Long Roads and Desert Dunes, Namibia

Camel Thorn Trees in the Namib Desert Dunes, Namibia

Camel Thorn Trees in the Dunes
Namibia, the driest country in sub-saharan Africa, is home to one of the worlds oldest and largest deserts. Camel thorn trees (vachellia erioloba) are among the few specialised types of vegetation able to survive the extremely arid conditions.

Namibia is big.

It doesn’t seem particularly big if you are looking at a map of continental Africa, but that is only because Africa is HUGE. Namibia is the 34th largest country in the world. And if your bottom is on a seat in a truck, and you are being driven almost 4000 kilometres in less than two weeks to take in the highlights, it feels really big.

I was travelling with photographer Ben McRae, Pedro Ferrão Patrício from Photoburst, Namibian guide Morne Griffiths, and four other photography enthusiasts across an amazing landscape.

Most of the roads we traversed were gravel: some well-graded, but others corrugated and potholed. The noise and jolting of a truck on a gravel road, especially in the heat, makes any distance feel longer. It was August, which might well be mid-winter, but the temperatures – which dropped to single digits overnight in the desert air – rose to over 30°C by mid-morning most days, baking our vehicle. The heat bounced off the sere landscape and the light angled into our windows. Any circulating air brought road dust and grit with it, sucking all the moisture out of one’s body. I hate to think what these roads must be like in summer!

Not only is Namibia large, it is the second (after Mongolia) least-densely populated country in the world. This has to be due to the desert climate: hot and dry with sparse and erratic rainfall. Only the very toughest plants and animals survive.

So, there is a lot of distance between towns; there are expansive tracts of empty space.

I tried to capture a “feel” for the countryside from my window – using my iPhone on those long stretches of road without stops – as we drove from the small, central capital city to a desert so expansive that it’s very name: “Namib”, means “vast place” in the local Khoekhoe or Nama language.

View through a truck front window over an empty Namibian roadway.

View from the Truck
Not even an hour south of the capital Windhoek and we are already on a quiet road in the middle of an almost empty countryside. (iPhone6)

View from the Truck
Less than two hours from the capital we leave the pavement behind. The empty landscape rolls and bumps past, alternating with small, barren-looking villages with their collections of kids and goats and cows. It’s not yet mid-day, and it’s the middle of winter, but the bright light and stifling heat bounce off the truck windows. (iPhone6)

“Private: No Entry”
Large tracts of land are fenced off – often with not a house or outbuilding in sight. (iPhone6)

Tipped Truck
The rough roads take their toll. This truck had passed us not long before. “They are driving too fast!” observed Morne, our guide and driver. Sure enough, they took a bend too fast and spun out.
Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, but it took Morne and Ben some time to help the passengers out of their vehicle. We were a long way from anywhere: Morne climbed onto the cab to get a better phone signal so he could make the accident report for the unfortunate occupants. (iPhone6)

Dunes in the Distance
Finally, after a long day in the vehicle, the dunes of Namib-Naukluft Park come into view in the distance. 10August2015 (iPhone6)

Jeep Driver
Once inside the National Park, we transfer into jeeps for a 60km trip into the sand dunes…

Dead Trees
… and then walk into the clay pans and the ancient sunburnt dead trees of Deadvlei (see: Portrait of a Tree).

The Dunes of Namib-Naukluft Park
The next day, after an early-morning visit to Deadvlei (see: Dead Trees and Dunes) we are back in open-air jeeps bumping across the desert.

Pied Crow (Corvus Albus)
As we wait for our truck, I admire the bird life; …

Cape Sparrow (Passer Melanurus)
… it may not be exotic, …

Tractrac Chat (Cercomela Tractrac)
… but it is full of character and entertaining to watch.

Roadway
In the middle of the day, we head across the desert to set up our campsite for the night. The road through Namib-Naukluft Park stretches out before us.

Fairy Circles
We stop for a look at the fairy circles that are common in the arid grasslands of the Namib desert. Until recently, these bare patches were thought to be endemic to the south west of Africa, but in 2004 similar rings were discovered in the Pilbara region, Western Australia.

Morne
Our guide explains some of the theories about the as-yet unexplained circular barren patches.

Ostrich (Struthio Camelus)
The dry landscape is home to giant ostriches, who lope off as soon as we take an interest in them.

Social Weavers (Philetairus Socius)
The common social weavers, on the other hand, pretty much ignore us as they move around their massive communal nest constructed from stiff grasses.

Springbock (Antidorcas Marsupialis)
Pretty little springboks wander around the Sessrium Gates Campsite as we set up. (iPhone6)

Dead Tree and Scrub
Life is tough in the Namib Desert; it gets less than 10 mm (0.39 in) of rain annually – and even this falls unpredictably.

Sands and Bush
The desert dunes have their own personalities in the changing afternoon light.

Golden Sands
Small shrubs cling to the shifting sands.

Scrubby Bushes on the Dunes
On the crusty white clay pans, more vegetation grows. What little water is available here flows underground.

Lines and Curves
The sun drops behind the dunes and the sand changes from orange to pink and purple as the winter afternoon light quickly falls-off.