Namibia Red dunes and dead trees

16th September Sossusvlei

The next morning we decided on a horse ride. We checked out and drove round to the stables (run by an Austrian girl and helped by a Danish student). It was only us and we had a great ride up and through the rocks looking at the local sites. Our guides were interesting and knowledgeable about the area; I found the idea of sacred San rock towers most interesting. We finished with a nice canter before we had to set off on a 4 hour drive.


We left Koiimasis and drove back to the D707, where we turned right and follow the D707 back to the C27, north of Helmerinhausen. Here we turned left onto the C27, a slightly better road than the D707, but not much in it. After a dusty hour we arrived at the tiny settlement of Betta, where we filled up with petrol (no credit cards, but luckily we had been warned). Here we headed right on towards Sesriem, passing the aptly named Wereldend (World End). Typical Namibian roads…!

We decided against a visit to Duwisib Castle: a castle of red sandstone emerging from the desert with defence tower and battlements 70 km south west of the small town Maltahöhe. Maltahöhe was founded by Henning von Burgsdorf in 1885, when he erected a police station which he named after his wife. The builder of Duwisib Castle was German Officer Baron Hansheinrich von Wolf, who came to Africa during the Herero War. He married a wealthy American in 1907 and decided to stay in Africa and breed horses (now the feral horses near Aus). He bought Farm Duwisib and asked architect Wilhelm Sander to build a castle in 1908. Sander had already built three castles in Winhoek; Schwerinsburg, Heinitzburg and Sanderburg. When von Wolf heard about the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted and fell in 1916 in France. His wife did not return to Africa and the castle and stud deteriorated. It is assumed that the feral horses of the Namib are descendants of this stud.

The drive took us into the low plains of the Namib Desert to the crossing with the D845, then left on the C19 for a couple of kms. We managed to miss the lodge entrance completely, and had to turn around. The opposite direction we saw the entrance arch immediately however. A Little Sossus Lodge, situated southeast of Sesriem is surrounded by the Nubib, Tsaris and Naukluft mountains. The western dunes can also be viewed. The main area of the lodge is an old farmhouse converted into a homely meeting place with a friendly and welcoming ambience. Coffee and cake was freely available, which was nice after the 4 hour drive. All areas are open plan, inviting guests to wander around freely. There was a pool and sheltered verandah, but the wind made us hesitate to go in. Our chalet was right at the end, so was more private than the rest and opened directly out onto the sands to enjoy a 180 degree view of the Namib plains and the beautiful mountains. The lights and fans are powered by batteries charged by wind. A Little Sossus Lodge will ensure you an unforgettable stay in tranquil desert surroundings. Relax under the African sky and enjoy a drink before delighting your palate with African cuisine while the sun is setting. Try a short hike in the afternoon and enjoy the spectacular sunset. Full board.

Outside the main lodge were dozens of the famous Namib fog beetles. The Namibian fog-basking beetle (Onymacris unguicularis) or Toktokkies, as they are known to local Bushmen, because they attract a female by tapping the ground with their bottoms. Perhaps the most innovative survival tactic by any creature, especially in the inhospitable Namib Desert, is their ability to stand on their heads on the top of a sand dune on a foggy morning and catch settling fog. Water rolls off the beetles chassis or 'carapace' into a trough in the form of droplets, which then runs down the body and into an eager mouth!
It was late enough in the afternoon not to venture further afield, so we took a stroll in the ephemeral river bed behind our chalet before heading to dinner. On our way we spotted a Shovel-snouted Lizard, the famous dancing lizard of the Namib Desert. Its unique dance is actually a way of keeping cool by raising alternating feet from the scorching sand every 10 seconds. When it gets too hot and this thermal dance no longer works the lizard dives down into the sand to cooler temperatures. The flat snout allows it to plunge into the sand and “swim” deeply in order to hide from the sun’s extreme heat, as well as predators, it can stay hidden like this for up to 24 hours. The Shovel-snouted lizard is one of the fastest creatures in the desert, especially relative to its size, using its impressive hind legs to propel forward and the front legs only for steering. This speed allows it to capture insects and other prey which also provides it with all its water. It also has a second bladder for storing water from the desert fog, which is incredibly useful during times when hunting for prey has not been successful.
At dinner I decided on vegetarian and was rewarded with a rich veg pie, washed with a nice Namibian (of course) wine. By the time we’d finished the sun had set and we walked back in the almost total dark, admiring the clear skies and stars.
Ohamba Shiraz/ Cabernet Sauvignon/ Cabernet Franc. Once in a while an extraordinary masterpiece is born in a wine cellar. This has happened in the case of our Royal Wine – Ohamba. Our Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc – Blend has far surpassed all our expectations after aging for 20 months in our French Oak barrels. Truly for those majestic moments!


