A short and extremely sanitized version our desert tour from 21st December 2007, to 2nd January 2008. The participants were Duncan Brett, Maurice Brett, Neil Hamilton, Nigel Whitehead, Roy Keeler, and a volksie bus. Because of the time honoured principle of what goes on tour stays on tour, all references to the naked Swedish girls, who were at almost every campsite we visited, have been removed.
Hitting the road
Sometime around September or October 2007, Nigel looked at me over a large pint of draught after squash on a Monday night, and muttered something about Namibia being a great place to spend Christmas. I answered back quite enthusiastically, largely because it looked like he was about to buy a round of beers and so it seemed like a really good idea to participate in anything he had in mind.
I didn’t think much more about it, until sometime later Neil spoke to me, asking me if I was interested. If I remember correctly he looked like he might be about to buy a round so I hastily said yes.
We met once or twice after the club, and hopefully pored over maps and swapped a couple of ideas but not much happened. Janet and Denzil dropped out of the original party, Roy (Nigel’s cousin), who I had not met before, came on board, along with his synchro, and suddenly things took a little more shape.
Towards the end of 2007, my life hit what you may call a little turbulence, and I was more than a little distracted. I knew that my brother Maurice (everyone calls him Mo) was coming out from London for what seemed an alarmingly long time, and Neil kindly penciled him into the planning.
With a week to go I had not thought much about the grand desert adventure, except to be vaguely aware that I was going and that I had absolutely no tools or provisions that would be of any use.
Armed with this useful insight, Mo and I went down to the local Sportsman’s Warehouse to get kitted out. Nigel had assured me that a portable fan was essential. The sales guy was really good, and showed me tents, mattresses, Tabard (an anti bug cream) and even anti mosquito soap. After some discussion I went for the 4 man dome tent with flexible poles that even an idiot could put up. The sales guy told me I should be able to get the hang of it. A mattress came next, and of course the anti bug soap! He was very doubtful about the fan, and gently steered me away from it.
Maurice sneered at the idea of a tent. Nigel tells me we’re sleeping under the stars. It’s Africa he explained. Huh!
The day before lift off I was very caught up in what seemed to be a pearl necklace of work disasters to the point, I thought I would be missing the trip altogether.
Still, I made it. 6am we leave. It is essential we are not late because we have to be at Augrabies before 6pm. I shrewdly deduced we were going to Augrabies (You’ll pick up I’m quite sharp).
Mo and I were last to get collected, and on arrival it became quite clear that the holiday was about to face its first logistical hurdle. As Neil so eloquently put it. “Guys, it does not matter how you do it – you are not going to get all that shit in.” We dumped quite a bit of stuff until we had managed to squeeze the essentials in.
By the time we had left it was nearly 7, and I had severe doubts about ever getting everything into the car again.
Our trusty vehicle was a Volkswagen Synchro. It is a kombi with a 4 wheel drive and would be great for touring. No aircon I was informed. Aircons for wussies. This was an old car, maybe older than me. Production of the rear engined microbus stopped in 1989.
Anyway we were off! At about 7:10, Nigel asked if he could have a cold beer, we all thought it was a great idea, and Mo being the closest to the coolbox, handed out 5 ice cold Windhoek Lagers, and thus set the pattern of the trip.
All good tours require a navigator and on the first day, Nigel confidently stepped into the role. His brother had told him that the N7 was pretty boring and a much better and more scenic route was to take the R355 going via places like Calvinia and Kenhardt. What his brother failed to mention was that when we turned off the N1, the tar stopped and we juddered along a dirt road for a few hundred kilometers.
Our holiday took off just outside a farm belonging to Leopold and Irma Van Zyl. We were about 80 km from Calvinia and at least 20 km from the last building when the engine suddenly died.
Now this car was full and the engine was under the boot, we had to unpack everything. Looking around we were in the middle of a hot Karoo landscape with absolutely nothing happening, and no cell-phone reception. I clearly remember that we handled the situation like true adventurers. We stopped, got out, took advantage of the situation to have a piss and all cracked a cold beer. As we had a lot of very cold beer the situation seemed pretty much under control.
