A final drone panorama I made of Camp Wewelsburg, the nice thing was that I did it during sunset, enjoy!

I also finally figured out why some previous drone panoramas where not loading in their full quality on the blog, so make sure to check out the old ones, and see them in full quality now.

Yet another drone panorama I forgot to post. For this one I flew up over a nearby mountain, mainly because I was interested in what we can see behind it. The actual lodge at the place was around the corner and I hoped to be able to spot it (but I wasn't actually...)

Then I also took a second pano, this time over the location of the camp, take a look around:

Right in the beginning of our journey we stopped at the quiver tree forest. This was where I had my first plays with star photography. I never really had done it before so I did not get great results at first. I also decided to make a time lapse there, setup my camera near the place where we were eating and then let it run in interval mode for about 150 shots. Played at 25 fps this gives about 6 seconds, and the capture ran for around 2h. After some editing on my computer now that I am back home I managed to get a decent looking time lapse. The only minor issue being that the focus is off slightly... But it seems good enough for phone screens and Instagram anyways 😜

The final day had started and we all knew it was time to go back home. So we used the first half of the day to find all our belongings that where distributed over the car, backpacks, tents and elsewhere and sort them back into our main luggage. Also we still had some food left so we tried to eat most of it and then gave the rest of the leftovers to a lady at the camp. Finally we filled 2 boxes with noodles and green pesto to still have something to eat before we return the car later.

I also took another look around the little shower house behind us. It was a bit bigger in the back and also housed a kind of slaughter place, a huge industrial fridge and what seemed to be an emergency power generator.

After finishing our lunch we played cards and I did some final calls with the satellite phone. In the end we never really needed it but it was quite good to know we had it and it worked, so we could have called for help in case of an emergency with no cell phone coverage. That said cellphone coverage was much better than I expected, and only on the longer roads it was not really working.

The final kilometers back to Windhoek went pretty smooth, all tar roads, no surprises or anything else.

In Windhoek we gave back our car, ate our food and then met some other fellow Austrians, that had also rented their car at AfricaOnWheels. They asked if we are OK with joining their trip to a "craft market" as there was only one driver who had to bring all of us to the airport, and we where fine with that.

The craft market was not too far from the rental place, and was a 3 story building with lots of small shops. A lot of the items sold there we have seen in other places throughout our journey, but here they seemed well made too and also fairly priced. All the owners of the little shops had a shared credit card terminal on each floor, so if one was to buy something with card they would walk you up there, and note down the transaction id to their name. Quite a clever system I though. We bough some souvenirs and then moved on.

At the airport I got some bottles of Namibian gin which I have yet to try and then we started our journey, 10h to Frankfurt, then I went on to Amsterdam and the others took my luggage back to Vienna. At the air field we were greeted by the setting African sun right behind the plane

In general the whole trip went really great, we saw an amazing country with a vast amount of animals, and had a pretty good time. Also I enjoyed how all of our skills added together to nicely during the trip. I can highly recommend Namibia as a country to travel to, and I might do it again in a couple of years from now... Until then, or until I start my next travel blog project:

The plan of the day was to head out early, check out the "Tsumcore" waterhole (with a high probability of lions), then have a late breakfast and finally continue our journey back in the direction of Windhoek. We had quite a lot of kilometers to get through to get back after all.

We drove to Tsumcore but did not see a lot of animals there so then we decided to head out to the main road again. Another car was there that drove very slowly and we decided to do the same. Despite our all great efforts in spotting we could not see any animal for about an hour, but then when almost heading back to the Fort Lukas suddenly screamed out "THERE HE IS, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LANDSCAPE"

And indeed, a big male lion was walking slowly in the grass fields to our right side.

We saw him walking for a couple of minutes until he decided to lay down under a tree. One could still see his head a bit but not much more of his body. Afterwards we still tried to find a cheetah, as somebody told us there were some seen about 10 minutes before near the fort, but we did not manage to find them. Pumped about our second lion sighting we went back to the camp and had our late breakfast.

Continuing our journey we drove out of the national park. Right in front of the gate we met a group of little meerkats casually walking on the road.

During the entire stay in Etosha we also saw an amazing amount of termite hills, some of which we tried to take pictures of, but us they moved so fast we could only get them out of focus 😜 Nonetheless most of them were huge and pretty impressive.

