Up at 3.50am aaaarghhhh.
Breakfast, cereal is all we can manage at this time, I don’t remember much about it. Mercifully we don’t have to pack up, we are back here tonight for our last night.
A one hour drive takes us to Dune 45. 150 metres high, it is one of the highest sand dunes in Namibia (or maybe anywhere?). From where we park the bus, it is a 300 metre ‘walk’ (more of a stagger) up a pointed ridge of the dune to get to the top. It is still night-time but there is enough light to see the precipitous 45 degree falling away of the dune either side of our narrow ridge. Walking on sand is hard enough, but here the sand can collapse under your foot either side of the ridge. The distance to the bottom is ever increasing, only half way up and now at 5.30 in the morning in the dark I feel this is some kind of test of my endurance and acrophobia.
It is worth it. I get to the very top in time to see the sun rise behind distant mountains.
wow.
Agnes and Yumi take photos while Larissa poses.
My turn to pose (again!).
The sand is orange/brown/red. George has already told us the history of these dunes. The sand was blown from The Kalahari Desert a long time ago. This place has a beauty of it’s own.
It is getting very hot. I start the long trek back down.
Agnes and Larissa can’t resist a manic race down the side of the last bit of the dune. You can see how far up from the car-park we still are.
Larissa wins.
Back at the bus, great news, a second breakfast. A Pied Crow and a Desert Fox watch us eat.
I don’t know why it is called a pied crow, you’d need 10 of them to make a decent pie.
More driving and a selfie in the bus with Yumi.
Only 15 kilometres in the bus then a one kilometre walk across the desert to see some dead trees
On the way, George spots snake tracks. Can you see them?
We watch carefully where we are walking, especially those in the group wearing sandals. (There are scorpions here also, resting just under the surface, they don’t like being trodden on apparently). I am wearing my scorpion-resistant trekking boots.
The dead trees are in a valley, standing in golden sand, a contrast to the massive red/brown desert dunes that surround it. George tell us these trees were not killed by the sun or drought, they were drowned when a year of exceptional rainfall filled the valley making it into a lake. This is a strangely entrancing place. A perfect place for quiet reflection.
Back to the bus and the camp-site, lunch and a few hours to relax.
At 3.30 a short drive to a remarkable canyon in the desert.
Forged by angry river-water flows millennia ago, there is now only a tiny puddle at one end. We can walk down to the river-bed. Ancient pebbles underfoot and embedded in the sides of the canyon attest to an earlier time under the sea.
Back at the top, Filipa, Agnes and Yumi pose in front of a distant mountain.
Sun-set turns the mountain red.
Back to camp for Dinner. Burgers. I decide not to ask Ruben what is in them.
We are sad, it is our last night as a group.
Goodnight.
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