Sossus on Foot and a night with the Zebras.

While in Oudtshoorn in South Africa we stayed at a caravan park and the owners there had just returned from a trip to Namibia and offered to jot some notes down for us which was very kind of her. One of the bits of advice Wilma had given us was a place to stay in the desert called Sossus on Foot so I had rung ahead and booked two nights there. Wilma had in her notes said, that it was the highlight of their holiday so we were not going to miss it. We arrived at the gate to find a very small “Campsite” sign and hanging next to that were an adults pair of shoes and also an infants pair of shoes, all very easy to miss on a very long dusty road.

We turned in and saw that it was about 2 kilometres from the main road but there was nothing at all in sight but continued driving anyway. Just as I was about to give up and turn around the track went down into a gully where the camp site was. There are only four camp sites and the farm that it’s on has no mains electricity and only bore water and is about as remote as you can get. The owners Frans and Yuri Boesman are a Namibian/Japanese couple who met when they were both working as tour guides and have two beautiful little girls. They now conduct their own tours of their farm and also into the neighbouring Namibia Naukluft Park and also run the camp site. They don’t run any stock on the farm but have encouraged the wild African animals to come back into the area.

At night there can be anything up to 200 Mountain Zebras come into the waterhole right in front of the campsite which was very special to see. The next morning we went on a self guided walk out to a mountain and climbed it and then decided to climb the one beside it too.

It was really starting to heat up by the time we got back to camp and when we did get back we met a truck load of Aussie tourists who had turned up for one of the tours of the farm/park and it was actually good to hear a bit of Aussie lingo! From here it is on to Windhoek where we will get a bit of service and repairs done on the vehicles before heading further north. On the way we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn where Veronica rejoiced because she had been yearning for some warmer weather!