The final week of tour was fabulous, hitting the Namib Desert after Swakop. I always love to see peoples reaction to this amazing place as words just never do it justice, saying goodbye to tarmac and hitting bumpy dirt road and all of a sudden its just sand, sand everywhere. You see the scenery change before you from green mountains to towering arid sand dunes it is phenomenal. We headed to the Namib Naukluft National park which is the second largest National park in Namibia covering just under 50,000 sqkm's. It's home to dune 45 (among a hell of a lot of other dunes). Dune 45 is the most photographed dune in the world and we get to climb it for sunrise! The drive from camp to the dune is always ridiculously early but i tell people to try and stay awake for those 45 Km's as it will take your breath away. It begins pitch black then slowly slowly as the day begins to break you are able to make out the skyline of dunes, they look black and eerie in the early morning shadows only giving in to their rusty orange colour when the sun is higher in the sky. A grand time was had by all and the early morning was finished off with a cooked breakfast at the bottom of the dune.
Next up was the stunning views of the Fish River Canyon ,,,,, I stayed behind at camp to prepare dinner whilst everyone went to enjoy the sunset over the worlds second largest canyon. . . i was happily preparing dinner ,,,,when suddenly the flame on my gas stove died......surely not.....*%@# ....For the first time in my overlanding career I ran out of gas!! Thankfully we had an obscene amount of fire wood so cooking on fire it was....proper camping!!
The final 2 days of tour saw us crossing into South Africa and hitting the Orange River where a few of the passengers went on what was supposed to be a couple of hours canoeing trip and what turned out to be a 5 hour canoeing trip.....apparently what happens on the river stays on the river so none of us really know what took so long. Our final night was spent enjoying the wine......and possible some of the jagermeister offered at Highlanders camp site. . . . One minute we were watching the sunset over the Olifants River and the next we are glimpsing Table Mountain as we were approaching Cape Town.
We had a fantastic trip made that little more fantastic by a bunch of fabulous people. As it stands at the moment this was my last trip as am swapping my nomadic life style for a job in the operations department in Acacia's Cape Town office. I have been working on the road now for 2 years and have thoroughly enjoyed every single moment! You never know, I may make another appearance on one of our trucks but for the time being Cape Town is definitely the way forward. Must say big thanks to all the wonderful people I have met along the way and have had the pleasure of traveling with. Massive thanks to TJ who always makes life on the road that little bit easier and big love to the guys in the office who have always made sure the road we are traveling on as been a smooth one!
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