After a long drive and a quick shopping stop we arrived at Camp Wewelsburg a small family owned farm that was between Etosha and Windhoek. We had a shower with water warmed by a fire and a nice spot for our car. Several baby goats where feeding around us and even a few peacocks. We spent the rest of the day starting to order our stuff, I prepared some blog posts and also got out the drone for another round of flying.

The family owning the place was third generation Germans, and we were told that their grandfather had originally purchased the land in 1912, and moved there after the first world war had ended. They had also hired a few people to help out with the farm, who where currently staying at the camp as well. After recovering from the day we had a good, final night of sleep in our tents before we had to bring back the car.

On day 10 we started from the camp, early morning I checked on the waterhole, but there was just a few gnus there. We left in the morning at about 10 or so. That was very relaxed but maybe not the best idea as the likeliness of seeing animals is much higher when you leave earlier. Nonetheless we drove to the first waterhole and where greeted with an astonishing amount of animals. Ostriches, Zebras, Giraffes, Elephants, Gnus and Springboks were all chilling there, together with a bunch of safari cars that were watching them.

While standing there it got pretty warm inside of our car. Also we still had empty phone batteries and stuff so we left the air conditioning on and where actively charging several devices. After about half an hour standing there we decided to move on, but when Johanna tried to start the car it would not let her do so. So even though it is super forbidden I had to step out of the car and ask some of the other cars for help. In some way we where quite lucky as there was a lot of other people around... this could have happened anywhere else too, with nobody around

The second car I asked for starter cables was one of the parks game drivers. He first looked at me, about to tell me why I am crazy enough to get out of the car, but then quickly understood my problem. Together with another guy they quickly had everything hooked up and we could start our car again. After this we decided to unplug all the chargers, disconnect the fridge in the back and also turn the air conditioning off for the next couple of hours. Also we did not dare to turn off the motor so fast again 😅

After this little adventure we enjoyed the rest of the day in the car, it was quite hot as we where out during the middle of the day but it was OK. Our biggest objective was to eventually find a lion but at first we did not have so much luck. Nonetheless we saw an amazing amount of animals.

Then after some time we saw a car stopping before us and looking into the distance. Curious as always we stopped as well and try to spot something, it took us quite some time to figure it out but then we saw him, a male lion, relaxing in the distance.

It was quite far away, but we could watch him stand up and lie down again once. That was a great success for the day and we were quite happy we stopped by the other car.

Arriving at Halali we found ourselves a good spot for our car and then jumped into the pool there as well.

After dinner we visited Halai's Waterhole. This one was a lot smaller than the one in the first camp, and also a bit more hidden. We got there when it was almost dark, but again we could see Rhinos. This time we even saw the much more rare "white" rhino (which has a much broader mouth). A "black" rhino was also at the place, and there was again some kind of tension between them. One of the guys at the waterhole mentioned that interactions between the two kinds of rhinos are quite rare as well. While watching the spectacle several hyenas also entered the area. I had quite some trouble taking pictures of them as they moved very fast and at this waterhole there was even less light than the day before.

While sitting there we met 2 German girls that told us they had seen lions the day before. They also mentioned logbooks in the reception where people would write down special sightings near the camps. So we decided to get up early next day, checkout the waterhole and then head out to some of the waterholes mentioned in the logbook of camp Halali.

We got up at around 6 and went straight to the waterhole... but to our disappointment there where almost no animals at all. Several birds, a zebra but that was about it. We sat there for a while, but then decided to move on

We changed our plan a bit and decided to cut breakfast short so we could get out into the park faster, then we started driving out. It took some searching but after some time we found rhinos and elephants hiding in the bushes. We also saw quite a few kudos.

The plan lead us to Fort Namutoni, an old German fort with a waterhole, where we planned to stay for the next night. On the way there we again saw a game driver car standing next to the road. After asking them what they are looking at they told us that a leopard is hiding in the grass. We could not see them, but waited at the place, just like a bunch of other cars.

We waited for almost an hour, then drove to the other side of the grass area when one of the park guides got a call and started to drive back to our first spot. We followed along and right when we arrived the leopard jumped up and made a round in the grass, before starting to race across the street right in front of our parked car. In a moment of clear thought I pressed the shutter and got some great pictures.

