H2F's English Trip Report

[Uys]

No teasing about my tenses!

Afrikaans version here: http://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/...ad.php?t=27618



Saturday 13 Desember 2008

We got up early to start packing, space is limited, and there is a lot of stuff that must be loaded. It is 37º outside, and if you are leaving anything in the sun for longer than 10 minutes , it will burm when rying to load it.


The kitchen was first, two wolfpacks, and two custom boxes in the drawer system.



The fridge is on a slide that tilt downwards when opening to ensure easier access.



The dome, chairs and other diverse items loaded on the roof.



Loading the vehicle is hard work, and tiresome to some of us.



Sunday 14 December 2008

We got up at 4h30 to leave for Kang where we are spending the first night. Everything was loaded yesterday, so we can just get in and leave, o yes, and fill all the diesel containers, I forgot yesterday





Everything went well all the way to Zeerust where we stoped for breakfast. After starting the vehicle, the GPS (Colorado 300 -6 months old) wouldn't start again. We re-loaded the maps, after which it worked, but we had to reload twice again the same day.

The border post went well ons the South African side as well as at immigration on the Botswana side, vehicle clearance was the problem. We stood a the que for an hour and a half - everybody South Africans on their way to NAM. Just after paying my R150 for insurance the announcement was made that we didn't need to pay if going to Namibia. At that point 23 people that stood in front of me allready paid and left. It was lunch tie, and I couldn't help but wonder if that had something to do with it. I did however not fight to got y money back, we've allready spend more time than planned, so we left for Kang.

From there everything went well to Kalahari Rest (S23 31.193 E22 36.591) where we stayed the first night. It is a very good camp, and not to expensive - we paid R162 in total for the night. Ablutions was clean, and every stand is fenced on three sides for privacy.




Maandag 15 Desember 2008 – Captain’s log


We had a good night rest, and it rained about 1mm, I would guess. We got up early and started loading, made breakfast while we waited for the tent to dry out. I took much longer than we anticipated though and we only left at 11h00, later on during the trip we did everything much faster.


On the way to the border post, almost halfway between Kang and Ghanzi, we stop to take a look at this party. We stood there for 15 to 20 minutes, watching and taking photographs. All the way through Botswana we saw plenty of dead animals next to the road, and as far as I could see none were hit by vehicles, as they were all lying quite far from the road.

What amazed me about was that nobody stoped to watch. I would say that about 15 vehicles passed us while we were standing there and nobody even slowed down!




Going through the border post at Buitepos went fairly OK, but the officials here cannot! be described as efficient. The officials at the Namibia side was quite rude, much more so than the previous three border post we went through so far. One police man was very frindly, and after pointing me in the right direction for the next office he also ran after me to remind me to take my vehicles chassis number along, as I would need it.

When entering Namibia, you can inmmediately see the diference in land usage. All the farms, right from the border post, is fenced of, and instead of goats and donkeys, you see cattle and game.


It seemed like it was gonna rain, but nothing came of it:




We stayed at Goba lodge in Gobabis, and once again, like Kang, it was good value for money. It is clean, neat, and EVERYBODY SPEAKS AFRIKAANS - YEEHAA! Even where we fueled up, and bought food, we were served in Afrikaans. the town itself is also very clean, and loitering limmited - not like in SA




Up to now everybody accepted Rands as currency without even liftinfg a brow, but obviously the FNB ATM only has Namibia dollars.

We had to buy bottled water because the tap water at Kalahari rest yesterday as well as here has a really bad taste, although it is clean and drinkable, and the water in the plastic tank I fitted in the vehicle also have a plastic taste to it - must be due to the mods I had to do to the tank.


Thusday 16 December 2008


We left Gobabis at 8h00 after a hearty breakfast served by Goba Lodge. More or less 5 km outside of Gobabis we got to the first road block. Once again the goverment officials were quite rude, unlike the rest of Namibia people.

The road from Gobais to Windhoek is straight and flat, with very little variation. We stopped and bought some Oryx biltong, which was really good.




I stoped to photograph this train bridge about 20km before the Hosea Kutako airport




In Windhoek we stayed at Chamelion backpackers lodge. We were the only South Africans between all the other people which consisted of Canadians, Americans, Germans etc. There was a couple of funny characters between them, but we enjoyed the stay here. The room was R250 total per night which included a help yourself breakfast. when we packed up, I droped my camera, and i suspect that the light meter got damaged. the rest of theholiday I had to over expose the pictures to get i ight, but still some editing was required.



