Getting Serious About Namibia

We arrived back in Windhoek in the middle of January and were thrilled to be given a new 90 day visa with a warm smile. We had spent nearly 3 months here before Christmas but still had plenty we wanted to do – and it was hard even thinking about dragging ourselves away.

But things were not all going well. In fact, it´s fair to say that things had been going rather badly since the moment we arrived at Windhoek airport a month earlier. The flight back to the UK had been delayed, cramped, uncomfortable, unfriendly and basic. The airline lost our luggage in Frankfurt and it took 3 days to get it back. After two days in London I came down with the flu, closely followed by James who was hit really hard by it and spent much of the Christmas holiday in bed. In fact he had been so ill that at one point the doctors sent two nurses round to take blood tests for malaria!

When we arrived back in Windhoek we rushed straight to see Henry who had had his fuel tank dropped and lift pump checked whilst we were away. The lift pump was fine, that was not the cause of the diesel leak, but in doing the work the mechanics had broken the rear fuel line and we had had to bring a new one back over with us – both expensive and extremely difficult to pack as they are very delicate. We sat around at the garage for 6 hours, hot, tired and hungry, waiting whilst they replaced the fuel line and tank and changed some bushes that we had also brought back with us.

Finally they were done and we sped off to Urban Camp where we had stayed last time. It was nice to be back but we were in no state to enjoy anything but a quick meal and some sleep.

The next day we were up early and James set about doing more maintenance on Henry.

At this point we realised that our bad luck had not been left behind in the UK. James´ leatherman tool and one of his bush knives were missing – stolen out of Henry whilst he was being stored at the garage. We spoke to the owner who was desperately sorry but could do nothing. James was gutted. He had also started coughing again – despite being back on the Doxycycline his bronchitis still hadn´t quite gone.

Whilst working on Henry, his knee then popped out of joint – a regular and painful injury due to years of hard labour – and he was bitten twice on his foot by some flying thing causing his foot to swell up to the size of a football with such excrutiating pain he couldn´t sleep.

So I had two very poorly boys – Henry with an ongoing diesel leak that no-one, not even Landrover themselves, could fix; and James with bronchitis, a disjointed knee and a bad foot which turned out to be a very nasty case of cellulitis. He was bone tired and feeling about as low as I had ever seen him. I was getting very concerned about him.

After five days of this we finally went to a medical clinic, got James properly diagnosed and he started on yet more antibiotics, painkillers and probiotics to protect his stomach.

He started rattling as he walked but just knowing there was as cure cheered him up. We found a great outdoor shop were we replaced his stolen knives and slowly but surely his cough slowed down, his knee settled back into place and his foot eased off.

We had been back in Namibia for over a week and done nothing but maintenance on Henry and as much rest as possible for James. We planned to go out and do some touristy things that morning but instead got chatting to a fellow traveller about how to get permanent residency and ways to buy farm land as a non-Namibian. He was very experienced with all things Namibia and gave us contact details for an agent who could help. He also told us about a shipping route from Kenya to Greece or Turkey through the Suez Canal which was exactly the silver bullet we needed for our onward travels. We might not have left the campsite but we achieved a lot that morning!

In the afternoon we made an appointment to view a 100Ha property just north of Windhoek the following week and went to see the visa agent who took all our details and gave us prices and forms to fill in to apply for permanent residency. Apparently buying property is a pre-requisite to a successful application so we would need to take some risk if we wanted to go ahead. We celebrated our progress with a very nice lunch at the garden restaurant in the Heintzburg Castle and had a couple of beers with our new friend that evening to thank him for his advice and contacts.

The next day we had a couple of hours to spare whilst waiting for yet another Landrover specialist, Gunther, to see us. We spent it in town at the famous meteorite exhibition

And after Gunther had looked Henry over, spoken to Landrover UK and offered to check the injectors the following morning just to rule that out, we headed off to the fascinating Independence Museum

Namibia is a proud country. Its people fought hard against German colonisation

And fought again for their independence when South Africa was given the mandate to rule the country after the Germans lost the first world war and the scurge of apartheid was brought to their door

Reading about how the world eventually rallied to their support and stood by them in the last few years to ensure they finally got, and kept, their independence brought a tear to my eye.

We dropped Henry back with Gunther the next morning and went to visit the Namibian Craft Market whilst he tested the injectors. It took about two hours which we happily wiled away drinking tea in the cafe, looking round at the stalls and buying a new bracelet. When Gunther called to say the injectors were perfect and we could collect Henry we walked back across town in the roasting heat – stopping off at the KTM store we had driven past hundreds of times before and which James had looked longingly at every time!

Once reunited with Henry we returned to the craft market for a lovely lunch and met two ladies who gave us two great contacts for buying properties. Everyone in Namibia seemed to want to help us settle here, even saying how pleased they were to welcome us as ´part of the family´!

With all investigations into Henry´s diesel leak now at the end of the road, albeit with no solution, and James feeling infinitely better on all fronts, it was finally time to leave the city and resume our travels. We headed south to Heroes Acre

A memorial dedicated to the Namibian independence heroes from a century or more ago right through to the present day

And after paying our respects we jumped back into Henry and made a bee-line back to see our friends Kobus and Marissa.

We were at the height of the rainy season and it rained everyday, normally starting mid-afternoon and often biblical with electrical storms crashing and thundering all around us.

As we left the streets of Windhoek cars were wading rather than driving!

And as we hit the long, dirt roads towards the farm there were times when we couldn´t see a foot in front of us

But when we arrived at the farm gates, everything looked very familiar and welcoming and just as we had left it!

Even Goaty Mac Goat Face seemed pleased to see us!