The leopard then approached a group of springboks, but only to scare them away and then rushed off into the distance. The game driver went back to the fort and so did we. That gave us some minutes to check in at the campsite, but I quickly realized that the driver is just stopping for a toilet break. I called Lukas and the others and we decided to quickly follow him.

Driving out for 2-3 minutes we saw a lot of cars standing near a big tree, and on there was yet another leopard, casually looking into the distance. I could get some great shots of him, even one on which he showed his face.

After those exciting sights we decided to eat something and prepare our dinner, to later head out again for another safari trip.

During the second round we saw some vultures and also some hyenas, some feeding, some bathing.

And that c0ncluded our day, taking us from Halali to Fort Namutoni and showing us the biggest selection of wild animals we all have ever seen in one day. The waterhole at the fort stayed empty in the night, so we decided to head out earlier one more time the next day to try and see some more animals... 🦁

The next day we started to make our way further up north to the Etosha National Park, one of Africa's largest national parks. The park is a 22000 square kilometer area with massive amounts of animals around the "Etosha pan", a large dry area. In the park there are lots of waterholes where one can watch animals.

The park is surrounded by a large fence and to get in there is a big gate. Entrance fees are only collected when you arrive at the camps inside the park, of which there are several. Inside the park it is not allowed to leave the car, open roof cars are not allowed. Also there are very strict regulations on drones and waste inside. The only place where you can walk around freely is inside the fences of the camps and you are only allowed to leave these camps between sunrise and sunset.

After checking in at the camp we had a quick small lunch and coffee and also jumped into the pool for a quick cool down.

Afterwards we went to the camps very own waterhole. The waterhole is next to a large half round stone wall with lots of benches, where people can sit inside the camp and watch the animals at the water. There are even lamps so one can see better at night. Right when we first arrived there a huge group of elephants came by, so we stayed for a bit.

After that we decided to drive a little in the park while there was still light. After all we also wanted to see more animals, kudoos, gnus, and of course big cats.

Out in the park we saw a family of giraffes with some zebra support cross the street in front of us. We also saw some more animals and returned safely before the gate closing at sunset back to our camp. We opened the tents and then I went for a couple of minutes to the waterhole again, where I saw several giraffes drinking some water in front of the setting sun. Watching giraffes drinking is pretty funny, as they have to spread their legs like Bambi to reach the water with their head.

While I was checking out giraffes and other peoples camera gear at the waterhole, the rest of the team had already prepared a marvelous dinner: Burgers. Lukas quickly had made burger pattys and we had salad, sauces, caramelized onions and toasted buns. It was delicious! 😋

Finishing off the day I brushed my teeth and went to the camps waterhole for a final time. There we saw rhinos for the first time. 2 of them where drinking when I arrived, then left and after 20 minutes came back. Following this 2 more rhinos arrived and one of them got into a kind of fight with the first two. It was very interesting to observe. To me it seemed like the first two rhinos where a mother and a kid and the third one was a male one. There was no real physical attack between them, more the game of power in their looks and movements, sometimes even jumping in each others direction to scare the other away.

I had quite some difficulty to shoot good pictures as there was very limited light, anyways I tried and here are the results. Generally I really enjoyed this first day at the park and was looking forward to what more we would see in the coming days... 😁🦏🐘🦒🦁

During our short stay in Swapokmund I made a spherical panorama of the bay. I decided to add it to the blog and finally found a nice interactive way to do so.

Unfortunately it was very windy, so there is a noticeable stitching error in the panorama. Most of it looks nice though.

Enjoy!

After our tour in Swapokmund we drove to the next point on the roadmap: Uis, a very small place located perfectly to our next points of interests. To not get hangry (hungry -> angry) again we also made ourselves some avocado sandwiches.

On the way we also saw a lot of little huts along the road, like little shops selling gem stones. because of previous experiences we decided to not investigate them further.

Uis is quite a bit bigger than Solitaire, meaning it is not just a highway petrol station with a camp. All places on the campsite had a straw house for shade, a private shower, toilette and dish washing area, similar to the campsite in Swakopmund. Also there was a pool and a fireplace. Even though it was quite a cold evening already we went for the pool and afterwards we got some free firewood from the owner of the place, to make a little campfire.

For dinner we planned to make chicken with potato dumplings, and since we already had the fire we moved our dinner table next to it.