Wednesday 17 Desember 2008

We left WH early on our way to Otjiwarongo. The GPs is still not sorted, and takes me ona gravel road running along the B1. According to the GPS the road ends a coupe of kilometers after we got onto it, but we stayed on it, and it joined up with the B1 again.

We left the B1 about 20km before Otjiwarongo to visit the dinosour tracks at S21 02.400 E16 24.016. The gravel roads in Namibia is extremly good, and almost as smooth as their tarred roads. Every now and then you get to some water in the road, but this turned out to be great fun.





Think twice before visiting the dino track site. Unless you are interested in this kind of thing, there is not much to see here. We paid for a guide, and we are still waiting for him to show up, but even without the guide it was very easy to find.











After this we went to the Cheetah concervation fund. this is on the way to the Waterberg Platau Park from Otjiwarongeo, but once again it was a dissapointment. It cost R115 per person to enter, and for that they show you 4 Cheetahs and the clinic. Thats it. It was all over in 5 minutes. Apparently there is another sanctury for large cats at Otjiwarongo which is much nicer.

Otjiwarongo is a nice town, but in terms of tourism I would give it a skip!


Donderdag 18 Desember 2008


We went to the Hoba meteorite from Otjiwarongo, but we had to go to Grootfontein first to pay our maid at home. Telecom Namibia has brances everywhere and their facilities is fairly good. In Windhoek we bought a voucher and connected wirelessly at the restaurant where we had lunch. here we used a computer in the post office, and paid for time used. In Windhoek the line was redicoulsly slow, and we couldn't doenload 3Mb, but hereit was quite fast and 5minutes and N$6 later we were done and on our way.

The metoerie was not much to see either, a large rock consisting mostly of iron laying in a hole, but now I've seen it. these kind of places you have to visit, but only once. Entry was N$20 per person, and children under 6 is free.




In Tsumeb we stopped to buy food and Water! Water is important, because like I said before, the water is clean and drinkable, but tastes really bad. We met a lady here who moved from Swakopmund to Tsumeb three weeks earlier, and she laughed at us when sehe saw all the water - easy to spot the tourrists. Tsumeb is a fairly large town with all amenities required. We went into Shoprite, and this was most probably the best Shoprite I ever saw. We bought eggs that came from Malmesbury, SA - that is over 1850km away!

We were destined to Tsinstabis, but went to Lake Otjikoto first.





This steam engien was built in 1907 by a Cape Town company and was used to pump water to Tsumeb from the lake. The pipeline is still used, but in reverse to pump water from boreholes to Oshakati.

We stayed at Treesleepers in Tsintsabis that night. It is a community campsite where you stay on patforms that is more or less 4m high. There is no electricity, but with solar power, warm water is available. We saw a very interesting thing here. The seeds from the mopani trees is falling off. In each seed there is a little worm that is trying to get uot, so all the seeds is bouncing up and down. When yopu approach the camp, it seems as if the floor is alive. Tintasbis was somewhat out of our way, and not much to see here, but the silince made it worth our while.


Vrydag 19 tot Dinsdag 22 Desember 2008


Finally! On our way to Etosha.

Right from the entrance at Namatoni we saw plenty of animals, right next to the road. But traveling at 60km/h it took a lot of time to get to Okaukeujo and we didn't stop much. First game to show their faces was the Damara Dik Dik, and we saw plenty of them during our stay here.



The officials at Okaukeujo is rude and blunt like we've gotten used to goverment officials in Namibia, but to be honest they are effective. The staff in the camp is more friendly and during the four days we stayed here, I had a lot of short conversations with them, learning alot about the people of the area. A guy from the Cape got the stand right accross from the road from us but unfortuntly there was somebody else on his site. He shouted and sweared at them, and it made me ashmed to admit that we speak the same lanauge. The shouting didn't stop for the two days that he was based here.

Our stand doesn't have the best location, right at the entrance and quite busy, but it is right next to the ablutions and we were the only people that used this block. Never was the campsite more than 40% full, and it seems as if the high prices is taking its toll. We camped for 4 nights and paid almost R4000 for that!






The one thing that really bothered me about the site was the amount of rubish that was lying around it. There was large building rubble piles, drums, bricks etc scattered around the site, and it didn't look like a national park campsite.


The temperature was very mild, never did we measure anything higher than 34ºC in the car. The humidity is also acceptable which is strange concidering the amount of water in the park, but still, the pools was our favourite time killer.

