest Namibian border to Pretoria is nearly 1,000km away. We decided to do it in two days! Well – we had been frustratingly stationary for weeks and Namibia was calling!

We spent the morning saying our goodbyes to Andrew and the family, feeling as though we were cutting apron strings and finally heading out into the real world again losing the support, stability and security we had accidentally gained by staying still for so long.

We started off through the busy roads of Pretoria and the outskirts of Johannesburg. The city was all around us, the dangers of driving in South Africa had never felt so close. But slowly, mile after mile, the traffic eased, the roads narrowed and our view started to become much more rural. We could breath again, leaving behind all that had happened to us and heading out into the rest of our lives.

Our first stop was at a small family farm with two very cute dogs. The campsite was fine but the excitement of living life on the edge again was palpable.

We drove all day the next day and as we travelled west the terrain became drier, emptier and much hotter. Distant mountains came into view, weaver birds were building their homes in the telegraph poles and mongoose frolicked at the side of the road.

By the time we arrived at our final South African campsite, just 130km from the border, it almost felt as though we were already in Namibia.

I gazed out from Henry´s roof window over the awning and smiled a smile I hadn´t had for many, many weeks.

That evening we felt the stresses and strains of having been cooped up in a city melt away as we cooked dinner….

And fell asleep under the stars surrounded by crickets, geckos and not much else.

We spent two nights here and used our spare day to stock up on the essentials – cooking gas, South African wine and food. But finally, after another gloriously peaceful night, the big day had come – we were up early and heading for Namibia.

I could barely control myself. As the road signs counted us down, we kept looking at each other and smiling, after 8 years we were tantalisingly close to the country of our dreams. We felt like we were cheating, we were supposed to be in Zimbabwe, but these are the benefits of having no-one to answer to but ourselves!

A smooth and professional border crossing later, we were high-fiving and celebrating – we´d made it!

I could barely stop the tears from welling up in my eyes and I was going a bit light-headed with hyperventilating! Namibia….Namibia….Namibia!

We had a long drive to our chosen campsite, a remote place in a Quiver Tree forest.

We certainly weren´t in Kansas any more Toto! It´s hard to describe the sense of peace and calm that settles over this country. I had worried that our five months in South Africa would leave a lasting mark and we would never feel safe anywhere again. But just one day here and everything was changing, inside us as well as outside.

We joined the campsite owners whilst they fed their habituated cheetah – rescued as cubs and taken care of in a 40 hectare enclosure as they are not capable of fending for themselves in the wild. The government says no tourist photos of habituated animals so we just had to enjoy the memories, feeling at long last that we were where we wanted to be, surrounded by animals and nature – the real world.

That evening we opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the start of a new stage in our travels.

The following day we took a walk through the Quiver Tree forest, an eery and unusual place, blisteringly hot and still.

And then headed to the ´Giant´s Playground´, a geological phenomenon created by molten magma formed 180 million years ago which pushed its way into softer, sedimentary rocks as the super continent of Pangea started to break up. The softer rock slowly eroded leaving millions of dolermite boulders teetering in strange and wonderful formations.

You could easily get lost in this huge maze so I stuck close by James and his innate sense of direction!

By lunch time we were ready to hit the road – we were heading south to Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon.

As we drove, the long, straight roads shimmered into the horizon as far as the eye could see.

We were driving through the desert and there was nothing around us for hundreds of miles. Our temperature gauge hit a new record…

Eventually creeping up over 56 degrees before finalling settling.

Water management is paramount out here…

And it seemed incongruous when we crossed a stream flowing out of the dam – a brief respite from the sweltering heat and dust whilst Henry cooled his feet!

We drove the dusty, shimmering roads for hours, heading deeper and deeper into the furnace that is the Gondwana Canyon Reserve. It was unsettling to think how dependent we were on Henry´s rebuild being successful, if anything went wrong out here there would be little chance of finding help anywhere close.

And then suddenly, like a mirage, we found the Canyon Roadhouse perched on the side of the road and it was like walking out of the desert straight into an American movie!

We just had to stop for a late lunch, it would have been rude not to! One minute we were feeling vulnerable in a relentlessly remote, hot and dusty landscape, the next we were eating chicken strips and salad whilst sipping ice cold drinks! Such is the paradox of Namibia!

