The Desert Calls

As I sit here writing this post I am about as contented as it is possible to be. I am breathing the clean, fresh air of Africa, Henry at my side and James pottering around. Life is good.

A month ago, as our aeroplane had flown over the east African coast, I looked out of my window and saw the African landscape for the first time in two years and my eyes filled with tears

When we touched down on the runway I just stood and gazed at the words on the building in front of me

Hosea Kutako International Airport – a name so familiar to me. Welcome to Windhoek, welcome to Namibia, welcome home.

Kobus and Marissa met us at the gate and it hardly seemed real to see them standing there smiling at us. As we drove along the familiar, long, straight roads back to the farm, through the endless plains stretching out to the horizon, my exhausted brain struggled to take it in. Were we really back?

The farm itself had hardly changed in the two years we had been away

Henry had been staying at Kobus’s second farm a few miles from their home and we expected to have to drive out to go and collect him. With life on the farm so busy, we weren’t sure when that would be possible.

But the next morning, as I finished my training, Kobus called us out to the yard saying he had something to show us. James and I followed him wondering what was going on. He opened the door into a new structure he had built since we were last there and I caught my breath

For the second time in 24 hours my eyes filled up, there stood Henry in all his glory looking as magnificent as the day we left him – if a little mucky!

Kobus and Marissa welcomed us to stay on the farm for as long as we wanted, they were as happy to see us back as we were to be there.

However, we only spent three days there that first time – cuddling baby goats, chasing cows into the right field, weighing bulls, making cream, smiling at tiny Steenboks leaping through the grass and watching gorgeous sunsets

James, of course, spent a lot of the time working on Henry, getting most of the things done on his ever-increasing maintenance list. Unfortunately we found that we also had to add a leaking steering box, leaking injectors, worn UJs and a leak on the swivels to our list – something for next time maybe

On the fourth day we were all up early and heading west for the coast before the sun was up

Kobus and Marissa’s eldest daughter, Illouwna, had recently built a house in Henties Bay and we had been invited to go and stay for a few days.

We were so excited to be finally driving with Henry again. Kobus and Marissa led the way and half an hour into the journey we had to smile

At least it wasn’t Henry behaving badly this time!

It didn’t take long to remove the offending hand brake though and soon enough we were going again. The drive carried on smoothly for nearly 200km

Until we were 34km away from Windhoek

We couldn’t blame Henry for this one though…we had run out of fuel.

Kobus tried to call a friend of his who lived in the area but then James had an idea – what if there was just a little bit of diesel left in the second tank? It might be 2 years old but could we scrape enough together to get us to Windhoek and a fuel station? We parked Henry on an angle up the bank and started the pump. Diesel trickled into the main tank, not much but a bit. When the flow dried up we started again and this time Kobus followed us and stayed close.

Mile by mile went by, the fuel gauge flickering between empty and ‘I’m really not joking now’. But by some quirk of fate we eventually found ourselves sailing into the fuel station on fumes, Henry coughing and spluttering, but we had made it

As we all know, Henry is a hero and he always gets us out of trouble.

Before leaving the city for the coast we popped in to our home-from-home, Urban Camp.

Our friend Kristi, who manages the campsite, threw her arms around us and gave us both big hugs. She had been expecting us but the rest of the staff were not. Pam saw us and ran over, a huge smile on her face and more hugs. Everywhere we looked there were smiling faces and greetings as though we were long lost family and that’s exactly how we felt

We finally arrived in Henties Bay late in the afternoon after another 450km drive west from Windhoek. The town, perched on the Atlantic coast, is a favourite seaside destination for Namibians where they can cool off in the summer months and enjoy some fishing.

But it was the beginning of July, deep in the middle of Namibia’s winter. Across most of the country that means crisp, blue skies, parched landscapes and absolutely no rain – winter is cool and dry, summer is hot and, if any rain comes at all, it will be then. But on the coast things are different – in winter, damp mists roll in from the Atlantic, low clouds hang over the sea and the dunes beyond and it gets very, very cold

It can be a bleak place

Although we had a couple of days when the skies cleared and then you could see that it was also rather beautiful

We walked along the beach

Found lots of jelly fish

Ate ice cream

And had a lovely lunch at the Misty Bay café that we remembered from our last visit there three years ago.

