Climbing in Cederberg

From Stellenbosch we headed into the Cederberg National Park for a few days of sport climbing. We headed off the tarmac road onto gravel, hoping our small two wheel-drive car was capable. We arrived at the Nuwerust Farm, where Louise greeted us and even lent us their copy of the climbing guide book for the area.

That afternoon we took a short walk to look at Red River Crag, but concluded that the routes there were at the higher end of our ability so maybe we’d come and look at them another day.

The next day went to search for a crag which the guidebook promised had a load of routes within our ability. When we arrived at the campsite where we thought it was located we were informed that there was no climbing here, and suggested Truitjies Krall crag – which we’d just passed. With a permit in hand, we headed back there. We were so pleased we did. It was an amazing location with stunning red rock and a cave with numerous San finger-paintings around 2000-1000 years old. 

As we walked up the gorge we jumped back, startled, there was a snake! Just wiggling it’s way along. It didn’t seem to notice us, and we stayed well clear until it was gone.

We found the Hueco Punks Sector of the crag and climbed, with me leading and Anya seconding, Way to Go (5a), Skinhead Stomp (5c), Nick Nack (5c), and Knee Bar Wager (5c). In the mid-afternoon, as the sun made it’s way onto the crag – eliminating our shade, we decided to head back to the camp for a cold drink and a dip in the pool.

The day after we headed up to Rooiberg Crags, a rock outcrop on the mountain overlooking the campsite. We headed up early in the morning as we were advised that was when it got the shade. About an hours walk from the campsite took us to the crag. It was a fantastic view over the surrounding landscape. I wished I’d bought a fleece, as it was quite chilly standing in the shade! We climbed Cool Breeze (5c) , Too Hot to Handle (5c) , Book of Fun (5b) , and Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying (5a) , before heading back down for some lunch at our camp.

In the afternoon we headed back to Red River Crag, where I climbed Aussies Wedding Gift (6a+) and Hanna Savana (6a) .

Navigating Namibia

After a great few days off grid in the Cederberg National park we headed towards the border. Following a few hours drive we reached Vioolsdrift Border Control. After a friendly hello from the guard we were told to visit offices 1, 2, and 3. Simple! We checked out of South Africa in office 1, missed office 2 - customs as we had nothing to declare, then entered our rental car details at office 3; immigration. After a quick search of the car we drove onwards through no mans land.

Leaving South Africa was extremely simple and only took 10 minutes. Entering Namibia was a whole different story... 

We pulled up to the first vehicle stop sign, but as no one was there we continued. We parked up with everyone else and went into an immigration arrivals office. We stood in the queue for a while and had to borrow a pen to fill in the entry form. Although this had questions which we couldn’t really answer like “how much money are you planning to spend in the country” and “where do you plan to exit the country?” We made some guesses and filled out all the boxes. 

Unfortunately the Dutch couple in front of us had not filled all the boxes and were made to stand out the queue and find the address of some accommodation from their Lonely Planet guidebook. 

With our passports stamped we exited the office, but then didn’t know where to go. We went into customs but were told by some lorry drivers that if we didn’t have anything to declare we didn’t need to do this. However, we did need to pay our vehicle entry fee. Firstly we didn’t know this existed and secondly where didn’t know where to do this. 

We assumed this would be in the office between immigration and customs, however this looked abandoned with a sign saying they had moved elsewhere. We then went to ask an official looking lady in departures (as this had no queue) and she said, go through the “white door”. We couldn’t find a white door, so back to customs we went. 

A friendly lorry driver then showed us where the “white door” was. It was in fact inside the abandoned building with a very small sign above it. The door was being kept closed as the guy inside wanted to keep his office nicely air conditioned. We filled in another form, paid our fee and then assumed we could drive away.

We had one last security check where the guard asked us if we had any chicken or eggs. We said no and he looked disappointed and asked us what we did have... cue the next five minutes explaining what pasta is. 

Finally we were free to go and head to our campsite on the Orange River. This was quite picturesque with very large pitches. The campsite is known for its river rafting tours, unfortunately there were no guides available for the following day so we decided to only spend one night. It was considerably hotter and more humid than it had been in the Cederberg and neither of us slept that well.

