Tirasberg

After leaving the arid and rocky south around the Fish River Canyon, we started heading north towards the red dune area of Sossusvlei. On our way we stopped off in the Tirasberg. We turned north from the Keetmanshoop – Lüderitz road, and on to the Tiras Plain, located between the Rooirand (Escarpment) and the south eastern foothills of […]

Weekly Photo Challenge: Transmogrify

This week’s challenge is around the word “Transmogrify” which essentially means to transform “something in appearance or form, especially strangely or grotesquely“. I did not have anything grotesque to show, but here in the southern hemisphere we have just gone from winter into early summer and the trees in our front yard went through a […]

Solitaire: Apple pie in the desert

Solitaire is a small settlement in the Khomas Region of central Namibia near the Namib-Naukluft National Park. We came upon it while driving from the red dune area of Sossusvlei to Walvis Bay at the coast. The main settlement is very small – it has a petrol station, post office, a bakery and a general […]

The Quiver Tree Forest and Giant’s Playground

Thirteen kilometres north-east of Keetmanshoop, on the farm Gariganus, is a huge Quiver Tree (Afrikaans name: Kokerboom) forest. This is not what one usually thinks of as a “forest”, but it is an amazing collection of approximately 250 Aloe dichotoma  plants. These are tall (up to 7 meters or 23 feet tall), tree-like aloes which grow in the […]

Gondwana Canyon Village

When I was a child and our family visited Namibia, we just packed our camper van and camping gear, left Cape Town one morning and headed north for the border. That seemed fine in those days and we mostly found a place to stay for the night. Although I do remember us all having to […]

Geckos

Wherever ones goes in Namibia there are geckos – the real ones (Namibia has 12 families of gecko), and the decorative ones.  Geckos are a type of lizard with some really unique features. Firstly, the noise they make to communicate with other geckos is unique to this type of lizard. In fact the English word “gecko” originates […]

Fish River Canyon: Third time’s a charm

Our first stop once we had crossed the border into Namibia, was at a camp near the Fish River Canyon. The Fish River Canyon is the largest canyon in Africa, and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Nambia. The canyon is “in total about 160 km (100 miles) long, up to 27 km (17 miles) […]

WPC: Shine – Blue Glow

These huge “Blue Bottles” (or Portuguese man o’ war marine organisms) washed up on the Witsand beach after days of intense South-Easter (onshore wind) blowing. In the soft late afternoon sun, they shone with a beautiful blue glow. This post is part of the Daily Post | Weekly Photo Challenges | Shine It is also […]

Naries: It’s all downhill from here

As we were travelling from the Southern Cape to the Namibian border, we decided to make our first night’s stop in the Northern Cape town of Springbok. I thought that Willie had booked us into a little B&B or guesthouse in the town, but instead he opted for the beautiful Naries Namakwaland Retreat which lies […]

On the road to Nowhere

On a deserted road in Namibia, we came across this old rusted vehicle on the side of the road. It was a sight which would be repeated a number of times in our travels there, and got me to wondering how the vehicle got there and why was it left there. Did it break down […]