Illouwna’s new house was beautifully built

The quality of workmanship was something we had never seen before anywhere in Africa. She and her partner, Johann, had kept the construction team on their toes ensuring everything was perfect and it had paid dividends. The house was not quite finished and there were workmen still there every day putting the finishing touches to it, but it was already a masterpiece.

On our last day we went to see another house, this one owned by a long-time client of Illouwna and Johann. They manage the property for him whilst he’s at home in America and it was another impressive place

With fabulous views over the ocean

We were having a fantastic time with our friends and were being very well looked after. But we were also keen to see more of Namibia now we were finally here and were desperate to start living in Henry again

We had three months to spend here in Namibia but, very unlike me, we had made no real plans for what to do with our time except enjoy every minute. We wanted to spend time with Kobus and Marissa and we also wanted to spend time with our friends Theuns and Thea in the north. Etosha was on the list as was Brandberg Mountain, BloedKuppe and the Messum Crater. James was keen to go back to Luderitz and Kolmanskop in the south and we wanted to pay a visit to Johnny in Maltahohe who we had met on our farm hunt back in 2023. Other than that, the only thing we actually had to do was to take Henry into Angola so that we could complete his current carne de passage and bring him back into Namibia on a new one – at the end of the day, that was why we were here at this particular time as his carne was about to run out.

So after four days at the coast we said goodbye to everyone and headed off on our own to the larger town of Swakopmund an hour down the road where we filled up on fuel and food and bought permits for the Namib Nauklauft national park – which reminded us just how expensive touring Namibia is compared to the Balkans!

With permits in hand we drove out of town and into the middle of nowhere

At the heart of the isolated desert landscape that is the Namib Nauklauft is Bloedkuppe mountain. We had stayed there in 2023 and loved it. But back then we only had permits for one night so had to leave sooner than we wanted. This time we had learnt our lesson and planned for three days in the park.

We arrived at the mountain, found ourselves a place to stay and settled in

It was beautiful

With skies so dark and stars so bright

We cooked our first dinner in Henry, made a fire and went to bed early just because we were so impatient to be curled up inside him again.

The next morning we were up early, ready to make the most of our day. We decided to climb the mountain, it was supposed to be an easy hike and, from the comfort of our campsite, it didn’t look too hard

But half way up, the rocks became slippery and very steep and my legs started to wobble, I was having difficulty staying upright. James reached down with his reassuring hand and pulled me up to the nearest ledge and I managed to stumble from there to a level area almost at the top

From up there Henry looked so small, patiently waiting for us

But I was going no further. James climbed the rest of the way, disappearing out of view for a while until I heard his voice high above me calling and waving

Getting me back down again was about as slow and painful as you would imagine but we made it without too much drama.

Sadly, there is a uranium mine in the park and it is quite close to the mountain. Back in 2023 it had been temporarily closed so we didn’t know it was there. This time it was back in operation and we could hear the noise from it – at first just faintly but as the wind changed direction it became surprisingly loud.

It took the edge of the tranquillity we were feeling so we decided to pack up camp and drive further on to find the Rock Arch.

Along the way we passed some German War Graves

And an old stone house from the same era

The Rock Arch is a long drive up a track that leads nowhere else and so is a particularly remote part of this remote place

When we arrived we were surprised but very pleased to find that there was an official camping spot right behind the arch itself

We drove up to take a look and the views were breathtaking

And even better, there was no sound of the mine, or anything else

So we decided not to go back to the mountain that evening but instead made our home right there

It was glorious

We made a new little friend

And basked in the peace and quiet under the spectacular night sky

The next day we made our way into the Welwitschia Plains

The national plant of Namibia, Welwitschia are singularly strange things. They live for over a thousand years with the oldest believed to be over two thousand, battling for life in the driest and most inhospitable part of the world – the Namib desert. To Namibians they represent survival against all the odds, something very much at the heart of their way of life.

But they’re not the most photogenic of plants!

Although some of the larger ones are quite impressive

At the furthest end of the ‘Welwitschia Trail’ we came across another overland truck which made even BigMog look small, never mind Henry

We went over to chat but they were Swiss and decidedly not interested in talking to us.