After packing up we headed north for a few hours to the Quiver Tree Rest Camp. I had read mixed reviews of this campsite but it turned out to be OK. The campsite is next to the Quiver Tree Forest which is a national monument. The tree is actually an aloe plant, characteristic of the hot dry climate. The tree gained its name due to the use of its tough pliable bark and branches for arrow quivers by the Hottentot tribe. The bigger trees are between 200 and 300 years old, we wondered round these for a while before checking out the pool.

The other attraction of this campsite were the cheetahs, the cubs were raised by the owner’s dog as they were orphans. They feed the cubs and adults in the evening, the owner was very knowledgeable and we got to be really close to both babies and adults during the feeding. Apparently he has only been bitten by the adults once recently which he says was his own fault for picking up a piece of meat before they had started eating.  Apparently 80% of Namibia’s cheetahs live on farmland but sometimes the cheetahs go on a killing spree and have been known to kill 135 sheep in one night. It is therefore not surprising that they are often shot by farmers.

Because it is so hot here (37 degrees) and we are in one of the driest areas on earth we decided to sleep with just the inner of our tent. We also couldn’t get any pegs in as the ground was so hard, so had to use rocks to weigh it down. 

I was slightly concerned about sleeping on the ground, especially as we realised we had positioned ourselves next to the pet warthog’s mud pool. However we weren’t ravaged by the warthog in the night, but I did wake up at 5am to rain on my face, which was very surprising. Luckily it was only a few drops and we didn’t have to do a panic fly sheet putting up. 

In the morning we went to the “Giant’s Playground” which was an interesting set of rock formations and headed towards our next stop (mid way to Soulsouvessi). This guest house is quite popular and we have already got some good tips from other tourists. We also have been told not to walk around without a torch at night as we might tread on a snake...

Sossusvlei

We left our guesthouse at Maltahöhe after a leisurely breakfast. Our route to Sessriem left the tarmac road for unmade, gravel roads. This started well enough, but became increasingly rutted and uneven – still passable by our small, two-wheel drive car, but increasingly uncomfortable. We were glad when we reached our campsite at Sessriem 3-4 hours later.

As the best time to visit Sossusvlei is at dawn we settled down for a relaxing afternoon with a dip in the pool at reading our books. Our pitch was quite luxurious with a covered patio and en-suite bathroom; definitely glamping!

We arrived at the park gate at 6am the next morning, after a quick breakfast, and set off for Dune 45. It’s so called because it’s 45km from the park entrance. Luckily the road inside the park is tarmac, much to our relief from yesterday’s drive.

We arrived at Dune 45 amongst a crowd of other tourists. We set off in the line up the soft, sandy ridge. It wasn’t too arduous underfoot, mostly the depressions of other’s footprints held firm if you followed them. the 

The views were amazing; the crisp, sharp lines of the orange dunes against the colbalt blue sky. 

From the ridge we descended off the side, our legs sinking into the sand (much like when in deep snow) and traversed along the foot of the dune back to the car. Then we continued onto Sossusvlei. Well we continued to the two-wheel drive car park at least. From there we caught a shuttle in a four-wheel drive vehicle, our car definitely wouldn’t have made it through the tracks of deep sand.

Here we climbed up Big Daddy (325m), the area’s tallest dune. The route felt much the same as Dune 45, but as it wound on the number of people thinned as they decided they’d had enough. We saw a few beetles and small lizards but apart from them it was pretty devoid of life.

At the top, with a small group of others, we had a grand view over the desert below. Now we had to descend. The most popular route was straight off the sheer side, plunging into the sand. Great fun! You can just make the smooth runway in the picture below, and if you look even closer the speck of a person about a third of the way down.

Here we hit the dry, white mud of Deadvlei and walked across to the petrified trees in the distance.

Then we caught the shuttle back to the car, and back to our campsite for another relaxing afternoon, after a long, energetic morning. 