Next day we started the drive to the Damara Living Museum. The Damara are one of the native tribes of the area (likely the biggest but I am not 100% sure). On the way there we again saw lots of little "shops" with gemstones. This time there where some people at each of them, trying to wave us to their place. Later on we learned that most of these people are from the Himba tribe.

The museum had a nice parking place and we had to pay an entrance fee for a "Tour of the museum including bush walk". A guy called Thyron was our guide. He also introduced himself in Damara language, but I cant remember nor spell it in letters. One of the main features of the Damara language is the use of 4 different types of "clicks" (sounds made with the tongue) that are part of many words. When trying to replicate these words all of us failed on getting timing of the clicks right. Still Thyron and the others were passionate about repeating words to us, and I think we can now all say How are you? (Madisa) and Thank you (Aius or Kay Aius for Thank you very much)

In the different huts we where shown different traditions and workflows of the old Damara people. We saw a blacksmith creating tools, different plants used as medicine, traditional beer and how different kinds of jewellery where made from ostrich egg shells and melon seeds.

Afterwards Thyron lead us to the trees behind the little village to show us the bush walk. We got some explanation for different plants, especially the Mupani Tree. This tree is used for brushing teeth, treating diarrhea by chewing on the leaves, makes the best firewood and has likely even more uses that I forgot about. It is also one of the most common trees in the Namibian desert and it has leaves shaped like a butterfly. All the plants where explained to us by a lady in Damara language and translated into English by Thyron afterwards. Finally we got a hunting demonstration and saw one of the traps the Damara used to build when hunting was still allowed in Namibia.

As a last part we got a quick presentation how fire is made without matches and a traditional dance show from the entire village. Lukas and Thyron also traded knifes, an Opinel vs one of Thyrons handmade knifes. Then we all checked the shop and I got myself a traditional razor / multi-tool. (You can see the knife and the razor further up in the images from the blacksmith's hut)

The next stop for day 8 was the stone engravings of Twyfel Fontein, one of the oldest places in Africa known for these kinds of traces. Twyfel Fontein in dutch means "doubtful fountain" and comes as the place is located next to a fountain that sometimes has water and sometimes does not. These engravings have been made by people of the bushman tribe thousands of years ago. They show what kind of animals where in the area, locations and conditions of waterholes, shamanic rituals and states of trance and other interesting details. The area is a protected world heritage site and can only be explored with an official guide. The tour takes about 45 to 60 minutes.

During that time we also saw a lot of animals like lizards and different birds.

Finally we took some time to checkout the national park center building, with lots of information on the place, its history, nature and drawings.

To end the day we drove to a campsite in the area (Khorixas). It was located near a gas stop with loud music, but inside the fences of the camp there was even a springbok running around, not one of the best nights but quite OK. In the evening we also had a few cups of tea with the security guards around our campfire, that also helped us out with some more firewood and told us some stories from their lives and families 🔥.

From the "Alte Brücke" camp site we made another early start to arrive at a meeting point at around 8:00 in the morning. There we got picked up by "Tommy's Tours" for a so called "Living Desert Tour" to checkout all the animals living in the sand of the Namib desert. The main attraction are Namibias "little five"

• The white lady spider
• Palmato Gecko
• Lizards aka "Desert Ferraris"
• Sandviper
• Chamelion

Our guide for the tour was Bianca, who was very friendly and passionate about the desert. Apparently her father was also a rally driver, giving a hint to where her extraordinary desert driving skills might have come from.

The first animal we encountered was a baby sandviper. Their poison is not necessarily deadly to humans, but it is still very nasty. You might loose toe if it bites you. A baby viper has the same amount of poison as a big one, but it cant yet control the amount of poison in a bite. This makes the babies more dangerous, as a big snake might spare the poison, as it just tries to scare you off instead of killing you. The sandviper is also a side-wynder snake, enabling it to move up a sand dune if it needs to.

While Bianca was showing us animals and telling us many facts about them and their lives her colleague was roaming the area, searching for spots to checkout next. One of the things that got him exited was a closed hole in the ground. In the desert an empty hole means the animal that used to stay there has left, but a closed hole means it has "closed the door behind itself" and is very likely still in the tunnel it dug. This hole seemed to belong to one of the famous Palmato geckos.
These night active animals are especially pretty as their skin is transparent, revealing their inner organs. Bianca started to dig out the gecko with her hands and after some short moments of uncertainty for us she got him.

