We join up with Jo and Heids on their next stage of adventure:
Going through South African border took us a whole 10 minutes, and so we wave our good byes to South Africa and made our approach to the Namibia border. Armed with all our paper work for our first unknown border crossing and panic mechanic Heidi Mad Pants just about to into panic mode, it took us a whole 15 minutes to get through the border and without anyone even asking to look into the Cruiser.
Our first stop over was in Ai Ai’s, we heard lots about the hot springs so thought it was a good idea to stay there. After setting up our tent we went searching for this hot spring, only to find a small pond filled with rocks and hot spring water. They do have a heated outdoors pool that’s algidity heated by the hot springs, nice spot for families to spend a few days but we were not soo much into bake beans camping sites.
Next stop was the Road House, definitely a must stop with all the old car wrecks scattered on the property, they even had old cars
I wonder which car they are travelling in?
inside the restaurant shed. We ended up staying for two days, visited the River Canyon and met some fellow travelers and exchanged route plans.
Arriving in Windhoek was hectic being in a city again and we couldn’t get our dusty bodies out of there fast enough, we ended up staying a ….. a small reserve just outside of Windhoek. We felt so much safer staying in the bush for the evening and with fellow overlanders. Using their communal kitchen to cook our dinner Heids ended up getting a bit bored waiting for the potatoes to boil so decided to do a sole bored dance in the kitchen. I missed the whole solo dance but a fellow camper walked in on Heidi doing the bored dance. There were some exchanged you caught me dancing conversation between them and for the rest of the time there every time Heids bumped into him he had this funny smile on his face.
It was a nice changed when we arrived at Lyn and Tyrone in Gobabis, to once again be fortunate to stay with friends. On top of having a roof over our heads again Lyn and Tyrone took us on an off road motorbike ride through the farm areas. We both had a go on Tyrone’s 250 CRX Honda before we all headed off on a cross country bike ride, me on the Honda and Heids on the quad bike. We had soo much fun, slightly stiff body the next day but definitely a new love for off road motorbikes.
5-Star Accomodation
I thought we had the best day ever after our motorbike riding, well that was before Lyn took us to Harnas Wildlife Foundation about 80km from Gobabis. Harnas is one of the few animal conservation and rehabilitation centres in Namibia. Our morning started off with joining the game rangers and volunteers in their feeding schedule of all the cat, from lions to caracal, and us being in the same camp while feeding the cheetahs. We were fortuned enough to play with leopard cubs and two baby caracal. Heidi made a new best cuddle friend, the bat ear fox, which flopped at Heidi’s feet ready for cuddles.
So today we spent the day repacking the cruiser again, after sending the Cruiser for a service we decided we can lose lots of the spares we have been carting around with us and with the aim to make the vehicle more air-dynamic. Packing the car took us just about all day, while Lyn was sorting out the details for our tour plan and places to stay. Loving having our own travel agent!! We ended up leaving the ladder behind, definitely feel a bit like we are leaving a part of the Cruiser behind.
Thanks Tyrone and Lyn for making our stay with you such a wonderful experience.
Driving from the Fish River Canyon we decided to drive via Aus, a tiny little western town, located on your way to Luderitz and the wild horses. The town does have a fuel station and across the road locals and tourist can buy yummy boerewors rolls and chops. It was a great drive between the mountain on the one side and a small peak at the sand dunes, with loads of antelope throughout the drive, until we hit some seriously bumpy reads and ended up losing our tables, braai grids and firelights. We decided to stay over the night at Betta, a one family town, in a self catering room so that we could have a early start to head off to Sossusvlei. We befriended a cute local bread dog, which we named Solomon, who ended up sleeping with us in our room.
Visiting the Sossusvlei is also a must, it’s about a 60km drive from the main entrance to the actual sand dunes, and if you have a 4×4
Keeping the wild animals away
you can drive right to the middle of Sossusvlei, which we obviously did and the Cruiser styled it. It was a bit windy on the day but once you get in the dunes it seemed a lot less. The views are amazing the climb up and down the dunes are tiring but well worth it.
After visiting Sossusvlei we headed to Solitaire where we were planning an overnight stay, not much to the little town other than a campsite, lodge, restaurant and an amazing bakery. We met a couple that has just done the coast line from Luderitz to Swakopmund and then ended up with car problems, faulty radiator and then blown head gasket. To make their story even worse their fellow travel buddies left them at Solitaire to find their own way back home. The windy wind followed us there and we were only to glad to wake up inside our tent still standing upright.
The drive to Swakopmund was long and not too much along the road, so we were happy to arrive to our friendly Desert Sky campsite within town. It was nice sharing our camping area with fellow travelers who were doing similar trips within Namibia to talk about their experiences and must places to visit. Early start the next for our sandboarding trip to the dunes. It was great and test my snowboarding skills on the sand dunes, just as much fun expect for the short sand slopes and the long walk back up the dune. Heids was styling on the sand board sliding at some crazy speeds down the dunes. The beer at the end of the day sure went down well.
