Namibia - Day 4

 An early departure for Sossusvlei

Hiking in the dune belt to see the changing colours of the world’s highest sand dunes. 5km walk to Sossusvlei and Deadvlei.

Dune 45:

Big Daddy Dune from a distance which we climbed 

The intrepid walkers: Paul, Ronnie, Jane, Rachel, Don, Chiara and Jan. we walked about 5 km across the desert over some small dunes and up the big daddy dune.

Not far into our walk we saw hyena tracks:

Salt bush tree called !Nara. The ! Is a type of click of the tongue. With a # or circle in front of the word (all pronounced the same way but with a different clicking sound) it has a totally different meaning. 

Looking at tracks trying to work out this one. Our guide for the whole trip is Chiara (pronounced Keyara like Chianti) is Italian with an environmental Science degree with Geology and botany. We have been very lucky. 

Anyway she said these were spider tracks. I was thinking 4 little spiders having a conversation but no! This is one spider that puts his body on the sand in the middle and 2 legs in each hole. It must be enormous - that’s Rons foot in the picture for scale. 

One of the dunes we climbed: 

Me and Jan at the top of the ridge! 

Rachel leading the charge down the ridge with Don. Ronnie and Paul bringing up the rest. Hopefully this shows how steep and high the sand dune was. 

Death plain: 

Death Plain with 1000 year old trees - not petrified - just turned into solid timber. 

One of the guys in our group, Ian Robinson, whipped up this great sketch of Death plain: 

An afternoon hike thru the Sesriem Canyon.

It’s supposed to have permanent water in the bottom but it’s been dry for a few years now. 

Stay: Stay: Sossus Oasis Camp did I tell you it has two fabulous swimming pools!!! Sunset at Sossulvlei where we are staying. 

Today we saw: ostrich, oryx, springbok (much smaller than I expected)) but no baboons despite the sign at the canyon saying “beware the baboons”!