Myself and a few intrepid explorers went up to Namibia 3 weeks ago to explore the place a bit and do the 8 day Naukluft hiking trail. We lived to tell the tale (yay!) Here are some pics for now about the journey, more details about the hike itself will follow. The pics are in no particular order.

My impression of Namibia: I'd go back there tomorrow, life slowed down big time and the place has so much space that you kinda feel like you can just relax and "be" without having to do too much. It was like going from my world where work, sport etc. filled up everything to heading to a place that feels so ancient that you know regardless of your issues and stuff, the place will be here today and here tomorrow and be impervious to you. Well, that was my philosophical take on it.

Distance takes on a totally different meaning as does the concept of a town (petrol station + shop + maybe restaurant and lodgings). It's a hard country because of the aridity, far more mountains than I'd thought there be as well and there's poverty, you can see it in different places yet it's different from ZA somehow. It also felt like I was in the Free State sometimes, men in khaki eyeballing us at the border while checking in their hunting rifles and all :-) But on the overall I enjoyed it, want to head back to explore the north and climb Spitzkoppe sometime...

A fig tree that grew into and around the rocks. There were many of these and they looked incredible, their roots were on the surface too, freaky. Tough as hide though.


















We called this tree "Fattie" and it sparked a debate between us about fat people. Yes, I'm hugging the tree, we'd just done a big descent and I was really happy to just be standing on level ground :-)















Zebra kloof, an awesome awesome place that begs to have people go and climb there. Stunning sandstone, couple of boulders, totally isolated, perfect.












Me trying to get some bouldering done















Woody in his incredibly dodgy sleepwear, we called the shorts his tutu :-) (which is kinda funny cause Woody is the uber-hardcore dude).





















The long road - this was from the fifth day, just after we got a bit lost trying to find the shelter. Low batteries that afternoon but stunning mountain ranges on all sides perked up our spirits.












Our last night at Kapokvlakte shelter, digging out the last of our food and watching springbok. We were on a big open plain with absolutely nothing but the odd tree, the outhouse and the odd zebra, buck or hyena for miles. It was brilliant !








Sesriem on the way to Sossusvlei, it actually is something to see up close no matter how many photos etc you see. Feels infinite














Zen surfing in the third world

Don't tell the flora people from the Mountain Club, but we spent some time on this trip trying to tell the quiver tree from the kokerboom :-P Eventually we got it figured out. This is a big old koker with little me.
















The Naukluft mountains, they may not look like much but there are unbelievably green kloofs in there. Even a moss covered waterfall that you have to haul yourself over with a chain ! And you get used to the varying shades of brown and the lie of the land, it kinda is what it is.











One of the chains with Nicola and Sam on opposite ends. This was the second day's walking into Ubusis kloof, truly beautiful, once you get past the panic about bees and hornets :-)











Our packs with Bruce doing what *cough* real men do.














Here kitty kitty. We went to a place called Hammerstein and they had a few cats in the backyard, a cheetah (I found the cheetah's golden eyes mesmerising) who we could get fairly close to and this leopard. The leopard had a big f*** you thing about her hence the fence. They also had rooikatte who were a bit pissed off that we were disturbing their nap so lots of hissing happened.

This is a place called Norotshama on the banks of the mighty Gariep (or Orange river). It's beautiful, there's some sport climbing close by as well apparently. Definitely heading back there !











This is why I call it the mighty Gariep. We drove from Norotshama to Luderitz off the beaten track and this is what happens when there's lots of rain, the road kinda disappears.













The place was so green - there were sprinkles of wildflowers everywhere, like this.











The crew, Daja is the cowgirl and foot masseuse of note, Bruce ("pass us a beer there lovey") is the dude in the white shirt, Sam ("look up/down for a photo while you're hanging onto that piece of rock for dear life please") is the dude in blue and Nicola is the lass in pink (she's a lot tougher than one would think for a girl in pink). Woody and John aren't in this picture. This group was really fantastic to hike with, we laughed every day, through the pink Pro Nutro and the blisters.





Trying to have a bath in Kolmanskop, one of the ghost towns. What would possess anyone to build a house on sand God alone knows but they seem to have coped pretty well until it all fell apart (ha ha).












Love is land - for miles and miles....