The gates only closes at sundown, and right now that is only at 19h25. The first after noon we spend some time at the floodlight water hole, but due to all the water in the field, we didn't see anything here. Still it was very tranquil, and we went back everyday. We never saw anything else than jackall or birds here, which made us realise that we will have to go out in the field to see anything.






The second morning we left at sunrise for Leeubron, and saw this:



I could see by the tracks that we were the first people to take this road, and we sat there for about 30 minutes before the next car showed up, when we left.

About 5km down the road we saw the next pride:





We also saw these two Oryx with too much energy.




And some smaller creatures:



a water tortoise at the Charl Marais dam:



We we got back to camp Ulani was sleeping, and we laid her down in the tent. These jackall tracks were on her mattrass:



There is a couple of (Semi?) tame Jackalls running around un the camp, and we could only conclude that one slipped in looking for something to eat while the tent was open, most probably the previous day. Anyway, we closed properly after this discovery, specially when she was sleeping.

The Jackalls was especially annoying during the night after sundown, and at one point they stole a bread from the table with me less than 5m away! And I didn't hear it! The would also throw he dustbins over at night, making a big mess!


Wednesday 23 December 08


From Etosha we left for Twyfelfontein (Doubfull Fontain) We got up at 5h30, and at 6h30 we were on our way. In Outjo the guy in front of me emptied the ATM, and we had to look for another one - credit cards is not well accepted around here. Fuel was no problem, unlike Otjiwarongo and Tsumeb, and neither was food. Outjo is a fairly large town with everthing you need, and soon we were on our way to Korixhas via the Finger rock.




Entrance here was reasonable, N$5 pp and N$5 for the vehicle. The climb up to the rock was though, but short, and Ulani spend it mostly on my neck. It was worth it though and the view from up here was exquisite (ghee -what a large english word for me!)

Korixhas itself is not much. There is one fueling station and a SPAR, but experience I gained on this trip tells me not to bargain on a town with one fueling station! Even although Namibia is a well developed Africa country, fuel has to be transported over great distances and frequently a station is out of fuel for a day or two in the rural areas. My advise is to fuel up when ever posible, and keep the Jerries for emergencies, well at least one!

All sight seeing sights in Namibia is tolled, and you develop a resitance to paying for everything, but everytime, without exception, it is worth it! And the Pertified forest was no difference! These trees washed 6000KM!!!! down to the current site, was covered in mud which prevented Oxygen from getting to it, and did not rot! The wind blew it open a couple of million years later and this is the result:







From here we went to Twyfelfontein. There is litterally NOTHING!! there and is was stunning! The rock formations is amazing, and you feel so small around here.

We planned to stay at the Aba Haub communiy site, but when we got to Twyfelfontein we stumbled upon the Twyfelfonten Country lodge! A 4 star lodge in the middle of nowhere. I was quite expensive at N$760 pppn (remember 1N$=1ZAR), but when we paid we got SADC discount and only paid R400pppn.

Next time I will go out of my way to stay here at least one night again






24 December 08

The day before Christmas and we drove to Brandberg on a Tracks$Africa road, even although we are alone. We had 80l of water and plenty of food, should something happen. There was no actual track,and no evidance of other life in the area.

But first we went to the Twyfelfontein World Heritage site.
Twyfelfontein se name coems from a Jew trying to start a sheep farming operation here in the 1940's. He constantly worried about water and hence named the area. The area is known for its rock engravings. Other than rock paintings these engraving is physically engraved into the rock, which is why it so well protected. The engravings were used by the SAN people 4000 years ago to teach their children how and what to hunt.

Twyfelfontein is about 120km straight line from the sea and plenty of engravings of Sea lions and Penguins can be seen here indicating the distances that these people traveled when they hunted.







Like I said before, the rocks has the most amazing shapes:




We also some very colourfull reptiles around



I am not to sure about the history of this borehole, but it is about 20 metres from the actual fontain, and ths was the only water that was drinkable in Namibia. All the bottled water that you buy in this area also comes from it.




On our way to Brandberg on the T4A road, we did some serious offroading, and at least I didn't pack Low range for nothing. It was the first time that my vehicle was so heavily loaded in these conditions, and the effect it had on the vehicle surprised me. It took us about an hour to complete 3kms.





The one thing that was interestig on this little road, or lack of it, was how the scenary changes. You can draw a line where the rocks stop, and sand starts, and it changes like that more or less every 5km. We took this road to look for the desert elephants and found plenty of fresh dung, ut no Elephants.