The gecko was really calm in her hand, and she could show us that when flipped it always lands on its feet again, similar to a cat. She also showed us that it has 2 genitals (as all male geckos) and told us about its ability to regenerate its tail.

Moving on we got back into the 2 little tour buses, the guides had already lowered the tire pressure to ease the driving in the sand, and we headed further on into the sand.

Occasionally Bianca stopped and checked the area, calling us out of the car if she had found something interesting. We also stopped a few times so she could pickup some waste and collect it.

Lots of the plants we saw where so called "dollar bushes" a succulent plant that stores a lot of water. It is one of the main sources of liquid for the animals here. Another one is the Tok-Tokie Bug, that can drink the water that condenses on its body in the morning fog. Bigger animals eat the bug and get their liquid this way. We also saw the tunnels of the white lady spider, consisting of spider web structure. To hunt the spider throws out little sand balls with a spiderweb attached, to serve as a trap for other animals.

Another highlight was a fully grown horned viper. It has been around in the area for a month or two and we also got to see it. It usually lives in the stone field areas of the desert, less likely in the sand.

On to the next of the "little five" Bianca managed to catch one of the very fast running lizards in the dunes. To do that she threw her hat, so the lizard thinks a bird is approaching. To hide it dug itself into the sand and Bianca could quickly dig it out again. After showing us the animal she also made sure to put it back to the same spot, as these lizards have very precisely defined territories.

One time we stopped at a dune with a great view over the area. As we where so close to Swapokmund still we even had LTE there. Several birds where also checking if there is something to get from us.

We also stopped at a desert toilet that has been put there by the tour people. There we could feed some of the birds with mealworms and they even fly up to peoples hands to fetch the food.

Afterwards we got a quick physics demonstration. Lots of the sand in the dunes contains Iron Oxide. This is also the reason why the sand in Sesriem looked a lot more red than here, as the sand here comes from the ocean and did not have so much time to rust yet. While the sand is traveling further into the country it rusts more and gets a more reddish color. If you take a magnet and move it over the sand you get all the iron oxide particles sticking to it.

Another experiment was to put some water into the sand and dig out a piece. This reveals the layer structure that makes up the dune. Bianca showed us also how this looks when the sand is dug up freshly, showing that there are no layers then.

For a final stop Bianca parked the car right to the edge of a dune from where we could see the ocean, and also take lots of awesome pictures.

After the tour finished we headed onward on the road, next stop: Uis 🚗

After our adventures in the sand in Sesriem we drove onward on a pretty bad road. To shorten our drives we decided to stay in Solitaire, a small place, not much bigger than an average gas station next to a highway in Europe. There is a bakery / restaurant, a small store, a workshop, campsite and lodge with pool. So basically everything you need for a tourist stop. Also some tours are offered to nearby Cheetah Sanctuary.

As the place is famous for its Apple Pie (and we were starving anyways) we decided to try it right away.

Several birds and other animals where joining us while we sat at the restaurant and I took some pictures. I also finally had time and internet to fix all the issues with the blog, so you can finally see more posts, and even click images to enlarge them. After relaxing for a little we jumped into the pool and finally made some good food.

After it got dark it was time for another round of milky way pictures. As the moon is growing larger the night sky seems less intense. Maybe it is also just because of the different locations or because we are in more dusty areas than in the beginning... not yet sure 🤔...

Continuing our journey we drove another 200 something kilometers to Swapokmund. On the way there we passed some absolutely stunning landscapes, hills and valleys, lots of yellow grass and very dusty roads. I took the opportunity to fly my drone and also take some more pictures.

Here are some more photos:

After a longer drive, during which I finally tried cruise control on our fancy car 🛞, we arrived in Walvis Bay. This place is famous for lots of flamingos 🦩 that live there. Other than that it is mostly an industrial area, which is why we did not want to stay there. But on our way through we could see an amazing amount of flamingos in big flocks, near a river and in the sea. While watching we could even observe 3 dolphins that where showing their fins every now and then between all the flamingos.

After a couple more kilometers we arrived in Swapokmund. We chose the campsite called "Alte Brücke". It was quite a strange experience for a campsite, lots of green grass, and every site hat its own little house with shower, toilet and dish washing area. Later on we found out that it is called "Old Bridge" because it is near the old railway bridge, that was destroyed by the Swapok river in 1934. You can still see the leftover pillars today.