After an aborted trip further down the road to a campsite that no longer existed we returned to the Roadhouse which turned out to have it´s own campsite. It may have been a touch touristy, surrounded by white Hilux´s with roof tents, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

The light of the OBulb beautifully picked out a Praying Mantis who had come for a visit…

In four trips to Namibia I have never been this far south so Fish River Canyon was a first for both of us. I had heard great things about it but could not imagine what to expect out here. I was preparing myself for it to be a bit of a disappointment – too much hype perhaps?

When we arrived at the main viewing point the next morning we had to climb a few steps up before the canyon came into view. I found myself delaying, not wanting to spoil the anticipation with the reality.

I needed have worried, when I finally mounted the viewing platform and looked over the canyon my jaw dropped open. I have rarely seen anything so magnificient and awe-inspiring.

We drove along the canyon for a few miles stopping at various viewing points.

The photos cannot possibly do it justice, hard as I tried. It is spectacular.

We stopped at one viewing point for an impromptu lunch, not another soul around for miles, and wandered down a hiking trail for a short distance to get closer to the edge.

Then made our way back to the main viewpoint for one last time where I took a panoramic photo and started seeing double-trouble!

The afternoon was pressing on and we needed to tear ourselves away. Out here, more than anywhere we have travelled before, we needed to make sure our stocks of food, water and fuel were kept filled up. We could wild camp if we needed to but we had to have water and fuel no matter where we stayed so couldn´t leave it too late in the day to make it to our next pitstop.

We were heading towards the nearest town of Luderitz, some five hours away. We didn´t expect to make it that day so made an overnight stop on a beautiful family farm where the sunset over the mountains took our breath away.

Life was good…

Luderitz is the place that the 21st century forgot. A lovely German colonial town on the coast, small, quiet and very quaint.

It is also in the heart of diamond mining country and therefore surrounded by the ´Forbidden Zone´, an area of active diamond mining where you don´t venture without a very good reason!

And it´s also right in the middle of the oldest desert in the world. As we drove towards it you could feel the sand slowly reclaiming its rightful place.

Desolate, remote buildings lay derilict on the side of a windswept road.

Signs of a past long gone and almost certainly never to return, the elements were slowly retaking what people had once tried to build.

But when we finally arrived at the town itself we found a thriving and very pretty community – and we loved it! We found ourselves musing on how good it would be if Luderitz was the town we came to for provisons when we settled on our Namibian farmstead….

The town is packed full of distinctive German colonial architecture

We wandered about for hours, poking around shops, restaurants and churches

We managed to buy a new indicator bulb, top up with data, fuel and cash and found a wonderful restaurant that served delicious lunches with a smile.

We were staying at the Luderitz Backpackers Lodge – the only place in town with somewhere to camp. It was safe, clean and friendly – the owner came round to chat and put the world to rights every morning and evening. Sleeping in a Landrover rather than a tent meant we were squashed a little into their back yard but it had everything we needed.

Just outside Luderitz is the famous ghost town of Kolmanskop. Built in the early 1900s when the first diamond rush started, it was once the home of the first x-ray machine in Africa (kept at the hospital but used to check workers for diamonds rather than broken bones!), the first silent movie theatre and leading edge technology creating ice in the desert. It also hosted European Opera Singers and international dancers in it´s dance hall and had thousands of gallons of water shipped in for its residents by mule and cart.

By the late 1920s bigger diamonds had been found further south towards the Orange River and Kolmanskop was abandoned to the desert. It is now an eery and desolate place filled with once-magnificent buildings now eaten by the sand.

I have wanted to see it for years so it was our first stop the next morning.

We wandered around for hours, entering the buildings by the front door and exiting through a back window over piles of sand!

We took a short guided tour and ended up chatting to the tour guide about life in Namibia, discussing the best places to buy property and fit into life here. It was the first of many similar conversations!

We thought we could live in some of the houses originally built for the town aristocracy although James´ skills would be tested to the limit!

As I stood on the main street and watched the lonely train make its way through the desert, the wind howling around me and the sand whipping up in my eyes, I felt just how cut off these people had been out here – no matter how many opera singers or x-ray machines they had.

It was now the middle of October, five days before our wedding anniversary. And we were about 4 hours drive from our wedding venue – the dunes of the NamibRand. It seemed like fate had brought us back just at the right time.

I spent some time searching for the perfect place to celebrate 8 years of marriage and found three very nice looking campsites surrounding the dunes. We couldn´t choose between them so two nights were booked at each. There was a buzz in the air as we prepared to leave Luderitz and go back to where it all began…..the beautiful, serene, Namib desert. We felt like we were coming home.