Waterfalls and Canyons

The border crossing from Lesotho back into South Africa was extremely quick. In fact, they didn’t even bother to check both of our passports. After crossing back in, we decided the best route into Namibia would be driving straight west, all the way back across South Africa to enter Namibia from the south. After 2 long days of driving and a quick 1 night stop in Kimberly (known for having the biggest manually dug hole in the world), we arrived in Augrabies. Augrabies is a small town, but it sits outside Augrabies National Park, known for its cascading waterfalls. We hit the park at an optimal time as the floods in the north had brought large volumes of water into the gorge leading to a handful of individual side waterfalls in addition to the main falls. We spent two nights camping outside the park in wine country sandwiched between grape vines and lime trees.

From Augrabies it was a 2 hour jaunt northward to Namibia (again we selected a small remote dirt/gravel road boarder crossing). For the first time our vehicle was actually searched at the boarder and after 45 minutes of paperwork, investigating, and being told the USA was only full of rich people, we moved into Namibia. A majority of Namibians live in the northern third of the country, in the capital of Windhoek or settled in the north along the Angola boarder. It was immediately evident as we entered from the south that we were in desolate, but beautiful country. Namibia is slightly larger than Texas but boasts less than 2 million people. Most are scattered across the country side and only the capital city boasts a population above 50,000 people. On our third day in Namibia during a 5 hour stretch driving in the south we only encountered one other vehicle!

Our first destination was to hit up Fish River Canyon. It was high on Colleen’s things to see in Namibia, and like SA, everything says that you must book in advance. We did not know when we would be arriving, so we took the chance and just showed up. There were only 4 other people there. It is entering high season and the Easter Holiday yet the crowds have been low as of late. Fish River Canyon is the largest canyon in the Southern Hemisphere, and the views were spectacular. After Fish River we had big plans to drive to Luderitz, a small German settlement 2 hours from any other towns on the south-west coast. Namibia has a big German history as they used to be a German colony and only got their independence in 1990. We arrived after a long day of driving to Luderitz and wouldn’t you know it, it was their Independence Day. Of course in the USA everyone has big BBQ’s and parties on our Independence Day, here not so much. We found one person having a small braai and the temperature had dropped from 35 degrees C at 30 KM outside of town to only 14 degrees in the city. It was a ghost town. No one was around, all the shops were closed for the holiday and at the one camping spot we couldn’t find anyone to pay. We took this as a sign and decided our best bet was to grab a quick beer at the only pub open in town and head out back the way we came. The nearest town was Aus and we camped at the only garage/market/petrol station in town. It was nice, cheap, clean and sunny!

Namibia has been an experience so far. LOTS of wide open space and you don’t see others for hours. The scenery is magnificent, it seems to change drastically every hour and the trip is definitely about the journey here, not the destination.