Namib Desert, Sossuvlei and Fish River Canyon

Sunrise over the desert

This was by far the most beautiful part of the whole trip, and my favourite part of Namibia. We drove south from Swakopmund to the Namib Desert, through yet more fantastic and desolate scenery. We spent 2 nights in the desert, which is hyper-arid and experiences less than 10cm per year. So of course while we were there it chucked it down- in the middle of the dry season!!! And on the day that I had to cook and wash up!

On the first morning we woke up at (literally) the crack of dawn to drive down to the enormous sand dunes so that we could hike up the 300m high Dune 45 to see the sunrise over the desert. The dunes are all numbered because they don’t move- the winds are equally strong in both directions. It was strange that as we were driving we weren’t surrounded by sand like you would expect in the desert, but we drove between enormous sand dunes. 

At the top of the dune

A gruelling climb to the top

Overnight the wind had wiped away the footprints of the previous day, so we climbed a seemingly untouched dune. At first we all set off at speed, but the climb quickly became really tough. Imagine walking on a sandy beach that’s a 30cm wide ledge at a slope of 35 degrees. It was a bit hairy, but on the way back down I realised that even if I had fallen off the edge, it would have been a soft landing at least! It was pretty chilly and windy, but well worth the early start and the climb- as you can see, it was spectacular! And even better, breakfast was waiting for us when we got back down.

Deadvlei

After brekkie we headed over to Sossuvlei,  which is where the water in the desert collects creating an oasis in the middle of the sand dunes. More incredible however is Deadvlei. This was once the location of the water collecting and so a number of trees have grown there- when the waters moved to what is now Sossuvlei, the trees without a water source died and have been preserved by the hyper-arid desert conditions. I could have spent hours photographing all the trees, and learnt quite a lot about my camera while I was there.

Fish River Canyon

The next day we drove south to our next and final stop in Namibia, Fish River Canyon. The Fish River is the longest river in Namibia, and over time has formed a spectacular canyon which in parts is 550m deep. We took a short walk along the edge of the canyon, and at the end we were greeted with a cheese and wine dinner ready for sunset over the canyon. It was a lovely way to say farewell to Namibia.