“THE SAND IN THE RIVER BED IS HARD, LETS CAMP ON THE OTHER SIDE”

We were woken to the sounds of crunching and munching outside our tents, followed by much 'shooing' and 'roaring' by a half dressed motor biker (Alan).  The munching goats 'Harley' noticed him, but slowly munch their way out of our campsite and on to pastures greener.

I clasped my hands around a welcome cup of coffee in the crisp morning air, and gratefully accepted one of Judy's home made rusks.  Breakfast was leisurely - catching up with old friends seemingly more important than getting going.

When we finally got going, much radio chatter signaled that everyone was in high spirits,  and we continued along the road from the day before past bottle trees, springbok and one lonely boabab.

In the vicinity of Mounts Ondjam and Okamanga, the road became very rocky and progress was slow.  We dropped sharply off the plateau through a narrow valley that posed the first technically difficult stretch of road that we were to negotiate.  The first rocky descent was followed by sharp inclines that had me checking under to hood again for overheating.  Thankfully, there was no sign of it, and I commented that the Landrover appears to be far more comfortable in this kind of terrain that on the freeways.

Passing a number of Himba villages, left me wondering how on earth they survive in such a dry arid climate.  There was no sign of water anywhere.  Perhaps they only drank goats milk?  I felt torn between stopping to make some human contact and a feeling that I was somehow contaminating their lives with mine.  Our worlds seemed too far apart to bridge.

After further rocky descending, the road invited us into a wide sandy valley that looked good enough to camp in.  The road crisscrossed the river bed, and the going was much easier that the rocky mountains.

Alan found a pleasant shady part of the valley for us to camp in, but as we didn’t want to camp right next to the road, so Arthur explored the other bank for suitable camp sites.  Having passed his quality test, he deemed far side of the river bank  accessible due to the presence of vehicle tracks in the middle of the sandy river bed.  Before we could consider the situation, Arthur set off, with trailer in tow to cross, but soon became bogged down in the thick sand and we had our first attempt at digging out, grateful that it was no longer under the hot midday sun and with the knowledge that a cold beer awaited us as soon as we were done.

Forewarned the rest of us crossed the river at a far brisker pace, although Andrew who appeared unconvinced it was safe, gave a demonstration of how Rambo would have done it.  Having all made it across we set about setting up camp, but only after a few ales to quench the thirst buds.

The chosen spot to camp was most pleasant and completely isolated from the rest of the world.  This was exactly what i signed up for!


I attempted a kassler and red cabbage potjie and decided it was well worth another try.