The Namibian Seaside

We left Sisriem early knowing that we had 316km to travel on gravel roads before we arrived in Walvis Bay. The roads began very rough with lots of ruts meaning the car would reverberate horrendously when doing any speed over 20 km/h. After a couple of hours of this the roads began to improve a little and we even had a couple of sightings of some ostriches and oryx. The scenery was quite varied with some interesting hills, grassy plains and dried up river valleys. We also passed into the Tropic of Capricorn!

The last 2 hours we spend travelling through pinkish desert which seemed to go on forever until we eventually popped out into Walvis Bay. The drive took 6 hours which is quite a bit longer than googles estimated 4.

The Lonely Planet guide recommends a place called Bird Paradise, we tried to find this but it seemed that this was now permanently shut and we almost ended up in the town’s sewage works. The main reason for trying to find this was the large flocks of flamingos. However I was pleased to find that you could actually see these all along the lagoon (beach front). We decided to take a drive along the lagoon and found this was the location of the salt works where 90% of South Africa's salt is produced.

After watching the flamingos in the distance for a while we headed to our hostel. We dropped our stuff and decided to head out for a couple of drinks and some dinner. After wondering around for a bit we discovered there really was only one bar/restaurant. Luckily it was the place I had been looking at online. The bar is a wooden shack on stilts off the beach, it has a real Robinson Crusoe feel about it. We managed to kill a couple of hours until sunset and were treated with an amazing view complete with pelican bobbing past.

After some googling I deduced that to get a better view of the flamingos I needed to get to the beach for high tide, therefore i got up at 6am and walked 5km along the promenade (Olly stayed in bed). I was a little disheartened as i only saw a single flamingo for the first 15 minutes. However by the end of the lagoon there were 10s of flamingos and I spent some time watching them paddle around. 

We left Walvis Bay and made the 40 minute drive to Swakapund. En-route we stopped at Bird Island, but again there wasn’t much to see except some birds sitting on a platform in the distance and some big container ships on the horizon. 

We decided to do a few touristy things today, firstly we visited the Krystal Galerie. I thought this was excellent as there were some great samples of tourmaline and even the worlds largest quartz crystal cluster on display, which apparently weighs 14 tons. 

We then ate some sandwiches on the beach by “The Mole” which was built to be a deep water harbour. However, the designer had not accounted for the shifting sands and the harbour was silted up within a year. We then went to the museum which had an incredibly varied collection, but was very interesting. I did not know how many different languages and ethnicities there were here.

After getting back to the car to drive to tonight’s accommodation we discovered we had a flat battery. It was inevitable this would happen as it seems everyone has headlights on during the day and our car doesn’t tell you if you leave them on with the engine off. 

After a few minutes of debating whether or not we should wait until there was less traffic before attempting a bump start, we decided just to go for it. Olly had to do the actual starting as I had no idea what I was doing. This left me in charge of pushing, after pushing the car at a slow speed 100m along the main road to no avail we had caused enough of a scene for someone to come to our aide with a set of jump leads.  The friendly guy then showed me which bit of the car to touch with the frayed wire and within 5 minutes we were back on the road! 

We settled into our accommodation, attempted to do some planning for the next few days and then headed out for some very tasty wood fired pizza. 

Etosha National Park

We left the Spitzkoppe behind and headed north to Etosha national park. This was a long drive and I finally plucked up the courage to drive the hire car such that Olly could have a break. Most people know I am a nervous driver and the fast narrow single carriageway roads with many heavy duty lorries and dazzling heat shimmers is really not my cup of tea. Conveniently as I drove the last section it was quite quiet and I only had to overtake one vehicle.

Etosha is a 20,000 sq kilometre reserve which encompasses a large salt pan. This is dry for most of the year and the small watering holes scattered through the park attract a whole host of wildlife. There are a few lodges inside the park which have plush and pricey accommodation, but luckily also reasonably priced camping. The great thing about Etosha is the gravel road which runs through the park, this is accessible to normal (2 wheel drive) cars which means you can go on your own safari in your cheap hire car and avoid the costly tours. November is normally the beginning of the rainy season, however we were lucky that it has been quite dry so far and therefore the only water sources are still the watering holes situated next to the road.

