Road trip
Windhoek to Sesriem, Namibia
Distance Travelled: 340 km.

We picked our rental car at Hertz at the international airport. Despite being Hertz Gold Counter, the whole process took well over a full hour. First there were two people ahead of us dealing with some problem, then it was another staffer that didn’t know how to operate the Hertz rental printout system. I had booked a Toyota RAV4 small sport utility vehicle but they had upgraded us to a Toyota Hilux Diesel pickup. We went through the whole outrageous credit card charge process again, this time with a 127,241 NAD$ ($8,946.36 USD) First Amount Payable deposit charged to our Amex card because we declined the Hertz Collision Damage Waivers.

We then self led ourselves out to the truck with the keys where another Hertz staffer didn’t like that I loaded the suitcases into the back bed of the trunk on the bed liner. He actually unloaded them for us, and wouldn’t let us leave until he had placed them into the back seats of the truck, citing that there couldn’t be any “scratches”. MrsWT73 almost lost her marbles at him, given what we had gone through with the 3:15 AM wake ups and the 45 minute wait at the Hertz Counter. She managed to recover somehow though . . .

At around 9 AM, we departed off headed for the Sossus Dune Lodge at Sesriem. We had hoped to stop for some breakfast along the way at a restaurant where we could park and see the car with all our luggage (and laptops) in it. Unfortunately, Windhoek was not kind to us in that regard and we ended up settling for Pick and Pay (grocery store) pre-wrapped sandwiches to eat on the road while one of us guarded the car. Google Maps shows Windhoek to Sesriem it at about a 4.5 hour drive and it took us approximately 5 hours of driving without including the breaks. What the maps didn’t tell us is that the shortest route, via B1, C24 (D1261, D1275) and C19, was not paved for most of the way. I had thankfully purchased a proper Namibia $10 highway map at a book store in the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town that had proper distance and relief marking which was the best marital therapy decision I could have made for this portion of the trip.





This route included some really rural and fairly rugged truck terrain on C24. I was happy to have had the upgraded truck as I would have felt that the RAV4’s tires may have gotten shredded on some of the rocks seen on the roads. Most of the travel was at a bumpy 80 km/h on the gravel roads, with some parts of it as low as 50 km/h on rough wash-boarded gravel. The route was isolated and far from any amenities, gas, washrooms or restaurants. We were committed once we had started so we powered through and thankfully made it without any issues. I only saw about 5 cars the entire 2 hour period, which shows how isolated it was in this particular area. Here are some brief photos of the rest stop I took at the intersection of C24 and D1264. I didn’t even have to pull the truck off the road, there was that little traffic.











Continuing onward southbound in the D1261 and D1275 sections, the roads got substantially rougher and slower. It was still scenic and very much an adventure.













We ended up taking a break at Solitare; a sort of a nowhere down that happened to cater to a lot of tourists on their way through from Sesriem to Walvis Bay. We loaded up on diesel fuel, keeping our tank more than half full and stopped into the restaurant for a Windhoek Lager. We had a surprisingly good late lunch snack here at the Cafe Van Der Lee as we weren’t expecting to find anything in this area catering to tourists. Sorry - there is no web site or web page to link to here. We're way beyond that in the land of the as yet web undiscovered.







Temperatures here were running about 30 degrees today. There was even a chalk board indicating that the desert of Solitare typically received only 86 mm of rain all year. In terms of comparison, we sometimes get 20 mm of rain a night on the mountains of the North Shore in North Vancouver.





From Solitare, it was an easy 71 kilometers to Sesriem. There were more mountains surrounded by basins and plateaus and a complete absence of any one around. No cars, people or pedestrians in this postal code.





The town of Sesriem itself is sort of an ugly round up of campsites, hotels and dusty entrance ways. It is the entrance to the Sossusvlei park and we picked up our government issued two day entrance fee for 2 adults + car for 340N ($28 USD). These are available to purchase on the spot without any reservations. A quick 10 minute drive up the road and 6 km and we arrived to Sossus Dune Lodge inside the Sossusvlei park gates.

All in all it was a pretty adventurous drive. I most certainly would not have attempted it at night, and was glad that we had the proper type of car to handle the rugged outback of the Namib desert. I would probably take the easier but longer paved route next time, although it was neat to see the middle of nowhere. We had no problems getting diesel fuel and the only advice I can make is to book the car well in advance for a truck and be prepared for some mild sticker shock if you decline the insurance.