We arrived back in Swakopmund that evening and were reminded once again how expensive being a tourist is in Southern Africa when we found that our old campsite now charges £35 a night

We had planned to stay two nights as we needed to get a new battery for Henry but when we heard the cost we decided that one night was enough and the battery could wait!

We cooked a lovely dinner but then had to admit defeat, turned the diesel heater on and spent the evening inside watching a movie on the laptop – it was just too cold and damp to sit outside on a winter’s evening on the coast.

Instead of spending the next day in Swakopmund searching for batteries, we sped off north to the Messum Crater, a place that is so remote and so big that the last time we went we lost our bearings and had trouble finding our way back out again.

I was slightly apprehensive about it this time but we had downloaded two Wikiloc trails and set a couple of marker-points on our sat nav to help orient ourselves enroute

Our preparations worked and we spent another lovely day in a part of the country that is almost otherworldly

The crater itself is vast and spectacular in its emptiness

Although where ever you are, there is always somene else around

And this one was very pleased for a piece of apple

Looking out over the landscape reminded me of the post I wrote when we first arrived in Namibia after rebuilding Henry – The Beauty of Nothingness. I went back and re-read that post before writing this one and everything I said back then seemed all the more true today

It took most of the day to drive through the crater and out the other side but even once we were out, the landscape was still bare and desolate

We arrived at Elephant Rock community campsite at the foot of the Brandberg Mountain late in the afternoon and it looked very familiar – nothing had changed since we were last there except there were disappointingly no cats

And with clean toilets, warm showers and a shelter made of palm leaves to sit under, we were happy as ever to make ourselves at home and stay for two wonderful nights

With the Brandberg mountain keeping watch in the distance

On our second day I walked up to find the Elephant Rock itself

And then went further up to a look-out point to get a bird’s eye view of the beautiful nothingness

With our first explorations into the remote reaches of Namibia at an end, it was a long but easy drive to Windhoek and we arrived at Urban Camp renewed and refreshed

There is always a lot to do when we are in any capital city but at least here we know our way around and we know a lot of people. Over the next two days we visited Christian at the Off-Road Centre and the team at LR Parts, gathering all the bits and bobs we needed to keep Henry ship-shape and enjoying the surprised delight on everyone’s faces when they saw us

We celebrated being back at Urban Camp with a lovely dinner in their restaurant and I managed to get a little drunk. Whilst in this happy state we met a couple travelling in a Land Cruiser who had come down the West Coast of Africa from Europe as we tried to do – but with no COVID-related border closures they had made it all the way.

We got chatting over a glass of wine and the subject of the north west of Namibia – known as Kaokoland – came up. It is a part of the country that we have never visited, so remote and vast that you would not be wise to do it alone and up to now we hadn’t managed to find anyone else to explore it with.

They were keen to go as well and we decided to go on a road trip together. Initially we talked about doing it in a few weeks’ time but as we went through our plans we realised that if it was going to happen it would have to be right now.

And that meant a lot more preparation work to make both us and Henry properly off-grid ready. We extended our stay at Urban Camp by another two nights and knuckled down with the work that needed doing.

James changed all Henry’s oils at Ollie’s place

And we finally found a new battery at an autoparts shop. James installed it under the scorching sun in their car park whilst the staff looked on slightly bemused. It was not an easy job, the battery was physically larger than the original one and he had to grind the lip off the battery box to get it in

We went to the supermarket and filled our fridge and cupboards to breaking point with food, filled all three of our water containers and filled both fuel tanks plus a spare 25 litre container to the brim with diesel.

We were finally ready to go and early the next morning we set off north. It would take us two days to get to the start of the adventure and we stopped off enroute at the famous Outjo Bakery for a lovely lunch of chicken pie and chips before carrying on to the quiet town of Kamanjab

There is a very nice lodge and campsite in Kamanjab run by a Belgian who loves long-term overlanders. He allows you to stay for free in return for taking photos of your truck and sticking them in their book along with a short history of your journey so far (the shortened version of our journey took up the whole page and most of the other side of the paper!!)

I was up before dawn the next morning to get my training done and found we were being watched by an impala and an ostrich from the other side of the fence

The ostrich was very excited to see me!

It was to be our last night in civilisation for some time so we made sure we had thorough showers, topped up with water and fuel again and then set off into the unknown

We had no idea where we would end up or how long we would be out there, and that was the whole point….