Oxy Lady, come in for Thundercat! We suggest pull ing off the road at first opportunity...’ ‘Copy that Thundercat, we’re right behind you.

Two minutes later we grind to a halt in a muddy open area, just off the tar. It’s 7pm and pitch-dark. A rainstorm is pounding down, restricting our sight to about five metres. There’s no point driving, so we turn the volume louder until the sound of drowns out the angry water smacking us from above. The radio crackles and distorted tones of burst through. We look to our left and smile. Mike’s entire Land Rover, filled with three heads of bobbing hair, is bouncing to the rhythm like crazy. We’re somewhere between Keetmanshoop and Windhoek en route to Etosha. Then, as quickly as it had come, the rain stops and we move on. Driving in the dark is not recommended in Africa, let alone on wet roads. But we are running out of time, and have to squish what is essentially a three-week 4×4 trip to the northernmost part of Namibia into 15 days. This adventure has been a long-standing dream and when our son, Benn, completed his studies in Amsterdam, we jumped into action. His high school buddy, Mike, and girlfriend, Cieara, joined us and so, with two trusty Land Rover Defender Td5s, we set off from Cape Town for Namibia’s wild frontier, with the infamous Van Zyl’s Pass as the pinnacle of our adventure. The first two days are a long haul. Apart from a border crossing at Noordoewer and stopping for photographs, it’s pretty much just driving. We snack, read, play music and keep pushing on. Finally we reach Okahanja, 70 kilometres north of Windhoek. We stock up for two days of camping in Etosha before spending