Once everything was unpacked, Roy tried to fix the engine without any luck. It really shouldn’t break down he told us. It’s a Chinese 4 wire job, just like the taxis use. He explained. A Toyota in the heart of a Volkswagen. I had another beer.
Eventually we got hold of Willem, a mechanic in Calvinia to come fetch us. He put the Synchro on a trailer and took us to Calvinia. Willem possessed one of the finest Malmesbury bray’s I’ve ever heard, and after having got his auto electrician to fix our car and his wife obtaining a surprisingly low R600, thanks in part to Roy’s strident insistence that we pay cash and don’t want a receipt, we stopped for a burger at Bimbos. It is hard to describe how bad it was, but picture 5 very hungry males, who all whimpered “I can’t eat this” and you may have a merest inkling. The chips would turn an Irishman off potatoes.
15 minutes out of Calvinia, we broke down again, and in the late afternoon sun we duly cracked another beer, and Roy hitched a lift back to Calvinia. The fuses were being blamed, and we managed to get going but broke down for a 3rd time on the outskirts, which is to say about 80m from the town centre.
Willem came and towed us back to garage, and found the problem, being a wire which was lying against a pipe. We got his cell-phone number out of him, but he assured us that he had both fixed the problem and in an hour would have so much brandy in him that it really would not be much use phoning him anyway.
So off we went again, heading towards Brandvlei, with a beautiful sunset. Nigel in his last act as official team navigator, spotted the turnoff to Brandvlei, but since it was a dirt road, and we were on a lovely tar road, decided that we keep going. This was a fine plan with a tiny flaw. We were going the wrong way. We stopped for a piss at Williston at about 9pm, and realized that we were now nearly as far from Brandvlei as when we had left Calvinia. To correct our course we set off on a nameless country road in real darkness.
Amazingly enough there were pools of water in the road as we traveled through an area that gets rain about once a year. We saw no bright lights, driving (according to my map) 122km without passing through even a single hamlet. Visually speaking Brandvlei looks to be one of the most remote towns in South Africa.
Anyway it was now approaching 11pm, we knew where we were & we were back on a road that had a number. We finally got to the Augrabies falls national park gate at about 2am and flopped out mattresses and all went to sleep under the stars.
The next morning we pitched camp, and I got to put up my tent. Nigel put up his tent which was a lifesize model of a hobbits hollow.
Augrabies Falls
For those of you who don’t know Augrabies is derived from the Khoi word meaning place of great noise. The 56m falls lie on the Orange River (which at 2200km is South Africa’s longest river). The park is 55 383 hectares in size, and was established in 1966. On the day we were there the water was flowing at 149,000 litres per second, which was less than the average 312,000. They are 24m wide. We 
saw pictures of the river in full flood – impressive. For those with some geological curiosity, the falls are regarded as a good example of erosion into a granitic basement.
According to the world waterfalls database, Augrabies is the 25th biggest fall in the world in terms of volume. I was surprised to find out that the largest fall in the world is in the Congo – the Inga falls, which pumps out an incredible 42.5 million litres per second over a 96m drop. So folks, it is over 134 times bigger than the falls we saw. I was even more surprised to learn that the world’s three biggest waterfalls by volume are all in the Congo.
The entrance to the reception had an interesting sign. “Administration of snake bite anti-venom requires an expert. As a result of this we do not keep any venom in the park”. The good news was posted below “no-one has died of a snake bite in the park to date”
After walking the falls we retired to the bar, as one does and had a few beers… this was followed by a few more beers at the pool.
In the late afternoon we took a drive around the park visiting moon rock, echo gorge and spotting quiver trees along the way. The gorge above the river is truly impressive. We spotted loads of multi-coloured lizards at the viewpoint, which sort of reminded me of a parrot with 4 legs and a tail.
