Now in Namibia after a very easy border crossing and slowly heading north to the game parks.
On the way through we stopped first at Fish River Canyon, the second (or third, depending on which source you read) largest after the Grand Canyon. Impressive gouge in the earth's landscape - and apart from 50m either side of the minimal visitors centre not a safety rail to be seen to stop you plummeting 550m at the deepest point. Parked on the rim to watch sunset you took great care making sure you selected reverse as you moved off.
After the canyon it was on to Sosouvlei to see the sand dunes of the Namibian red desert. Again reputedly some of the largest in the world, but after Morocco and the Sahara at Christmas for me a bit of a disappointment, predominantly not because of the dunes themselves, but because how controlled the access was. No driving off the access road, no climbing the dunes except at a fixed tourist point. You were very much the herded tourist and felt you might have well come by bus. (Could have been worse though, they didn't even let motorbikes into the park, so if we'd been on those we would have had to go in by bus).
At the moment we've reached Walvis Bay on the coast. The Lonely Planet guide book struggles to find any positive contents about is architecture but I quite like it in its own way, it's a (relatively) buddy commercial town getting on with life and after a diet of tourist sites that's rather nice. The one tourist thing in town, and part of the reason we're here, is that it also features one of the largest concentrations of flamingoes in its bay.
To end on a much more positive note the roads here have been great. Vast majority are gravel but generally good condition so progress is reasonably rapid. Scenery is constantly changing, but here in the southern half of the country very dry and arid. A scenery lots of people find boring but generally I don't mind as there are always slow changes happening.
On the way through we stopped first at Fish River Canyon, the second (or third, depending on which source you read) largest after the Grand Canyon. Impressive gouge in the earth's landscape - and apart from 50m either side of the minimal visitors centre not a safety rail to be seen to stop you plummeting 550m at the deepest point. Parked on the rim to watch sunset you took great care making sure you selected reverse as you moved off.
After the canyon it was on to Sosouvlei to see the sand dunes of the Namibian red desert. Again reputedly some of the largest in the world, but after Morocco and the Sahara at Christmas for me a bit of a disappointment, predominantly not because of the dunes themselves, but because how controlled the access was. No driving off the access road, no climbing the dunes except at a fixed tourist point. You were very much the herded tourist and felt you might have well come by bus. (Could have been worse though, they didn't even let motorbikes into the park, so if we'd been on those we would have had to go in by bus).
At the moment we've reached Walvis Bay on the coast. The Lonely Planet guide book struggles to find any positive contents about is architecture but I quite like it in its own way, it's a (relatively) buddy commercial town getting on with life and after a diet of tourist sites that's rather nice. The one tourist thing in town, and part of the reason we're here, is that it also features one of the largest concentrations of flamingoes in its bay.
To end on a much more positive note the roads here have been great. Vast majority are gravel but generally good condition so progress is reasonably rapid. Scenery is constantly changing, but here in the southern half of the country very dry and arid. A scenery lots of people find boring but generally I don't mind as there are always slow changes happening.
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