Road Trip
Sesriem to Walvis Bay
Namibia.
Distance Traveled: 323 km

We departed the Sossus Dune Lodge and called in at Sesriem Canyon on the way out of town. It is located right across from the Sossus Dune Lodge entrance. A short clamber down what appeared to be a small river bed actually turned into a large deep ravine that contained water at one time over its life cycle.











After we explored, we left the Sesriem Canyon and started trucking North towards Solitaire. The route today was as follows. Like our earlier inbound trip, it was posted at 4 hours and change but was more like 6 hours actual time, including some stops. It was a pretty amazing drive along this route and one that I will easily remember for it’s scenic, desolate, isolated and rugged geography that was unlike anywhere that I had driven ever before.







If anyone knows what these things are growing in the trees, I would love to know more…













We took lunch again at Solitare as seen above before tanking up the truck with diesel and heading West on C14: a road that was in fairly good condition. When I mean that the road was in good condition, it was free of pot holes and debris. The next 234 km were mostly unpaved and packed gravel. There were a few paved spots in river beds and on the canyon hills but that was about it. There also happened to be very few people around as you can see from the photographs.



We passed through some strong mountainous scenery, with game along the side of the road that included Impala, Oryx and Ostrich. The road was not completely fenced in all areas so we kept our eye out for wildlife.













As we continued our journey, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. When you travel, there are some stories and milestones that make for great stories. You don’t get many opportunities to say that you drove through Africa and crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. As a result, we stopped for a photograph. We had the whole stop to ourselves and for once, there was no waiting for bystanders to get out of the way to get the right photograph.











We passed through several mountain passes; Namibian style. These weren’t the typical interstate or highway mountain passes that we had at home, rather they were roads cut into the sides of mountains allowing the roadway to pass through canyons or hill sides and through dry river beds. Once again, there was some fascinating and rugged natural scenery as we passed through these two passes which had a lot of moonscape type of terrain.















The last part of the drive across the Tumas flats was pretty unexciting. We had about an hour of nothing, except for the odd power pole and burnt out car, which meant in some strange way that we were getting somewhere closer towards civilization. There was still the desert heat and the car thermometer read between 30 – 31 degrees Celsius.





As we approached town, the Walvis Bay Sand dunes were ever present on the north side of the highway. We stopped at the locally famous Dune 7, where several locals were having a BBQ / Braii party with their car stereos pumping loud music as they took turns running up and down the shady side of the sand dune slopes. The sand here was much more grey and sandy colored than the golds and reds of the Sossusvlei desert area.









We entered into town and headed towards the Pelican Point Lighthouse. The sand was almost taking over the highway on the C14.





It was a fascinating day of driving across a vast tundra that didn’t have anyone around. I think we saw maybe 4 cars going the opposite direction the entire day – maybe less than 5-7 people in our 6 hour drive. It had some spectacular sights along the way. It was pretty neat to get a selfie at the Tropic of Capricorn; certainly not something that you get to do everyday.