Running with the Wild Dog - Desert, dunes and dead lakes

Towards the end of September, I approached the half-way point through my mission. My colleague at NRC kindly reminded me that I had accrued some annual leave and encouraged me to use it otherwise I would lose it, so I arranged to take a ten-day break. It was a gift! I decided to use the time to go on an explorer camping safari around Namibia with Wild Dog Safaris, an excellent value for money, responsible tour company.

I joined my fellow travellers Vikki and John (from Canada), Ian, (from the UK), Jonathan (from the US) and Petr (from the Czech Republic) plus our brilliant guides Clifton and Joseph in the tour truck and we set off on a sunny Tuesday morning from Windhoek, south through Rehoboth and on to Sesriem in the Namib-Naukluft National Park where we set up camp for a couple of nights.

After putting up our tents, we visited the Elim dunes, just a short drive away, where we could climb up the sandy slopes and watch the colours change over the plains while the sun set.

The changing colours as the sun set over Elim dunes

The next day we were up before dawn and drove further into the Park to climb some dunes to watch the sunrise. It was a breathtaking site watching the sun rise, turning the dunes into a deep red, gold and russet. 

Dunes at dawn

After breakfast out in the open air, Clifton took us on a desert walk where he explained the different plants, identified animal tracks and told us stories about the ways of the indigenous peoples, such as the Khoisan, and how they were able to survive in the desert. 

Clifton squeezing some ostrich salad to get water

He led us onwards and upwards to a series of dune ridges where he left us to scale their heights and then run down the slopes to Deadvlei, a dead lake which eerily resembles an out of this world landscape containing a salt pan and dead tree stumps reaching up to the sky.

Me climbing the dunes

Me and fellow traveller John running down the slopes

Eerie Deadvlei

Toasted in the sun, the happy band of travellers trekked onwards through Deadvlei and made their way to the road where we hitched a lift  to Sossuvlei and then back to the campsite. A few of us chilled out with an ice-cold drink in the bar in the afternoon and swapped travel adventure stories, one of the best bits about travelling in a small group! Then when the afternoon had cooled off a little, we piled back into the truck and went down to the Sesriem canyon, a small but nevertheless impressive gorge carved out by a river over thousands of years. 

A glimpse down in Sesriem Canyon