We didn’t really have a plan and as the national park accommodation office was closed on Saturdays we decided just to turn up to the lodge half way through the park and hope they had space. We started our drive through the park and immediately had to stop for a heard of wildebeest to cross the road. We the saw a few groups of antelope and then amazingly three giraffes casually eating some leaves.

Carrying on the drive we saw zebra, an elephant (in the distance), a couple of oryx, and an ostrich. We pulled up to a watering hole and could see a car stopped a little way in front. I thought they were trying not to scare the elephant but when we moved we realised they were actually watching a lioness with her cubs in the shade of a tree. 

We carried on through the park stopping numerous times to look at various animals including what we think were Kori Bustards - the worlds heaviest flying birds. They weigh 15kg and unsurprisingly seldom fly. Fortunately there was ample space at the campsite, we parked up and had some dinner before heading to the camp’s own night lit watering hole. We decided not to put up the tent until we were going to bed as there seemed to be quite a lot of over-friendly wildlife inside the fence (the lodges/campsites have fences to keep the wildlife out, almost like an inverse zoo). During dinner we had to scare off numerous squirrels and even a lizard.

We thought the watering hole was also a bar, but we were quickly disappointed. Instead we sat down with our books and waited for sunset. However we were quickly entertained by a honey badger (also inside the fence) having what looked like an really satisfying scratch on some rocks behind us. It did walk right past us but luckily its reputation (extremely aggressive) was not confirmed and it took no notice of us. 

Just after the sun set we were treated to flocks of noisy birds arriving to drink as well as a jackal. This was followed by some hyena and then suddenly a black rhino! The rhino seemed to take very delicate sips compared to the noisy lapping of the hyena behind it. 

At one point it looked in our direction (probably as the french lady near us kept clicking to get her husbands attention) and I was a little concerned the small fence and pile of rocks between us wouldn’t suffice if it decided to charge. Luckily after squinting at its human audience for a while it went back to drinking. 

When we weren’t watching the rhino there was an impressive thunderstorm in the distance to observe, with brilliant forks of lightning on the horizon. As the rhino was heading back off into the bush there was a power cut and all the lights surrounding the water hole went out. We then heard lots of heavy stumbling around which sounded like the rhino tripping over after having the lights rudely turned out.

Luckily the power came back on and with the rhinos exit we decided also to leave and go to bed. We have been sleeping in just the thin inner of our tent which lets the breeze through. We decided to do the same tonight despite the distant lightning. I was however woken up at 1am to drips of rain on my face. I waited 20 minutes and it seemed to stop, then started again the following hour waking up Olly this time too. After a discussion about whether the rain was going to continue or not it suddenly got heavier and Olly leapt out the tent to put the fly sheet on. It then stopped raining for the night.

We got up early to head to the water hole and observed a whole heard of zebra coming for a morning drink, we then packed up and had breakfast. Olly found a honey badger in the bins which gave him a “so what” look with its head poking out the top. 

We then drove on towards the eastern exit and again were stunned by the numerous zebra, giraffe and “filler” antelope (they were everywhere). There weren’t just big things, we also saw numerous types of bird and even a tortoise which we patiently watched cross the road.

Near the exit we took a small detour off the main road to see a last watering hole and weren’t we glad we did. We were treated to an elephant having a mud bath, with zebra fighting in the background and two giraffes walking past.

We decided to stay at a lodge just outside the park which had good reviews. The good thing about this place was even though we were in the cheap camping area we could use the pool and have drinks in the bar which overlooked the lodge’s watering hole.

That evening we sat with some beers and watched springbok, jackals and numerous terrapins with another great lightning storm on the horizon.

Walking back to the tent I insisted on using a torch which was worthwhile as Olly, in flip flops, narrowly missed standing on a scorpion. We were both really pleased we had visited Etosha and the icing on the cake was seeing a family of cheetah (the most endangered of the big cats) walking up the drive of the lodge on our way back to the main road.