Finally we headed to the beach and city. On the way we found a lot of interesting shells and bones on the beach and met a few hundred people that where really eager to sell us some souvenirs for a lot of money... But overall it was interesting to see Swapokmund with all its "German-ness", Brauhäusern and even posters for the "Swapokmund Männergesangsverein" established a very long time ago.

In the evening Johanna did test out swimming in the very cold sea and we found a very nice restaurant with great fish for our dinner, where we spend the evening, before preparing for our next early morning trip to the desert... 🏜 but this is for the next post...

During our stay at the very nice campsite near the D707 we where dealing with a lot of black/bluish birds, here are a few shots of them.

After an amazing sunset I also tried to shoot some stars again. While we where sitting outside we noticed several wild horses approaching us again and I could even get them into one of my milky way shots.

Next day we did leave early. I got a chance to try the first call on our Satellite telephone, which currently seems to only work with Austrian landlines... this needs to be tested later on again... On the way back to the main road we could watch lots of Oryx and Springbok herds again. Also several times we could see wild ostriches

D707 is basically just a pretty route. It is certainly not the main road that most locals would use here. To go on to Sesriem we were back on a C grade route. As we proceeded back to said main road we encountered more of Namibia's vast landscape that even sparked some memories of Iceland. The black, clustered mountains with yellow grass patches look strangely similar to some of the volcanic areas in the north. On the way we also met a big herd of Zebras, that where feeding near the road.

Our next stop was Sesriem, a small area famous for its national park and canyon. To get inside we had to pay a fee, but we did stay at a campsite inside the park. This was intentional, as the park opens at sunrise and at that time we wanted to be sitting on a dune already. Sleeping inside the park allowed us to move around from 6:15. But for the first part of our stay we did check out the canyon, which was close to the campsite.

The camp was quite nice, although we had to deal with some sand and wind in the evening. Johanna and Sophie did move on their plan to make lentil curry for dinner and it worked out nicely. Meanwhile we also tried powering our fridge from AC for the first time. Cable was a bit short but we found some creative hacks. Unfortunately it worked so well that we had -8 °C the next day, freezing our groceries for a short while 🥶

Next morning, wake up at 5:15, packing tents, brushing teeth and getting minimal breakfast. Then we queued up near a gate with a couple of other early birds to drive about 45 minutes down the park till we got to Dune 45. The plan was to hike up the dune and then watch the sunrise at 7:11. Although we where very good on time we did not see a lot of sun, as there where a lot of clouds. Nonetheless the trip on the dune was a great adventure and we had a lot of fun moving through the sand.

From the dune we drove a few kilometers on tho the next highlight: Dead vlei, the valley of dead trees and Soussusvlei, a waterhole in the Namib desert.

For the last part of the trip we did park our car and switch to the provided shuttle service. It is possible to continue on with a 4x4 car like ours but it is very likely to get stuck in the sand. Then we would have to pay a fine and that risk was not really worth it. Later I was told by one of the shuttle car drivers that the day before 6 cars got stuck, so you can get a feeling how often that happens. Also he mentioned that many rental cars have problems with their 4x4 mode and are not serviced properly.

After a short but fun ride we did start another hike to Dead Vlei, about 1km down the dunes. Then we saw the dead trees, which are a pretty fascinating sight, almost like an art exhibition made by nature.

Moving on we got another short shuttle ride to Soussusvlei, where we saw lots of desert flowers and the waterhole. The surface of the ground there contains lots of clay and can hold the water for quite some time. That said just one day earlier there even was a little bit of rain.

That concluded our stay in Sesriem and we spend the rest of the day driving onward, next stop: Solitaire, but then is for another post 📸☀😁

After leaving the quiver trees we decided to fill up our Diesel and head on to the next stop: Klein-Aus Vista Camp, a beautiful camp site, situated between some hills. The area is famous for Namibia's wild horses. After checking in we headed straight to a waterhole about 20km from the place to spot some of them.

What we found was a little hideout with a toilet, near a man made waterhole. Several horses where standing there, including a young one. In the hideout we also met a group of old Germans, who where apparently on a round trip, and started to mix their early afternoon gin tonic.

Still amused by the fact how similar these guys where to an average student trip we continued to spot more horses in the distance, some of them slowly approaching the waterhole, some of them just feeding on the dry fields..

When we came back to the campsite it was time to checkout the sunset by climbing one of the nearby hills.