We headed back to camp and in honour of the falls, the beer drinking moved from a trickle to a flood. Nigel with his already tenuous status of navigator in danger, put doubt in our minds about his braaiing when after watching him cook chops for some 15 minutes he turned over a particularly blackened one and announced that there was only about 15 minutes to go.
That evening we set up camp, with Neil and Nigel under the stars. Nigel showed us how sleeping under the stars did not necessarily mean sleeping rough. Mo, took one look at my tent and promptly claimed the left side as his territory for the duration of the trip. He suffered with hayfever, sometimes quite badly
throughout. His insistence on a tent forced me to put it up every night, but to be quite honest, I was secretly quite happy to sleep under canvas.
During the evening a rain storm hit the area. I knew this because the tent was suddenly ripped open, Neil threw his mattress in and literally dived into the tent.
The next day we went to Upington to try pick up Roy’s vehicle registration papers, but being the Sunday just before Christmas, nothing was open and only the bergies [Cape Town slang for a homeless person] were moving.
Kgalagadi Transfrontier park
Nigel had booked us a night at Twee Rivieren and then a second night in a chalet at Nossop further north. We would then exit South Africa at Mata Mata.
I had no real expectations and was completely blown away at this gem of a place. The 38,000 square km park straddles the South African and Botswana borders, and thanks to this we did touch Botswana soil on the trip.
[If you're thinking of visiting a game park in South Africa, this park is worth considering. Learn more about it here.]
The South African portion was the Kalahari Gemsbok Park formed in 1931, and in Botswana the Gemsbok national park was founded in 1938. Years of informal agreements resulted in the parks being officially combined in 1999 and formally opened on the 12 May 2000.
The name Kgalagadi means land of thirst. The two main rivers are the Nossob (meaning dark clay) and Auob (meaning bitter waters), which according to Wikipedia flow about once per century. There is underground water below, feeding some trees and animals flock to the river bed. Driving along the river and with no vegetation to block your view makes for fantastic game viewing.
We saw some fantastic sights including an almost surreal scene with a lioness in hiding, waiting to pounce on some Wildebeest, and loads of different buck. We’d watched the lioness feeding just before and it was obviously very full because it never pounced.
It was here that we learnt that both Roy and Nigel had been game rangers, and I was amazed at the depth of their knowledge and their ability to be driving along at 40 km/hr, talk, drink cold beer and suddenly say “oh look, there is a black backed jackal sitting under the tree 500m away”.
The best sighting was spotted by Mo, who somehow saw a Cape Cobra take out a shrike. We spent about 20 minutes watching the unlucky bird get eaten. All I can say is that the snake looked like one evil mother to me.
Other notable sightings included a black backed jackal that was on its last legs, po
ssibly with rabies.
We also saw a red hartebeest which is the first time I’ve seen one. You really had a feeling of freedom in the park, it was not crowded and it was easy to visualize yourself in Africa.
[Roy is well known for his animal art. I've done a post on a painting he has done of a cheetah. You can view it here. Let me know what you think of it. We'll be posting more wildlife art shortly. Let me know if you have any queries in the meantime ]
The first evening we endured a fierce windstorm which almost blew the tents flat, and a little bit of rain. The next day we were treated to a small carpet of yellow flowers, which were lovely in amongst the red sand dunes. The scenes were very photogenic, and slowly digital camera photo mania began to take over. The border control at Twee Rivieren is very relaxed, you do your paperwork for the South African exit there and the Namibian entry at Mata Mata.
We got to Nossop camp on Christmas eve. The camp was a lot more basic than Twee Riverien, but our chalet was fine. Our meat turned out to be rotten and so Roy put together a small lentil dish. The local children came round and sang us some Christmas carols and Neil , an old hand in African travel, pulled out a large bag of sweets. For a short while he was more popular than Santa.
For Christmas day we took a leisurely game drive to Mata Mata, the beautiful silence occasionally being punctured by the even more beautiful sound of beer cans opening.
