Dune 45 .............................................................. The 'Vlei' viewed from the smmit of Sossusvlei.
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Following two nights at Hideout Camp we were on our way to Sesrium Campsite at Sossusvlei, the famous orange dunes of Namibia and one of Namibia's largest tourist attractions. The vlei is infact the greyish white clay pan which was full of water at the time of our visit, surrounded by the orange dunes and Sosussvlei The land Rover had suffered an electrical problem at Hideout camp, twice now and was a little disconcerting as after turning the engine off to watch a herd of Oryx passing by, the car simply refused to start! ....... not even a 'click'! ............... no other lights came on apart from the battery light and the temperature gage went straight off the scale, the latter I think was just a reaction to the main eletrical problem and nothing to worry about. After checking as much as I could and removing a small piece of metal from the fuse, the car suddenly started 10 minutes later. It seemed to be a completely random electrical fault and somethinig I did not want to happen later on our journey, in the middle of Etosha National Park, as there I would have a lion holding the spanner for me while the hyena talked me through the manual!! ................. fortunately we could make contact with Duane, of Safari Drive, back at Windhoek on the satelite phone and we agreed to monitor the situation to see if it happened again.
The journey to Sesrium was along gravel roads, approximately 130km from Hideout Camp, (plus the 80km round trip to Beta, for fuel!) which would take some 3 hours, but the trip back through the NamibRand Reserve was very pleasant and with frequent sitings of Oryx, Zebra, Springbok and Ostrich. We arrive at Sesrium at abut 4.45pm and were hoping to make it to Sossusvlei for sunset, but as Sossusvlei is about an hours drive from the Namib Naukluft Park Entrance Gate and the gate shuts at 6.30pm, there would not be time to get there. .............. in fact it would be extremely difficult to ever see sunset at Sossusvlei!! We decided to head for one of the closer dunes; Dune 5 and made it just before sunset, but trying to climb the orange sand dune with fred on piggy back was not easy, so we stopped half way for Gin & Tonics with a wonderul view of the surrounding mountains, the distant haze above, turning pink and violet as the sun descended into the earth.
The campsite was fairly busy, although the individual pitch was quite private, but at least it allowed us to get our permit for Sossusvlei when we arrived instead of waiting in the long queue the next morning of all those people that camped in more distant sites. It was dark when we put our tents up so we wandered over to the bar and restaurant facility at the camp and ate supper there, watching a bit of Wimbledon (mixed doubles) on the bar television. It was only here that we realised that Wimbledon was now over and Andy Murray had actually reached the final, albeit getting beat by Federer!
The next morning we rise early to get to Sossusvlei for sunrise, ........... although, with three children in tow and packing up tents, sunrise.....ish is a good enough target! .......... and after an hours drive we finally arrive at the sand car park. However, this car park is still 5km from the Sossusvlei Dune, but the remaining heavy sand track could only be tackled by 4x4 vehicles. ..... so, with the Land Rover in low ratio, we hit the sand track, which was very deep in places, but keeping the momentum up and with no intention of stopping, we slid our way, succesfully to the base of Sossusvlei. Fred being incapacitated with his damaged foot was not going to be able to manage climbing the dune as some of them scale up to 325m (1,066 feet) in height and Sosussvlei is one of the largest, ......... so 'piggy backs' from Jo and I were out of the question and crawling up on his hands and knees ...... would have probably taken hm a couple of days!! Instead, we decided to leave him in the Land Rover ...... resting and agreed to be back as soon as possible for breakfast. Luckily while driving Fred had sat in the middle, so was able to keep his foot raised which helped the healing process and we had enough first aid to deal with it before reaching Swakopmund, where we could get it checked out. We started our climb, which was very heavy going, with each step sinking backwards into the sand; it felt like 2 steps forward and 1 step back each time and as we reached the summit the wind was blowing fiercely, sandblasting our skin as we climbed. However, the climb was worth while and the view from the top was quite amazing. We continued over the dune to come down the rear side and meet the 'vlei' at the base and this was great fun as we ran down the steep sand slope, with giant leaping moonwalk steps.
Climbing Sossusvlei before breakfast!
Exceptionally windy at the summit of Sossusvlei!!
easy does it!! .............................................................. Harry moonwalking!
Calm in spirit ......... not in face!! ................................ Imogen at 100km/hr
On the way back to camp the light from the sun was turning the dunes various shades of bright orange, creating a surreal scene of sage and yellow grasslands, supporting small dark green trees set against a deep orange background of sand dune below bue skies,
Sun rising on the dunes.
Back at the Land Rover we joined Fred for breakfast, .......... well a bowl of cereal before heading back to camp, through the ever changing colour of the sand dunes 
Back at camp we packed up our ground tent and headed out via the Sesrium Canyon which has been carved out by the Tsauchab River. It was great walking through to the base of the canyon (Fred on piggy back!), a great bit of geography for the children, seeing how deep the river had cut through. Although it was currently dry, in the rainy season the river flows and leaves rock pools that you can swim in.
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'Moose' is a larger than life character, moustache, beard, rosy cheeks, loud voice and a large white bakers apron and he clearly enjoys a bit of apple crumble himself every now and again! .... and his bakery sells all sorts of shortbreads and cakes ............ the children were in their element! Once supplied with crumble, coffee and drinks we sat down to a sweet lunch ready for the next leg of the journey. The place was surrounded by old rusting cars, strategically placed around the site which were great to look at.
The desert can be harsh! ................... This guy just popped in for a piece of apple crumble!
We make it to Swakopmund at around 8pm, a little later than we had hoped, clearly the apple crumble stop took longeer than anticipated, which meant the last two hours of driving was in the dark, which along winding, bumpy, gravel roads through a mountain pass took a bit of concentration, especially with the eyes of springbok, oryx and zebra lighting up in the headlights, like giant fireflies, along the way. Margaret, our delightful manageress at Swakopmund, was getting a little concerned when we hadn't turned up and reception was closed, but Johnny the security guard welcomed us and showed us to a very nice two storey timber and thatch chalet on stilts overlooking the ocean. A good niights sleep was had by all.
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