Johanna did collect a melon like fruit from the waterhole. After doing a quick taste test we decided it is not really good to eat and tastes very bitter. But it seems to be one of the primary sources of liquid for the animals living here. We prepared some delicious pasta and then continued to watch the stars. Unlike the first night it was very, very windy and Lukas spent some time during the night on improving the tents strength with wires. I also took some time to improve my star photo game.

The next day we started by preparing some “Arme Ritter” and then started our next road segment. Before leaving I tried to upload Day 2 of the blog and discovered a problem in my site generation scripts… unfortunately I broke my NodeJS installation completely when trying to fix it, which is why this blog post will only make it to the web much later 😥

The next planed stop is the Namib Lodge, next to the famous D707, one of the desert roads.

Roads in Namibia are named after their surface quality. A and B are tar roads, C and D are gravel roads.

Besides that we can only drive 80 Km/h there and that we collect a high amount of dust, the view proofed to be amazing.

After some time we arrived at the entry of the national reserve, in which the lodge is situated. Entering there we encountered a different area of the savanna. Much more green grass, trees and shrubbery where lining our path. Next to us we got the nearest encounters yet with several Oryxes, Springboks and many different Birds.

Arriving at the lodge we were informed to be the only guests of the day, although they have been pretty booked for the last weeks, so we got lucky.

To get to the campsite we had to leave the lodge again and drive some couple hundred meters back.

The actual campsite had very nice toilets, showers, fireplaces and even proper waste separation. We chose to spent the rest of the day relaxing, staring into the savanna and looking for animals. AS this post has already become pretty long I will continue in the next one… lets hope I can get them online soon….

Continuing our Journey we arrived at the quivertree forest camp at around 18:30 on day 1. I must note that I usually write while we are on the road, so my posts might be overlapping a little bit, in this case also covering the evening of day one.

As the sun started to set (happens at about 19:00 here during this time of the year) we went to see the quiver trees, a special kind of tree, that is able to store a lot of water, as it is basically a big sponge. They look really pretty. During sunset I was able to get some really nice pictures. I also tried some star photography, but was not pleased with the results yet. But since the night sky looks amazing here in most places I will certainly retry 🌌

After having completed a long day we decided to test our equipment and grill some sausages, which made for a really nice first dinner.

Next day we took down our roof tents ⛺ (which we all agreed on to be quite comfortable 😁). We spent  some time with breakfast, were we were visited by big swarm of little birds, that live in the quiver trees. They were extraordinarily interested in our honey loop cereals. Perfect time to get out the telephoto lens.

Then we went to explore the forest once again and found quite a few Dassies (Procavia capiensis), small little fellas similar to a gopher. Also we could check out the trees a bit better

The dassies really did not try to hide, some of them even jumped across the path right in front of us.

We finally left the quiver tree camp and headed to our next stop, the Giant's Playground. This place if famous for its stone structures, it is basically a very large field with lots of stacked stones, reminding of building blocks based by giants.

We took some time to explore there, and I also had some time to fly my drone.

Finally we went shopping in Keetmannshoop and continued our journey on the road ... 🚗 Next stop: Aus

After a long flight we arrived at Windhoek at about 7 in the morning. Against our expectations the temperature was quite chilled, some of the airport personnel where even wearing gloves. We quickly found our pickup but then figured that we need to get enough cash to pay for the car, which proved to be quite tricky as the ATM machines at the airport where only able to handout between 100 and 200 euros in Namibian dollars at a time.... so after about an hour or running between different ATMs and switching cards we managed to get it together. Additionally we got 2 sim cards and then headed to Windhoek  with our driver to get the car.

Arrived in Windhoek we where shown our car, rigged with two roof tents and filled with all the camping gear one could need for a desert road trip, the guys and gals from AfricaOnWheels where super nice and showed us the ins and outs of our car. The car is a very nice Toyota Hilux, with a cooler, automatic gear, 2 spare tires, compressor, camping table, seats, water tank and so on.... We got an intro on how to use the roof tents and operate the 4x4, then we headed to buy some grocers, Johanna taking the lead on driving on the wrong side of the road.

Today's trip will take us to Keetmanshop as we need to get ahead of the day we lost due to the missed flight in the beginning.... So about 500 Km to go for the day... We already saw some giraffes next to the road  🦒 🦒 🦒 😁