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| f32 Home/Travelogues/Namibia | |
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| f32 Home/Travelogues/Namibia | |
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This is a travelogue of a photo trip to Namibia, Africa. The author is one of the f32 photographers, Paul Franklin. You can read here about his travels with three companions to one of the most photogenic areas in the world. |
All
of the photographs in this article are copyright © Paul Franklin
2001.
For permission to use any of the article on this page, please contact f32 or the author directly. You can EMail the photographer at Paul.Franklin@f32.net |
| Namibia was a place I kept hearing about and somehow always knew I wanted to visit one day. Well "one day never comes" unless you make it happen, and a group of 4 of us decided we all wanted to go there so we planned the trip for March 2001. The trip was to take 2 weeks during which we could take in a reasonable piece of the country while having time to get some good images. A key factor for success was some knowledge of the country: where to go, how to travel, where to stay and also how to sort our permits. Namibia is a very safe country by African standards but they still have bureaucracy. One of the team, Gursharan Kalsi had been before and she did a fantastic job thinking through the logistics for the trip. | |
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We decided to go in March as the weather is hot (but by African standards not too hot) and being the switchover from summer to winter should still have some interest in the sky for photography. As mentioned, the plan for the trip was to have focus on a key number of places and avoid the "Cooks Tour" approach. We decide on doing the mid south of the country. In outline the itinerary was:-
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We had to consciously leave out the Orange River/Fish Canyon, Etosha area and the Skeleton Coast for next time! In this travelogue I am going to describe the trip up to the Quiver Tree Forest. Getting to Namibia from London is easy enough: Air Namibia flies every Friday, (via Frankfurt) arriving Saturday, the return flight goes out Saturday evening arriving in London on the Sunday. On arriving we picked up our 4x4 and decamped to Daan Viljoen for the first evening. It's a good place to stay. Billed as a game park it does have giraffe and smaller animals although it is only 15km from Windhoek. Accommodation was in African style huts - you can also camp but as it is by a lake I felt better behind insect screens. There is also a place for dinner and breakfast: AND it's quite good for photography, particularly in the mornings. Arrived and rested, the next day was the drive to Sesriem. This was an all day drive: the tarmac roads of Windhoek district giving way very quickly to gravel roads. |
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The Drive
to Sesriem
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There
is great scenery round Dune 45 |
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The
Sossusvlei Sand Dunes Driving on along the road, the tarmac ends and provided you have a 4x4 its pretty straightforward to carry on over the soft sand to Sossusvlei. By now the sun will be up but the light is good until 0930 to 1000. After that it's too harsh (and pretty hot) - time for lunch in the lodge and a visit for the evening light. The Sossusvlei area demands panoramic format for most shots with all the dunes, particularly if the sky is weak. Sossusvlei is full of great dunes. What's really interesting is that they move (with the breeze blowing the sand) so they will never be the same as when you saw them. It's hard to tell their size and distance. Last March the dunes on the north side were smaller but a lot nearer than the ones on the south side so the north side is recommended for shots where you want to walk in and get on the dunes. |
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| Deadvlei is quite close to Sossusvlei but you need to walk in over the dunes to reach it. Its quite unlike anywhere else. It is a very old saltpan from when it last rained there some hundreds of years ago. There are some dead trees which give it its particular feel. Because there is no bacteria there, the trees are just dead and not petrified, despite their great age. |
The
Deadvlei Sand Dunes.
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Deadvlei
is a fantastic place. Worthy of spending much time in.
One of the other things we did was see Sesriem from the air. A hot air balloon trip is well worth it, even just for the rush of the view. It's hard to get good photos from a moving balloon though. |
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Moving on from Sesriem, we struck south east for Namib Rand. This is a very large ranch which has been turned into a game reserve. It has both a full-on lodge plus an interesting alternative called the Dune Camp. The photo shows the Dune Camp. This has wooden platforms on which are tents to stay in and there is a full service dining platform. Each platformed tent has its own private shower etc. A great alternative to the main lodge and right there for photography in mornings and evenings. It's quite different to Sesriem, in some lights its beauty is awesome. I found that I did not need to leave the vicinity of the camp as the photography there was so good. I regret not spending more time there. |
Namib
Rand Dune Camp |
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Pan of Namib Rand |
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Namib Rand Dunes
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Quiver
Tree Forest
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From Namib Rand we carried on south to Keetsmanshoop. This is a small town, not famous in itself other than the Quiver Tree Forest. Quiver Trees are common in Namibia but uncommon elsewhere. This forest is the biggest concentration of them in the country as far as I am aware. |
The Quiver Tree Forest is good both morning and evening. All in all Namibia is a great place. I'll be going there again...... Paul Franklin |
You can contact Paul at Paul.Franklin@f32.net
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Last Updated: Sunday, February 24, 2002
Initially
quite hard work but you settle into bouncing along the roads fairly quickly.
The scenery was so so at first but improved as we got towards Sesriem.
At Sesriem there is a lodge and campsite and it's the entrance to the
Namib Naukluft Park. We'd decided to spend a few days here to get some
good images from Sossusvlei and Deadvlei which are in the park. This is
where it's important to know how things work. Sossusvlei and Deadvlei
are inside the park . The park closes at night and you can't stay inside.
To get to Sossusvlei, it's a 40km drive into the park on a (believe it
or not) tarmac road, followed by 10km over soft sand (hence you need a
4x4). Deadvlei is a 2km WALK over sand dunes on top of that. You can't
enter the park until 0530 and that's only from the campsite (which is
just inside the main gate of the park but outside the entrance to the
road in). If you stay at the lodge, you can't get in the main gate until
0630. So if you want the morning shots you need to be using the campsite
and be in the queue for the gate opening at 0530 by 0515 ready for the
trek in.
The
scenery in the Park is excellent. First up as you drive in after 10km
is "Dune 45". A lot of overlanders stop there and walk up the dune to
see the sunrise. Photographers tend to stay at the bottom and curse the
footprints on the dune! The question no one seems to know the answer to
is "which one is dune 44? And which is Dune1?".