Brandberg White Lady Lodge provided good facilities, and the price was acceptable.



Donderdag 25 Desember 08

Christmas day - the opnly day we have to go and look for the rock painting of the White Lady.

Ons enquired yesterday and the people at the lodge is willing to wash and iron our clothes on Xmas day. We handed in almost two weeks' clothing for three people and little SWAMBO is heavy on clothes. The cost - N$70! I wanted to pay more, but they wouldn't accept it!

We went to look for the White lady and paid our N$70, including a guide. Both guides were inside the park, but since there is only one road, they would turn around with us when the current group comes out. Well, 3km and 1 hour later we found the paintings, but not the White lady or the guide! You go over large boulders, through sand and some water, and it is WARM! After searching for the White Lady for almost an hour and a half, we had to go back because Ulani was getting very difficult and we were running out of drinking water. I had a massive fight with the lady at the entrance about the guide she promised me, and after shouting for about ten minutes I convinced her to refund me. This was really the only disappointment we had in Namibia, o yes, and the Christmas Dinner that I burned!



Friday 26 December 08

Whem we left the White lady Lodge we decided to get in the UGAB river and follow it up to the main road, still looking for thise darn desert elephants. 'n river in namibia is a very relative name. It is merely a low lying sand "road" that trnasports water for a coupe of hours after a rainstrom. We only saw water in the Fish river on our entire trip. And the Ugab is nothing different, until you get to this point:




There is a fontain about 2km upstream, and this area is alive with animals and birds- everything except elephants. Apparently they stay out of the river in the "rainy" season because they get stuck in the river when it is "wet"

We refeuled and bought food at Outjo, and left foe Spitzkoppe, but the GPS packed up again and we go tired for trying to fix it, so when turned around and headed for Henties Bay. the reoad is as smooth as a mirror and almost 50m wide! We could travel at speeds of up to 140km/h on it.



When we got to the Henties-Cape cross junction we decided to head north to cape cross and look at the sea lion colony and the Cao cross. The stinch of the sea lions is horrible, but you get used to it soon enough.





There is thousands of sea lions here, and thousands of small ones. Unfortunatly there is just as many dead babies, but this is a feast fior the local Jackalls








'n Word of advice! NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER drive into Swakopmund in December hoping to find accomodation if you didn't book in advance! Everybody looks at you as if you are crazy if you ask for accomodation, and even in Langstrand they would allow us to pitch our tent for the night. Luckily for us the guest house where we were booked in in Walvisbay had a empty room for them, and we booked in one night early.


Saterdag 27 Desember 2008

We went out to "vasbyt" ("hold on" is the best translation I can come up with), which is the yearly 4x4 event in the Swakop river just outside of Swakopmund.









A set of 66" for somebody?





Nice to look at, but I am not really a spectator, and not being able to take part annoyed me, so we left for Goanikontes, the moon landscape!





We we got back to Langstrand I decided that I have to sort out the dune driving in preparation for our trip into the desert with the Land Cruiser club the next day. I got my permit and drove to the play pit, where you have to cross the first dune, and the you can play where ever you like behind that. I deflated my tyres to 1.5 bar, which I soon realised is not enough!!!! the third try took us to the top of the dune, but a surprised awaited us here! The dune was hollow, well sort off, on its eastern side! Luckily I kept the posiblity in m,nd, but SWAMBO didn't and the surprise was too much for, so I send her down the dune to take some photograhps while I dug the car out. 5 minutes later we were on our way, and I didn't have any problems (other than SWAMBO's thin lips and short sentances) for the rest of the day.








Sunday 28 December

This is the day to which I were looking forward for so long now! Today we are driving to "Karretjie" and "Vliegtuigie" ("little car" and "Little Plane" - both wrecks in the desert) with the Land Cruiser club. We met just after 8 at the weigh bridge just outside of Walvis bay, and proceded to the desert where we stopped to deflate our tyres to 0.8 Bar, which nobody told me yesterday.




'n 4.0 Hilux based in Swakopmund leaded, and looked for a way through. The diesels just cannot eep up with the Petrols around here, which is oposite to the type of offroadig that I normally do. The LC70, with Jaco from LA Sport Windhoek behind the steering battles, even although you can see Jaco knows his stuff, due to the low powered engine.



The monster of the day is the SFA Lux with the 4.7 Lexus engine and 7" tyres. I idles up the dunes where wee have to give everything we can get from our cars.



