A merry Christmas to one and all!
We wish you all a wonderful time, celebrating with family and friends!
Chris and I celebrated Christmas with torrential rain in the Waterberg, a bottle of wine and Macaroni and Cheese for dinner! 🙂
We are thinking of all of you!
Astrid and Chris
At the beginning of the week, Mike left us to return to Johannesburg.
We wanted to say thank you very much to him for all the help, advice, lectures and puns that he has given us over the past few weeks.
It’s been an absolute blast having you with us and we will miss you!
PS: And yes, the “poo clues” shall continue…
Our first trip to Etosha turned out to be very beautiful.
We had the luck to see Etosha after some rain had fallen. Surrounded by greenery and water-filled waterholes, we had some wonderful sightings of Spotted Hyena, cheetah, Black Rhino and elephant, as well as an African Harrier hawk looking for prey in the Mopani forest.
Hmmmm. What could Mike be looking for? 🙂
 
Surprise, surprise…!
Having spent a few days recuperating in the bush between Gobabis and Windhoek, we decided it was time to move on and more importantly, replenish our water supply.
We packed up camp, left the bush behind us and thought, “why not get some awesome local biltong?”. So, we pulled into a roadside coffee shop that was advertising our craving. Having parked the car, we got out and the first thing we see is a gentleman crossing the parking lot wearing a Lederhose!
Now to see this Austrian traditional clothing in the middle of nowhere in the Namibian bush was quite a shock to say the least. We greeted the gentleman and spent the next few hours sitting in the very welcome shade of the coffee shop speaking to Florian and Ute Ernst from Austria.
They had set out to travel south from Europe through Africa and back again and they had given themselves 2 years to do it in, and now, almost 8 years later, they’re still traveling with their little dog Tiger in their converted Iveco truck.
We talked about “Gott und die Welt” (for those non-german speaking amongst us: anything and everything) and learnt a lot about the proper overlanding mentality. They showed us various routes that we were unsure about and entertained us with story after story about traveling through Africa.
One of their tips we plan on using in the near future. If it is successful we’ll let you know about it! 🙂
As they are also traveling north towards Zambia, we might just meet them again in the near future. Whether we do or not, we wish them all the best on their trip and many more adventures.
The last week was spent traversing the two dry river beds of the Aba-Hoab and Hoanib, as well as exploring the river road along the Kunene River.
We got to see the rare desert elephant in the Aba-Huab and enjoyed the spectacle of our first thunderstorm of the trip. 
The Hoanib presented us with lots of fun. It had thankfully dried out after the rains, leaving us to deal with the cloying mud. Not to be outdone by this, we drove along the riverbed, trying to maintain a constant speed so we would not get stuck. We did quite well, having managed to avoid the hair raising aspects of traveling at speed through slippery mud… 
It was a wonderful driving through these dry riverbeds, as they gave us views that you usually cannot see. From the strange formations of the trees on the cliff edge, to the tiny caves carved by the migrating Bee Eaters.
Arriving at the Kunene River, our first sight was the Epupa Falls. Although on a much smaller scale than the Victoria Falls, they are just as spectacular. What makes them really wonderful though, is the freedom you have of exploring them. You can walk right up to the edge and look over, go downriver and see the water thundering over the cliffs, whereas at the Vic Falls you are constricted by the fences.
We decided to travel directly along the river between Epupa Falls and the Kunene River Lodge, as opposed to taking the southern road(recommended as better and safer) around. After eventually finding the road, we discovered that it is very passable, with only three to four sections of serious 4x4ing. After all the misgivings we had heard so far, we were expecting a road that presented us with painstakingly slow progress, or no progress at all. It turned out that the road is in no way easy and can only be traveled by a 4×4 with enough ground clearance, but it IS passable and very, very beautiful.
Having tackled the infamous river road (:-)) we are now spoiling ourselves at the wonderful Kunene River Lodge. This is the one place everyone made a point of telling us about and now we know why. It is spectacularly beautiful and peaceful. Combining the best of location, service and facilities, it is a pleasure to have access to unlimited hot water, tall shady trees and free WiFi!
From here we will be traveling south
again towards Etosha, and we’ll see where we go from there… 😉
 
Found two really cool boulders. The first is at Ongongo Spring. Awesome Deep Water. 
Burnt Mountain
Nice Hard Boulder from an undercling to ledge.
Awesome Location.
The notorious Brandberg was always going to be a highlight on this section of the trip. The Königstein is the highest peak in Namibia. Next to having the worlds highest scorpion density, the mountain also has no water on it this time of the year. So we had to carry about 4L per person. It can also reach up 50 degrees in the midday heat. In fact it is rumoured not to be possible to climb this time of the year.
Still we were keen to attempt it. Wanted to avoid the heat we opted to try it at night. We left camp 5:30pm to walk into a George on the southern section of the mountain and were immediately delayed heavily by having to scramble through some serious boulder fields. As we pushed for the first ridge Mike was hit by a serious migraine and we had no choice but to find shelter and spend the night in scorpion rich country. Having started out with 12L of water for 3, we only had about half left. So we had definitely hit our turnaround point. After an uneasy night of rest, we got up 4:30 to fight our way back through the boulder field to retreat back to the safety of the car before the blistering heat started at around 10am. Even though we had to retreat it was still a great hike with some amazing scenery.
And we will definitely be back to reattempt this beautiful mountain.
When first planning this trip, Chris and I looked at various maps of the countries we wanted to visit, trying to find those places that would determine our route. Looking at the topographical map of Namibia, we immediately spotted the Brandberg and the neighbouring Messum Crater. We were fascinated by them and immediately decided that these areas were going to be on our 
top To Do list.
The Messum Crater and the valleys leading up to and out of it turned out to be fantastic. The rock formations alone were worth coming here.  We drove through a valley where the wind had carved each protrusion into a different fish or sea creature. You could see everything from seahorses and snappers to moray eels, flounders and parrot fish. There was even a dragon; into whose gaping mouth a previous passer-by had stuffed a whole melon. Quite an unexpected sight when you’re just driving around the corner minding your own business… The crater itself is the epitome of desolation. Searing heat, vast flat landscape surrounded by mountains with the horizon playing tricks with you. There’s no need to drive to the Sahara to experience a Fata Morgana, just visit the Messum Crater.
We left the Crater via the Messum River Bed and camped under a very beautiful Kameeldooring Acacia in a scenic river bend. Made a campfire and sat and watched the desert night sky.
