Into the great UNKNOWN
Richard Madden and his wife, Sarah, keep their eye on the horizon on a two-week trip across Namibia
As with much else we had encountered in Namibia, after a while the heightened reality of stroking their giant heads and tickling them behind the ears seemed the most natural thing to do. Our only sadness was that, like all great adventures, ours had eventually to reach its end. — © The
Daily Telegraph
ROAD journeys are abbreviated versions of life itself: they have a distinct narrative, a passing soap opera of people and places moving ever onwards towards that final horizon. Sometimes the petrol threatens to run out, and a flat tyre is an ever-present possibility. A full-on car smash must be avoided if at all possible, but, hey, what’s the point of it all if you never venture out into the great unknown?
My wife, Sarah, spent three months 20 years ago driving around Namibia and has always wanted to repeat the experience. Lucky me! Previously, I had always associated Namibia with the stark, eerie beauty of the Skeleton Coast; I had no concept of the incredible variety of landscapes and ecosystems that make up the rest of the country.
We had 14 days and were determined to see as much as we could of a country that stretches 1 600km from the Kunene River in the north to Fish River Canyon in the south. The urban infrastructure and the B-roads (major routes) are well maintained, while the more scenic C-roads (minor routes) and D-roads (gravel roads) are dusty but still easily navigable. Our Toyota 4x4 hire car was eminently fit for purpose and we survived 3 200km without a single flat tyre or mechanical failure.
The sheer sense of space in Namibia, a country of 2.1-million people in a land mass the size of France, is a revelation. Traffic jams are rare, even in the cities, and in the country you can drive for 100km without passing another car.
Our first stop was Sossusvlei, the highest dunes in the world, on the edge of the Namib, the oldest desert in the world. Here we admired the dunes, along with Dead Vlei, the surreal dried-up clay pan at their base dotted with the scorched, skeletal remains of 900-year-old camel thorn trees.
Back on the road, we were mesmerised by a series of roadside cameos: a family of bat-eared foxes playing in the sedge grass; a herd of mountain zebra, their stripes shimmering in the heat; the sea of bleating goats that engulfed us on a remote hillside; and the long procession of desert elephants as we approached the mountains of Damaraland.
In the south, near the coast at Lüderitz, we visited Kolmanskop, a ghost town slowly being swallowed by the encroaching dunes. Diamonds were discovered there in 1908 and the town rapidly became the focus of a diamond boom. Built in the German architectural style of the colonial power, Kolmanskop had its own ballroom, skittle alley, theatre and ice factory, which all survive, Ozymandias-like, among the dunes.
At Fish River Canyon, on the border with South Africa, we descended into the depths to see 2-billion years of Earth’s history laid bare in a series of descending terraces and swim in the Fish River itself, surrounded by those ancient cliffs.
No one should miss the Skeleton Coast, with its eerie landscapes of grey-white sands stretching to an apparently infinite horizon.
At Cape Cross, 200 000-odd fur seals were a welcome counterpoint to the desolation.
Farther north still, we turned inland towards the rust-red hills of Damaraland, a landscape punctuated by boulders and the olive-green shades of euphorbia bushes, poisonous to humans, but relished by the largest free-ranging population of black rhino in the world. At Desert Rhino Camp, we tracked these highly endangered creatures in the company of local rangers working for the Save the Rhino Trust.
Next, we visited the famous Vingerklip, a totemic pillar of red rock with its distinctive finger pointing skywards. With the surrounding Ugab Terraces, flattopped table mountains, it is another highlight in the long list of Namibia’s unforgettable landscapes.
One final treat awaited us. About an hour’s drive outside Windhoek is Naankuse. Here Dr Rudie and Marlice van Vuuren have created a unique wildlife sanctuary. One of its aims is to help farmers keep their livestock safe from predators in ways that do not involve the predators being shot. The results so far have been promising: many big cats have been captured and relocated; others have been fitted with GPS collars so that farmers can track them and keep their herds safe.
Some animals, though, have become so habituated to man that they cannot be released back into the wild. Among them are the orphaned cheetahs Kiki, Aisha and Aiko, hand-reared by Marlice. We spent an hour stroking them as if they were our own beloved cats back home.