We got to Mata Mata early afternoon, to find out that the campsite was full. Mo, who was loving the game viewing was dismayed. Roy suggested we go find a Namibian who would be able to recommend a place to stay. An old guy from Windhoek recommended Anib Lodge, but to me it came out as annipladge, which proved to make it difficult to find.
Namibia
And so it came to pass that we arrived in Namibia. We barreled along the C15 to Gochas. It is amazing how the atmosphere changed. We drove through the Karoo surrounded by miles of fuck all, and now we were doing the same thing, on a bigger scale, but to me it felt different.
Namibia is 825 418 km2 and is the worlds 34th largest country. It is the second least densely populated one at 2.5 persons per km2. Those of you with a mathematical bent will already have worked out that the population is just over 2 million. It is difficult to pronounce the presidents name. Lets see how Hifikepunye Pohamba rolls off your tongue. Oh, and yep, it’s a dry place.
We missed the lodge first time round and ended up going through a roadblock before landing in Mariental. There we changed a tyre, and then headed back through the roadblock before finding the lodge. Anib lodge is part of the Gondwana desert collection, one of 4 private reserves in Southern Namibia. It was another of those little gems we came across so often on our trip. A friendly man greeted us with a smile and a cold juice. The trappings of luxury were clearly evident, and Mo, judging by his widening smile, had picked up on this.
The camping was a bit of an adjunct to the main complex, but each 
site had its own ablution facilities. There was a fine bar with excellent gin and tonics and we eased into an unexpectedly fancy Christmas dinner.
The guests seemed to be exclusively German.
The next morning I got up and went for a run, it was beautiful. I was on my own, and once I had crested the ridge I could see no buildings. There were buck everywhere, and it felt very special. I followed this up with a giant breakfast at the buffet, where my eyes were too big for my all too large stomach. We then headed off for Sesriem.
Our tyre was giving us problems so we stopped at Maltahohe to have it repaired. Nigel and I played Frisbee on the main road. Now I don’t want to say it’s a small place, but we played for about 20 minutes, and weren’t exactly disturbed by traffic.
On the way through to Sesriem we went through the Zastris pass.
A big sandbox to play in
We arrived at Sesriem, and booked into the most expensive campsite I’ve ever stayed in. It worked out to R275 per person. Sossusvlei is actually a mud pan 65 km away, but the dunes around are simply spectacular. We were on the edge of the Namib desert. It’s a 50 000 square kilometer sand box about the size of Switzerland and is apparently the oldest desert in the world. Wikipedia puts it at 55 million years. In terms of size it is pretty small beer, the Sahara is the biggest sand desert and at 9.1 million km2 is some 180 times bigger. The Antarctic desert lays claim to be the biggest, although I hear you are not likely to get sand in your shoe and ice in your drink is no problem.
We were in the Namib-Nauklift park which is the largest conservation area in Africa.
The dunes can be up to 340m high and are amongst the highest in the world.
When we arrived we had a huge debate as to whether to stay in the campsite or not. We finally went for the campsite, because a) the next campsite was an uncertain distance, b) the site was filling up and c) because those in the camp could leave for the dunes at 5, while those outside had to wait until 6. We got allocated campsite number 26, which was quite short on grass, although there was plenty sand to keep you busy. That evening Nigel discovered another guest at our site, being a feisty and rather evil looking scorpion. The ensuing mayhem led to dire consequences for the now departed scorpion and the rapid erection of Nigel’s tent which we had all nicknamed hobbit’s hollow.
Earlier in the evening we took a drive out to Sossusvlei. A flat beautiful recently tarred road took us 60km straight into the desert. There were signs pleading with drivers not to leave the road. I’m told that because of the dry fragility of the ecosystem in the Namib, vehicle tracks remain for up to 40 years before disappearing.
Initially the dunes were some way from the road and as we got further in they got closer and closer. They were simply spectacular, and it felt absolutely awesome to be barreling along in the late afternoon sun with a cold beer and this magnificent vista. Some 5 km from Sossusvlei the tar abrubtly ended and we engaged 4 wheel drive mode for the last 5km. The heavy sand thickened as we got closer, so eventually we were forced to stop and let out some air on the tyres.