We spent another fabulous three days with the family – including a new arrival, Kobus and Marissa´s first grandchild who had arrived only 10 days ago!
We spent our days driving round the farm with Kobus, learning all about solar panels, bore holes and everything else we might need to know if we settled around here

And we even found a family of Ostrich with a few early babies

Our evenings were spent with a smile

And our nights trying to avoid some of the less welcome members of the farm!

If we needed any more reason to want to stay in this wonderful country forever, Kobus and Marissa gave it to us in spades!

So, after tearful goodbyes, it was time to head back up north towards Windhoek ready for that appointment with our first estate agent and our first ever Namibian house viewing. But not before we hitched up Kobus´s trailer to Henry – he needed it in the city and it was the least we could do after all their kindness. But we thought it was quite a good addition!

We had no appetite for spending any more time in the city so after dropping the trailor off we headed straight out the other side to a lovely campsite 30km from the house viewing

It was in the middle of nowhere, peaceful and with nothing but trees and hills everywhere we looked. Given how close we were to the Wildlife Estate on which the house we were viewing the next morning was located, we were getting very excited about the possibilities.

The land that came with the house was 100Ha. Huge by European standards but nothing more than a modest housing plot out here. We sat in the evening trying to work out what 100Ha would look like, plotting which trees and hill line we thought it would go up to from our campsite.

That evening it rained as usual and the sky looked fantastic

We settled for the night but with butterflies in our stomachs for what the next day would bring, not much sleep was had

We were meeting the estate agent at 10:30am and were up early and heading out with plenty of time to spare. The Wildlife Estate was a gated community of 2,000Ha divided into 20 plots. It was halfway between the bustling town of Okahandra and the quiet, sought after area of Wilhelmstal. Connecting the two was a long, straight, fast tar road. I was concerned, I wasn´t planning to move to Namibia in order to live just off a busy road. I was also conscious that up here, just north of Windhoek, the landscape was green and covered in trees. Absolutely beautiful, but was it the wide open desert plains my heart so longed for in the south?

We entered the gates of the estate and followed the estate agent to the property. We measured how far the boundary of ´our´ land was from the main road – a good 1.5km. Hopeful.

When we got out of the car and looked around us, we saw wildife wandering around, trees and grasses gently swaying and more land than we had ever imagined.

We went up to the top of a hill just beyond the boundary of our land – on this estate few people put up fences and neighbours can wander wherever they choose within reason.

This is the house we were viewing, hardly visible amongst all the open space

You had to really strain your eyes to see your neighbour´s houses and they were only visible from up here, within the land that came with the house you could be forgiven for thinking there was no-one else around for miles.

Except the road.

Not loud, not overbearing…but there. You could see the occasional lorry going past on the horizon and when the wind blew you could hear tiny traffic noises. We also found there was a railway line running behind the estate, about 2km from the house and the owner said you could hear the occasional train during the night.

There was only a container house on the land but it really caught James´ imagination. We spent three hours at the viewing and asked every question under the sun. James had hundreds of ideas buzzing round his head as to what we could do with the container house to make it into a dream home and I was fascinated by the potential of the land.

Eventually, sunburnt and excited, we left and headed back to the campsite. This property was in our budget, well located and very available. Were we really about to commit ourselves to being residents of Namibia? It was all we talked about that evening – going over costs, security issues, logistics of travelling whilst owning property and how to juggle travelling, having a Namibian home and spending time with family and friends back in the UK.

But something wasn´t right. Something stopped me from doing my usual ´drop everything and make an offer before someone else does´ routine. Instead I kept thinking about that shipping route from Kenya to Greece, about how exciting travelling the Stans would be, about how to navigate from there to India and beyond. I was also thinking about that tar road and the railway line. And I couldn´t get my mind to stop conjuring up images of sweeping desert landscapes and gently swaying, yellow grasses.

My dream, since I was 29, has been to buy thousands of hectares of over-grazed farm land in Namibia, regenerate the ground, remove the fences and allow nature and wildlife to reclaim its rightful place. I wasn´t sure how buying a 100Ha housing plot surrounded by other housing plots and next to a main road was going to fit with that dream. I wasn´t sure, in fact, what I would do on that housing plot all day!

We left the campsite the following morning and headed a little further north to the Erongo Mountains. We pulled up at one of the large estates that covers the mountain area and where Philips Cave and other historic landmarks lie. The owner welcomed us warmly and when we enquired about lunch she ushered us to their reception area.

As we approached we both broke out in broad smiles

It was as good an approximation of the Viking Longhouse plan for our forever home as you could get!

And the whole place was absolutely beautiful and tranquil.

The main house itself being very colonial architecture

We sat having a lovely lunch of toasties and salad and surveyed our surroundings. The owner told us the estate was over 14,000Ha and incorporated mountains, caves and plains. This….this was the dream!

As we sat there, planning what we would do with land such as this, the memory of the 100Ha container house with a busy main road next to it faded from our minds. That was not the dream, it wasn´t even close – it was not the Namibia we yearned for.

But we are also inveterate travellers and nomads with a great deal of world yet to see. Spending time looking at houses to buy was exciting but had started to feel uncomfortable – like a suit that was just a bit too tight. As we settled back in our chairs and ate our ice cream, a decision settling over us, all started to feel right with the world again. A quick message of thanks but no thanks to the estate agent was all it took for a weight to drop from our shoulders and a sense of freedom to re-establish itself.

As foreign-nationals we are going to struggle to buy a large piece of land here but there are ways and our Namibian friends are willing to help. But a large farm or game reserve is a big commitment and one which doesn´t sit well alongside a life of travelling the world.

Our hearts will never leave Namibia and we will certainly be back trying to find that elusive, perfect dream home one day. But with a big wide world calling us, we realised that maybe that day was not just yet…