Before I start, apologies for the lack of images; it's the lack of WiFi as we travel, you see.. Check again later as I'll stick a few more on when poss.
So, it's a dusty rough drive to Aus, and on the drive, friend Malcomb's turbo pipe falls off. All's well though as Mr Fix-it escorts them to garage and fixes it himself with clips and stuff. That man again...
On the way, we visit Duwisib Castle, a surreal European mini castle, built in 1909 by Baron Hans Heinrich von Wolf. Wierd. One rumour has it that it was his horses that went feral to start the desert wild horses. Worth the visit though.
Meanwhile, we drive on past the campsite as the road suddenly improves...tarmac! We want to see the famous desert feral horses... and we see over a hundred. Amazing how they have adapted to these very harsh desert conditions. Don't seem very feral but apparantly they are uncatchable.
We tour the mini town of Aus, not missing the great information centre, showing how German occupation affected the residents. Really good, this. We have a drink with Mr Fix-it who suggests a visit to one of his home towns, Luderitz. We vow to get up a 5am and do the 4.5 hour trip before we head off to the fish river canyon tomorrow. Looks good in Lonely Planet.
Another Braai with friends...ah...sigh... this is the life...
.......
So today it's up a 5.00, walking to the shower, hoping we don't tread on a dodgy spider, which can cause a bit of a painful problem around here...ask friend Richard.
...Then we're off at high speed in a convoy of three vans (usual suspects) with Sue driving... it's a long, long day. Really worthwhile visit to the old German colonial style ex-diamond mining town, though. Although we can't get inside the Lutheran Church, we certainly get a flavour of the town ...and the Diaz Coffee Shop is simply... well ... out of this world.
But it's the drive here that takes our breath away as we motor through the constantly changing desert as the Atlantic winds rapidly shift the sand. Really, really top class drive.
We push hard on the way back, as there's a long way to go. We calculate fuel stops to avoid lengthy waits at the start. I get it right...quite tight though. Our day-book suggests a fuel stop at Seeheim.. but when we get there, running on the low fuel light, all we can find is a hotel selling super-high price fuel from a big overhead tank. Hobson's choice .. but the vans run on it OK. Grinding of teeth all round.
We plough on ...and on, on dusty gravel roads
... we're doing around 500km after our morning jaunt... We finally get to a fantastic look-out point above the deep, wide Fish River Canyon. Impressive stuff indeed. It's our turn for a puncture though.. but with friend Malcomb's help, it's changed in a jiffy... and they escort us to the nearby, amazingly odd roadside cafe 4km away. (It's full of old lorries and cars amongst the tables..) After the repair we decide not to go on another hour to the destination at Ai Ais but camp in the canyon campsite ... and it's part of the same state concern as Ai Ais so it's free!
So here we are, by ourselves for a change, which, I have to say, is quite nice - as much as we love travelling with friends, we've been in a group since October, for all but one week. Chilling time.
Back to the canyon in the early morning sun tomorrow ...a nice long walk around it.
No comments:
Post a Comment