When we got to the vlei, we walked in the dunes, which had now gone a deep red in the light. It was fantastic.
Back at camp we stopped in at the campsite bar for a cold one, since it had been such a long time since anyone had tasted beer.
That night the wind got up, and after dinner of boerewors, we turned in with a plan to wake up at 4:30 and go watch the sun rise. Neil woke me up the next morning, but everyone’s desire to get going had waned. Roy spotted a problem with the fan belt, Nigel & Mo never even got out of their sleeping bags.
After a hurried discussion Neil and I, walked across to the gate and hitched a lift with a Namibian guy called Kerubin. As we were a little late out of the starting blocks we stopped about 30 or 40 km in to climb a dune to watch the rise. We tramped up a huge dune with about a hundred others. Sunrise was spectacular, and the dunes showed a softer side to the harsher light of the previous day. Kerubin was very friendly and hearing about our fan belt problem immediately gave us a spare and refused payment.
It turned out the dune we climbed was a well known and photographed one called Dune 45. Catchy name.
Thinking back on the holiday as a whole I think the dunes around the Sossusvlei area stick in my mind as the absolute highlight of the tour. Our late afternoon walk amongst the dunes, and the next morning’s sunrise was worth the trip in itself. It is a truly special place to visit. [ I plan to do some more research on the dunes and badger Roy into doing some paintings on them. They are really something special. I'd make sure you include them in any visit to Namibia]
Hitching back to camp took a while, we walked along the road for about 45 minutes before a vehicle came along. When it did, it was an overlander. Neil got to sit next to a pretty Dutch girl, I got some American guy. I would have swopped seats.
After breakfast we went to go have a look at Sesriem canyon. We had no real knowledge or expectations. It was unique to the area in that water pooled there for long times, meaning when you were thirsty it was a good place to go. It was named because it took six (ses) ox thongs (riems) tied together to reach the water. The canyon has the most unprepossessing start but as you walk into it winds into something a little more impressive. The canyon is about 30m deep and 1km in length. It was formed when about 15 to 18 million years ago layers of sand, gravel, and pebbles were deposited. Dust containing calcium carbonate was blown over it by the wind and washed in by the river. This calcium carbonate, combined with water, cemented the layers in a calcrete conglomerate. Then about 2 to 4 million years ago, a continental uplift caused a split in the surface that formed the Tsauchab River, which cut through the calcrete layers. This makes the canyon slightly older than us.
After this little geological interlude, we drove off slightly aimlessly but somehow ended up at Agama camp near to Sesriem. It was owned by Jon Leach who it turned out was at Motswari with Roy. Small world. The campsite was in a river bed, but before you panic about us being washed away consider this. We were there in the dying days of 2007, their last drop of rain was April 2006.
Nigel, Roy and I went through to Solitaire to pick up some essentials – ice and biltong.
On the way through we passed a hitch-hiker, and stopped to pick him up. After climbing in, he said nothing for a few minutes and then finally managed to gasp “water”. It must have been 40 something degrees under a blazing early afternoon sun, and he had been walking since 7:30.
Solitaire was pretty much a shop, with a bar, and the almost obligatory car wreck. The wind was pumping, and the place was crawling (ok another couple of cars, ok) with overland travelers. We assessed the situation and had a few cold beers on the deck, while Roy started a rumour of semi naked Swedish beauties at the pool. It apparently has a church built in 1851, but I never saw it. Maybe it fell down.
So, back to Agama. Did I mention it’s finest feature – a pub. After a long afternoon swimming in the pool, drinking beer, eating biltong, and generally chewing the cud with a couple from Eshowe, we decamped to the deck, and had a few cold ones, while watching the sunset.
Things progressed quite well. We met a young Canadian guy who was writing the website for the Supreme Court of Namibia.
