Week 3 -Namibia

For those of you tuning in, we are currently in Botswana, fresh from the Delta and heading to Vic Falls for week 4!

Before we begin though, we should mention the two men who make things possible and the fearless leader Ruth (See fish river canyon) . There's Duncan, our chef (who has now taken ownership of my classy sunnies!) who is a cheeky man from Kenya standing at a massive 5'0' or thereabouts...

And Elois also from Kenya, a man of large stature 6'5' approx who is an absolute classic as well, but a man of few words and commands your respect. (Trying to get a pic of him has been hard to date)

So Week 3 was almost spent entirely in Namibia and goes a little something like this:

Trewal - first night camping

We camped, just outside the Cederberg Mountains at a camp ground run by an ex overland guide "SPARKY" who is now farming grapes as part of a co-op, so needless to say, it's rude not to try some of the wines, especially when served with cheeses etc. in a nice little dunk pool. Camping is tough! Needless to say this combination allowed all the crew, 21 in total to get to know each other a bit better and was a great start!

Orange River - South Africa

This morning below, we went on a nice leisurely 'paddle' down the orange river, which has Namibia on the other side. As the river was the highest in some 10-20 years, the flow was strong and our 4 hour paddle, took just under 1.5 hours, going backwards! Was a beautiful setting once again and the sunrise, was to be the first of many killers to come.

Fish River Canyon - Namibia

Fish River Canyon is the 2nd largest canyon in the world! (Grand being the first) No tours are allowed in except for a special "race" of some sort as it's too easy to get lost and people used to frequently dissapear on such tours when they were previously run.

Walking along the edge was timeless and nothing better than a nice sundowner had in such a mesmerizing place.

(Ruth - our fearless, cider drinking pommie leader)

Just a little side note, check out our camping buddy...

Dune 45

Never seen anything like it, has to be the most sand in one place (granted we haven't been into the sahara or even the aussie dessert), but it just blew us away. The below picture is just a small sample.....

We headed down this stretch of road with Dunes anywhere between 50m to 350m high along side of our truck. On our way to meet the "Boesman" (Bushman). The Boesman doesn't ever wear any shoes, not even on trips overseas, could definitely give the fire walkers a run for their money.... There were some awesome facts learned, but the amount of life in the dessert is just simply amazing and I think it needs to be seen first hand.

So after a 20 minute educational on how to survive in the bush, he was off like a flash to show us the remains of an old oasis, where the Cell was filmed. Don't know what he ate for breakfast, but the bloke can walk a hell of a lot quicker than us at 3 pm on the sand in the 30c + heat.

The old oasis or "soussvlei" was simply an amazing and surreal place to just walk around, with massive dunes, bugs, lizards and crows everywhere. Kind of earie, but beautiful!

Just to prove that there can be a full blown oasis, the Boesman took us over a nearby dune to see this:

We then trucked back to the famous Dune 45 to watch the sunset.

Swakopmund - action adventure capital

Let it be said, that much fun can be had here, but at the same time boredom can take over..... If you're not out scaring yourself on a quadbike in the dunes, skydiving, sandboarding or drinking at a night spot, there is literally nothing to do in this town. We even got so desperate we went to see transporter 3! (Give it a miss, story line is still average at best)

So Sandboarding and quadbiking was undertaken on the dunes close to the skeleton (ocean) coast of Namibia, Quad biking was awesome, even with the crazy German Swiss guy Marco "The Camera man" in front of me taking self videos, not looking and riding with one hand at 80kmh through the dunes.... Somehow he remained unscathed. However Maria the Dane, was not so lucky going head first into a dune after the turning just seemed to fail, or was not actioned... Not serious injuries so all was good!

Sandboarding, was great, although the lie down boards were all over the stand up... reaching speeds of up to 70-80km on sand going down hills and into a bowl (think of a skate boarding ramp) and launching out the other side! No injuries had here, except to Clare's (the only other aussie in our group) pride as there is a perfect caption of the sandiest mouth seen with a huge smile on her face... But most impressive was a 60+ yr old lady from another group who went on all the slides, cut her chin, shook it off and went again...Mum, I'm expecting big things! only downside to the day was walking back up the Dune. What a workout!

So, onwards, upwards and eastwards we head in the coming week... walking with the lions, jumping and swinging from things in vic falls, most exciting being the priveledge of walking up to the falls through the national park for ourselves to stare at a wonder of the world.... and then a lot of driving through zambia that lay ahead....one step at a time, loving every moment!

Love yous all!

G+M