Day 3 & 4 of 18 – Namibia Safari Trip – 2019
We didn’t really have a plan, other than that we wanted to drive to the Aba Huab riverbed, to search for desert-adapted elephant. But as we didn’t want to drive too much on tar roads, we decided to go off-road, and drive west of the Brandberg Mountain and then up north, towards the Aba Huab riverbed. We were fairly sure we could not make that in one day, so we were heading towards Rhino Trust Camp, and see where the day would end.
Day 3: Spitzkoppe – Rhino Trust Camp – Doros Crater area
Once we left the tar road we instantly felt a change; all of a sudden we were alone, surrounded with some of Namibia’s most spectacular scenery, between the Brandberg Mountain and the ancient Doros Crater.
We followed our GPS up north, towards the Rhino Trust Camp, a place we thought to perhaps put up camp.
Welwitschia, a plant unique for this part of the country. It gets most of its moisture and nutrients from the air and grows extremely slow. This plant is at least hundreds of years old and some plants are over a thousand years old.
We didn’t really like the Rhino Trust Camp site and as it was still fairly early we decided to continue up north. The landscape rapidly turned increasingly wild, and so did the road.
Somewhere between the Messum Crater and Brandberg Mountain, in the middle of extensive plains covered in granite boulders. A perfect place for our first night camping in the wild!
Namibia at its best! What to say…. A perfect night xxx
Day 4: Doros area – Twyfelfontein – De Riet – Huab riverbed
Today we were planning to drive to the Aba-Huab riverbed, where last year we saw our first desert elephants. We first had to cross the plains around the Doros crater though, towards Twyfelfontein. It was only when we got to Burnt Mountain that we saw again other people, the only person we had seen in the last 30 hours was a guard at the Rhino Trust Camp.
Early morning mist covered the plains, a scene I hadn’t seen before in Namibia. Early signs that the rainy season was not too far out anymore. It hadn’t rained here for almost 10 months.
Somewhere between Doros crater and Burnt Mountain. Honestly..? We were a bit lost and had no idea where we were exactly, but that didn’t matter. It was beautiful! Following our GPS would get us eventually to Twyfelfontein.
From Burnt Mountain we drove into the Aba-Huab riverbed, in search of desert elephants. No luck this time, so we decided to drive further upriver to De Riet, apparently an area with a high density of wildlife and occasionally also desert lions.