At the risk of making us sound like a bunch of un-rehabilitated alcoholics, which would be completely and utterly untrue, the cold beers and fine conversation distracted us so much that Roy forgot about his potjie, and it ended up rather burnt. He was very bleak about it. The rest of us, who by this stage may have struggled to differentiate the meat from the wood at it anyway.
Roy’s first two attempts at cooking disguised the fact that he was an excellent cook, and maybe the shock of a burnt potjie forced him to focus, because thereafter his cooking on the trip was superb.
The next morning we left for Aus, taking the D707, which the old Namibian at Mata Mata told us, was he thought one of the most scenic roads in Namibia
Skirting the Namib Desert
Talk about remote. We motored south in the direction of Aus, and there really wasn’t much between us. Along the way, we saw another car wreck, and Roy stopped to ask the farmer if we could take a picture. The farmer was quite happy, he told me he farmed karakal sheep, and that 2007 ad been a dry year, only 1.5mm of rain, compared to the 70mm of 2006.
Mo loved the sign at the entrance of the farm, and made us go back and get a picture. Somehow in the remoteness of the place the sign seemed to have more impact. Neil had another bag of sweets – so he was the man to the farm children.
Around lunchtime we got to Aus, and stopped off at the Bahnhof hotel for lunch. The menu was a bit inconsistent as for $26 Roy got a sandwich that would have impressed the most obese glutton, and Nigel for $55 got piece of chicken that would have had an Ethiopian muttering about small portions. Neil and I had a couple of Weiss biers.
We made a pit stop at the local store and bought a solid chunk of ice, which delighted Mo. He had taken on the role of keeper of the box, and throughout the trip we were fortunate to have a steady stream of cold beers. Bless him! His knowledge of beer history is not as solid though. He was agitated by Roy’s continual reference to Hansa Tafel, since Hansa was owned by South African Breweries, and Tafel by Namibian Breweries. So here is a bit of beer trivia for you. In 2005, the Hansa brewery in Swakopmund which had been in operation for 77 years closed its taps. It had sold its original brand Hansa Pilsner to South African Breweries in 1983, but also was the producer of …you guessed it Tafel Lager, originally known as Hansa Tafel Lager.
Aus itself, which means place of snakes in Khoi-khoi, and was the site of a world war 1 internment camp.
We spent the night at Klein Aus Vista, which was also part of the Gondwana group. On the downside, the site had no swimming pool. This is a big negative. On the upside they had a good bar. This is a big positive. We had sundowners in the bar, and as was customary, slipped into a few gin and tonics around sunset. Strictly for medicinal purposes, you understand. Even the tonic can said it had quinine.
While we were sitting at the bar, a large, florid German cam from the deck and demanded a draught beer. The barman pulled a can of Windhoek draught out of the fridge. “Nein, you domkopf! Draught Sssshhhhh, Sssshhhhh” he insisted making a pulling motion with his arm. Confused the barman looked around, and tried to explain that there was no draught machine. The german emphatically insisted on a draught just like he had last night & not the junk from a can. His eye’s lit up when he saw his waitress from the previous evening. She immediately understood the situation, and steered him back to the deck, making soothing sounds. Then she shook a draught can & poured it with a big head and took it out to him. Pleased sounds of “Ja, Gut” drifted in from the deck. Outside the sky turned gold.
In the bar there were some black and white pictures of a shot up old car wreck. The story, according to the owner, was some illegal diamond buyers were on the run from the police and got caught in the valley, and a shootout ensued. Now one thing about our trip, was car wrecks, and I’m not talking about the one we were traveling in. Roy is an artist, and is especially interested in car wrecks, for his paintings. What the hell, Dali liked clocks. We saw a lot of wrecks. I think he liked a good wreck, the way Mo liked a good lion sighting.