We quicly made it to "Karretjie", but it is quite dissapointing - somebody stole its wheels.



From here we have to start "jumping" dunes, and it is getting rough! I enjoy it thorougly (another big word! ), but the two girls get pannicky!




"Vliegtuigie" is not much less dissapointing than "Karretjie". Lazy person I am, I decide to drive all the way up to "vliegtuigie", and make it all the way next to it, but have to go down in reverse! The petrols make it all the way to the top, and still have enough power to play in the dunes above.



This guy slept in the wing, and decided to make a Bee line for my car when we distrurbed it. When I started reversing, it followed me for about 150m trying to stay in the shade. Who can blame it?






Maandag 29 Desember tot 31 Desember

We left Walvis bay after refuelling and buying food. Money was issue, because we could only draw N$1000 per day, and refuelling when wmpty was more or less N$1200, so it is important to draw cash daily and keep it safe. Also, on the route we took from Walvis, we didn't get any banks for more or less 800km.

Just outside of Walvis bay is a weigh bridge, and I decided that it is time to weigh my car. The weight was 2929kg and GVM is 2510 kg, so we were overloaded with a good 400kg, and this is were I was convinced that the air helper springs I fitted was worth thier money.

The tarred road stops just about 10km outside of walvis bay, and becomes gravel again. This was most probably the worst of all the gravel we traveled, and it was highly corrugated at soem point, but we could still travel at 110km/h. It is a long stretch to Solitaire, and it can become boring, so we stopee to make coffee so that we could wake up where the Kuiseb river crosses the C31.





Everywhere we stopped in Namibia there was beer bottles on the ground. Nothing else, Namibia is a very clean country, but beer bottles!

Shortly after our stop we found this picnic spot, but don't try to reach it with a flat car. I used both DL and LR to reach it, although a 4x2 with DL and good ground clearance will also make it. It is called "The Grotto"




At Solitaire we stopped for the world famous Apfel Struddle, and it was well worth it! we also exchanged more or less N$2000 for ZAR, no commission paid, 1:1



At Sesriem we camped at Betesda, about 50km from Sesriem itself. Good facilities and ablutions, and a nice pool! The furter South we went, the warmer it became!



Close your windows, the sparrows is very tame here!






If you are panning to take stunning shadow photos at Sossusvlei (like I was planning) I suggest you sleep here, and buy the permit to enter the previous day. We were there at 5h45, entered at 6h15 when the gate opened, and bought the permit at 6h30. We finally arrived at Sossusvlei at 7h30, when the sun was allready high. Remember, Sossusvlei is still another 70km from Sesriem






Once inside, there is a nice picnic spot where we made breakfast, but don't expect any grass.

Water is a scares commodity and animals make use of any available. It took this sparrow less than 1 minute to figure where the water was comming from.



We climbed this dune while it was still fairly cool, and although it is hard work (even more so with the extra 13kg's on your neck), we were awarded with spectacular views from the top.




At least she went down on he own, well only until she got to the vlei, when it was back to daddy's neck


It was amazin to see the amount of life in this "lifeless" landscape! All kinds of funny "thingies" jumps up from the sand, run 3m, and dissapear again before you can photograph them.




Then we went to Sesriem Canyon. You can easily see how this area was formed by a flood, by looking at the rocks in the mud.





31 Desember 2008

We left Betesda early for Warmbaths, just before the borderpost, three weeks of loading the car made us a well oiled machine. On Helmeringhasen we stopped for fuel, and breakfast, and a generator wwas needed to power the pump. In the background, the General dealer



Across the road: Standard Bank - open on Thursdays



And next to the ban is the hotel. Thsi si the entire town. Stunning!




After this stop the holiday was over, and we were driving to get home! At Karasburg we decided to go through back into RSA and we stopped at the Namibian side of the border post at 16h20, when thety told us that the South African side closes in 9 minutes! We rushed in and made both posts in 12 minutes - how to I get this declared a world record?

[Samajoor]

Uitstekende verslag en ook so uitstekende foto's.

daar is niks en en bedoel niks so lekker soos daai Namib nie !!!!!

[Johnny Bravo]

WEll done on the trip report, it looks like it was an amazing trip!!

JEALOUS!

[MikeAG]

Just a quick note to say that I appreciate the labour you are putting in to translate this!!! I really hope it isn't just for me.........but I certainly am enjoying watching the story unfold.

Cheers

Mike

[JMK]

Pls. - translate the remaining parts as well.... THANKS

[Uys]

Bump

Done translating!