Where we left off… waiting in the early morning for the sun to rise (you have to see the sun rising over the mountain before they open the gate) to the Namibia-Naukluft National Park...
You can see the misty appearance given by the dust from all the sand and gravel roads hanging in the air as there is no other movement to disturb it...
There is still the appearance of being very flat and then with mountains and or sand dunes suddenly rising up out of nothing…
Again more long straight roads… This bit is flat from the course of the river which has worked its way here for a long time. The river would flow along the base of the dunes to the right and we could see where it would be as there were more trees in that direction. However there was no water whilst we were there as there had not been enough rain in the catchment area. Wikipedia has this to say about Sossusvlei...
You can see the flatness of the land and how the dunes suddenly rise up… they were stunning in the early morning sun which you needed to cast the shadows to show them at their best...
It may be early but we were up and smiling!
You can just see a vehicle approaching on the road to give you an idea of scale...
The shapes of the dunes are made by some water erosion but mostly from the wind… The dunes are actually moving over time due to the processes of wind erosion.
Here you can see a 4x4 type vehicle at the bottom of one dune to give you an idea of scale and there are people walking up the ridge of the dune...
all mod cons here...
the trees do not rot as the environment is too dry to support the bacteria etc that usually break down dead plants
We changed from our minibus into a 4x4 to get us through the soft sand road to our breakfast in the dunes
We had some company...
A very lovely dining room
Woody and I left after brekkie first as we planned to at least try and walk up ‘Big Daddy’. This is the highest accessible dune in this area of 300m however the path up is longer and it is in very soft sand.
This is Deadvlei which is extremely flat and is baked clay rather than yellow sand. We saw it from this distance and then took a short cut up the side of the dune onto the path that leads to Big Daddy. The path up the side was much harder than walking up a ridge but we made it.
This is looking back towards the parking from where we had breakfast. We were to the left of the majority of the cars as we had gone beyond the carpark to our more private dining area...
This is walking along the ridge with Deadvlei down to our right. The path is illusory as you go up one ridge but go down before you get onto Big Daddy proper and is quite tiring in the heat and the sinking sand. If you are still too long you start sliding backwards...
Here you can see Woody walking along the ridge top. Here it was flat and about to go downhill before going up again with the peak being the highest point of Big Daddy.
The view from the top is immense. It is 60km to the sea and we could just about manage it. The amazing thing about walking up the dune was the view and being able to appreciate exactly how high they were having just climbed up it ourselves
on top of the world!
I see no ships...
We just had enough water between us and it was over 30*c so incredibly hot and slow going. We met some French and some Italians on the way up but to start with, before they caught us up, we had the peak to ourselves...
It’s hard to get across the full height and the steepness of it. This is on the way down the quick way which is basically running/sliding down Big Daddy straight into Deadvlei. Nobody walked back the path you came up….
Long way down...
Woody making tracks… as you walked the sound creaked like it does when walking in snow. Our guide say they calling it roaring.
Down to the vlei below...
Here we are at the bottom looking back up at the Italians who were the next to follow us down...
This is looking from the back of Deadvlei to the trees which are at the other end...
This is looking from the trees back to the first Italian to make it down the slope.
And back to our vehicle to get us back to the bus
On the way out of the dunes we saw a lonely Oryx (don’t worry the males are normally solitary)
This is the stone marking the start of the park which we stopped at on the way out. Sadly the photo hasn’t come out too well
On the return we all had a rest due to the early start and some of us got up later to join our guide for a walk and talk about local flora and faunaLove W&B xxx
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