Aus is best known for its wild horses, and the best place to see them is at the Garub pan. We were very lucky to see them in abundance. There are somewhere between 100 to 160 of them. It felt like we saw all of them. How did they get there? Well, here’s what happened. Emil Keplin, the then mayor of Luderitz, ran a stud farm called Kubub from 1910 to 1914. the farm was abandoned in the early stages of World War 1, and the horses were left to fend for themselves. They were probably joined by a few escaped horses from the Union forces. Some claim horses from the Duiswib stud joined in as well. The restrictions on entry into the Sperregebiet, meant that they could not be captured and they learnt to survive and thrive. The watering trough at Garub pan was established after drought caused the near extinction. Tough buggers, each herd is guided by a stallion. There are also bachelor herds. The stallion does not wait for foals so the sickly die out quickly.
A ghost in the machine.
Just outside Luderitz lies Kolmanskop. It’s a ghost town, and like any good ghost town it is now a tourist attraction. They are busy restoring parts of it, so maybe eventually it will stop being a ghost town and become a tourist town.
The place got its name when Johnny Kolman, got caught in a sandstorm, and survived despite losing his oxen. The hill he got caught on became known as Kolmans hill. Why this happened is not clear to me. Anyway soon after the railway came, but drifting sand meant it was always a problem line. In 1908 a worker picked up a diamond off the ground, and as the fact that you could simply pick diamonds like fruit sank in, a rush began.
As with all things to do with wealth, the wealthy stepped in and on 22 September 1908 the Sperregebiet was declared, 360km by 100 km in size, and giving prospecting rights to 9 companies. Kolmanskop was the hub of it all.
Although Luderitz was only 10 km, it is a long way to go in the desert with no car, so the village sprang up. In its heyday it was home to some 1,500 people, it got electricity before Germany, and the first X-ray machine in Southern Africa. Being a desert town with no well, water was imported from Cape Town. It was a happening place. Girls with loose morals bathed in champagne. War screwed things up somewhat, and in 1920 Ernest Oppenheimer came in and gobbled the whole lot up. He joined the 9 companies into Consolidated Diamond Mines, and by 1923, via the halbscheid agreement, had exclusive mining rights for the Sperregebiet. The headquarters of CDM were in Kolmanskop.
Ernie boy was not a shy lad and went onto get a law passed which effectively gave him control not only the diamond mining industry, but also the right to buy and sell diamonds as suited him, giving a monopoly whose remnants still survive.
Nothing is forever and by 1938, the diamonds had begun to dry up, and when a big deposit was found at Oranjemund, CDM moved its headquarters there. People began moving and the last person switched off the lights in 1956.
Now it is a dustbowl and a powerful reminder of how strong the desert can be. Modernity is returning though. While Roy was diligently getting great shots, and Neil and were doing the same at a second tier level, Nigel and Mo were stuffing their faces with pancakes in the coffee shop.
Luderitz
I don’t mean to be rude, but Luderitz is not a place I’d recommend to visiting aliens, friends or anyone I plan to speak to again.
Its got a couple of old buildings, plonked in and amongst an industrial section, a waterfront that seems utterly pointless. It is next to water, so I suppose it is one up on the Randburg waterfront.
We camped at Shark Island, which was home to a concentration camp. Reading about its history, I came across a line that summed the place up pretty well. “Conditions were terrible, the wind blew.” Roy cooked up an outstanding seafood red curry. There was quite a lot of sauce and rice left over, and Neil insisted we take it up to the security guard instead of throwing it away. The grin we got on delivery was Namib sized. I never found out why it was necessary to have a guard with a rifle patrolling the campsite.
Nigel and I sat on the rocks and hatched a quick business plan, which will make us billionaires. I can’t tell you the strategy involved, because it’s a secret (and because the last section is a bit fuzzy owing to that last beer), but you are invited to the party, once its all up and running.
We went for lunch at the waterfront, which was most memorable for the remarkable display of Nigel eating his first, second and last oyster.
Late in the afternoon, we went to Dias point, where there is a cross commemorating his landing on the 25 July 1488. I don’t think he hung around, and the actual cross that Bartholomew dropped off has been moved to Cape Town. We saw a fake!
I went for a run the next morning. It was cold and misty and I felt like I was running through an industrial area.
Fish, Fish, Fish
Why is the Fish river called the fish river? Who knows, who cares? Anyway around 1.8 billion years things were happening, but to keep it short cracks appeared about 500 million years ago and in a very long 150 million year blink they widened to form a rift valley. 200 million years ago, a handy ice age helped to deepen the valley, and the last 100 million years or so provided the finishing touches with water erosion.
I prefer the San version. A ferocious snake called Koutegein Kooru fled into the desert while being chased by hunters. To get away it burrowed into the earth. Must have been a big snake.
Sites on the internet are generally claiming this as the second biggest canyon in the world, after the Grand canyon. It is 160km long, up to 27km wide and in parts as much as 550 m deep. Guess which river flows through it? The fish. You’re clever.
It is a pretty spectacular hole in the ground. Amazingly when you are 100 m away, you still see nothing. We watched a spectacular sunset at hobas, the main view site. There we ran into an Austrian family with what I call a set of wheels! Play chicken against that!!
It was really hot at the Fish river, the only place I felt uncomfortable in the heat. The pool at the campsite was ok, along with a rather strange sign that warned those with runny noses, infections and open wounds not to enter the water.
We had a skinny dip and Roy cooked an absolutely sublime vindaloo. The meal was so good, it has motivated me to buy a potjie pot and get the recipe.
After dinner and over a few beers (what a surprise) we had a wide ranging debate on politics. In the left corner, weighing in at 180 pounds… We had a remarkably harmonious trip, and virtually no conflict, but we do hold different views. When having another swim later, we discovered that even gentle murmuring carried across the whole campsite, so I guess quite a few people got to hear our views. (If anyone who does not know me and was at the Hobas government campsite on the 30th December 2007, the ones with the weird views were Nigel and Mo. I was busy swimming with the Swedish girls.)
Neil was a quiet sleeper and never snored during the trip, but that night he was like a machine gun. The rest of us were vainly taking turns in trying to shut up at 3 in the morning while campsites adjoining pleaded with us to make it stop.
The next day we set forth for the Roadhouse.
New Year. Welcome 2008
The Canon Roadhouse is, according to the Canon Roadhouse, the stuff of legends. Mo was infuriated by their refusal to supply us with ice in the afternoon, thus forcing us to buy their cold beer. We had a pleasant afternoon at the pool along with the Austrian family who had 3 daughters in bikinis, 1 great, 1 not so great and 1 who had been stealing the cream for a few years.
New year itself was very subdued. The pub was a sauna so we sat at our dinner table outside. It was pleasant but not a party atmosphere. Had it not been new years eve, we would have been asleep by 10.
The next day we went back to South Africa. We crossed the border at Noordoewer, and then hooked a right to Port Nolloth. There really was not much to say about Port Nolloth. It was new years day and it was closed. We had lunch in a coffee shop, and ambled off.
We soon discovered that a large chunk of the North West Cape is essentially closed for business as we ran into a gate at Kleinsee. After some paperwork we were allowed through, and followed the coast down, before ending up at Hondeklip bay.
A brief recon of the campsite showed a dusty, windswept little patch of ground and despite Roy’s assessment of the ablutions as not that bad, there was no way that we were going to stay there.
We ended up in a tented camp called skulpieskraal which was in the end surprisingly good. We had a great seafood dinner for R90 and managed to slip in some wine to wash the beer down.
Hondeklip bay is roughly 200k from the middle of nowhere, and despite some valiant efforts
on a few websites to push its attractions, there really is nothing
there and there was no heyday. Water had to be driven in until 2001, when a pipe to Koingnaas was estab
lished. Water is still very scarce. There is no garage. We found this out when the next morning we discovered our front tyres had no tread.
Despite this, vacant plots are selling there at R400-500 000 a pop which really goes to show that a fool and his money can be parted by a stiff onshore breeze.
Relaxed and contended we arrived back in Cape Town 2 weeks after we left. The trip had made us into alert and elite beings able to see and do things no other could do. If you don’t believe me I’ve attached photographic proof below.
The End
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