The Namib Desert is commonly referred to as the world’s oldest desert as it has been around for about 43 million years. Part of the desert, towards the centre, incorporates Namib Naukluft Park, the largest park in Namibia and third largest in Africa. The is a combination of the Namib Desert Park and Naukluft Mountain Zebra Park as well as sections of the Diamond Area. The combination adds up to 50 000 sq km. The Naukluft Mountain area was initially created as a sanctuary for the Hartmann’s mountain zebra. In 2013, a large part of the desert became a Unesco World Heritage site under the name of “Namib Sand Sea”. The Namib is a coastal desert. The name Namib is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place” as the Namib stretches over 2,000 km along the Atlantic coast. The Namib's northernmost portion, on the Angola-Namibia border, is known as Moçâmedes Desert, while its southern portion approaches the neighbouring Kalahari Desert. From the Atlantic coast eastward, the Namib gradually ascends in elevation, reaching up to 200 km inland to the foot of the Great Escarpment. Annual precipitation ranges 2 mm in the most arid regions to 200 mm at the escarpment. Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the Namib is the oldest desert in the world and contains some of the world's driest regions. The geology consists of sand seas near the coast, with gravel plains and scattered mountain outcrops further inland. The sand dunes, some of which are 300 metres high and span 32 km long, are the second-largest in the world. Temperatures along the coast are 9-20 °C annually, but inland summer daytime temperatures can exceed 45 °C while nights can be freezing. Fogs that originate offshore from the collision of the cold Benguela Current and warm air from the Hadley Cell create a fog belt that frequently envelops parts of the desert. While this has proved a major hazard to ships, more than a thousand wrecks litter the Skeleton Coast, it is a vital source of moisture for desert life. The Namib is almost completely uninhabited by humans except for several small settlements and indigenous pastoral groups, including the Ovahimba and Obatjimba Herero in the north, and the Topnaar Nama in the central region. Owing to its antiquity, the Namib is home to more endemic species than any other desert. Most desert wildlife is arthropods and other small animals that live on little water. Although the outer Namib is largely barren of vegetation, lichens and succulents are found in coastal areas, and several types of trees are also able to survive the extremely arid climate. The Namib Desert is one of the 500 distinct physiographic provinces of the South African Platform stretching from the Uniab River (north) to the town of Lüderitz (south). To the north, the desert leads into the Kaokoveld; the dividing line between these two regions is at the latitude of Walvis Bay, and it consists in a narrow strip of land 50 km wide that is the driest place in Southern Africa. To the south, the Namib borders on the South African Karoo semi-desert.

Southern Namib (between Lüderitz and the Kuiseb River) comprises a vast dune sea with some of the tallest and most spectacular dunes of the world, ranging from pink to vivid orange. In the Sossusvlei area, several dunes exceed 300 m in height. The complexity and regularity of dune patterns in its dune sea have attracted the attention of geologists for decades, but it remains poorly understood. The source of the unconsolidated sand (the most recent sand sea) has been shown to be dominantly from the Orange River, which drains into the Atlantic south of the Namib Sand Sea, with minor contributions in the east from the (now ephemeral) rivers that drain into the sand sea. For this reason the Namib Sand Sea has been referred to as the "wind displaced delta of the Orange River.” Moving north from Sossusvlei, the sand gradually gives way to a rocky desert that extends all the way from Sossusvlei to the Swakop river. This area is traversed by the Tropic of Capricorn and is mostly flat, although some scenic canyons and elevations are found in some areas, for example in the Moon Valley system. While most of the soil is rocky, sand dunes are still occasionally found in this region; for example, sand dunes occupy much of the coastline between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund.

17th September Sossusvlei
We set off rather early, as recommended, the next morning, with a packed breakfast. Even though we arrived at Sossus Gate 15 minutes before opening, a small queue of cars was already forming. However, it didn’t take long to get to the gate. The usual Namibian bureaucracy held everyone up; fill in your details, car reg, next hotel, etc; all in long hand on paper forms to hand to the next checkpoint (and give back when you leave).


We still got through by sunrise and drove swiftly to the first dune, Dune 45, to admire the view. Steve chose to walk up the red sands, but I opted to eat breakfast instead! Plenty to see at the bottom too, with a small yellow salt pan at its base. Dune 45 is a star dune whose name comes from the fact that it is at the 45th kilometre of the road that connects the Sesriem gate and Sossusvlei. Standing over 170 m, it is composed of 5-million-year-old sand that is detritus accumulated by Orange River from the Kalahari Desert and blown here.

Driving along the canyon was spectacular as the sun rose, giving amazing shadows on each dune with their varying curves. The colours everywhere were beautiful; red and orange dunes, pink sands and white and yellow pans, contrasting with black outcrops and green grasses.
The best time to visit Sossusvlei is in the early morning. The park gates open at dawn and the golden light just after sunrise is perfect. Take along enough drinking water, sunscreen and a hat. Sossusvlei, Namibia's highlight in the heart of the Namib Desert, is a huge clay-pan, enclosed by mighty sand dunes. Sossusvlei literally translates to “dead-end marsh”, as it is the place where the dunes come together preventing the Tsauchab River to flow any further, some 60km east of the Atlantic Ocean. Some of the spectacular hills of sand reach a height of 300 meters and belong to the highest in the world. Only after a heavy rainfall, which is very seldom in this area, does the vlei fill with water. As the clay layers are hardly impervious to water, a turquoise lake remains for quite some time. The dunes of the Namib Desert developed over a period of millions of years. It is thought that the vast quantities of sand were carried into the Atlantic Ocean by the Orange River. This material was subsequently moved northwards by the Benguela current. The surf pushed the sand back onto land and coastal dunes developed as a result, which were shifted inland more and more by the wind.



We stopped several times to admire various dunes and views before parking in the 2x4 car park. Steve wanted to drive on to the 4x4 parking but the attendant persuaded us to take the bus instead. This turned out to be a good idea, because the Duster would never have made it through the deep sands, and we saw more than one abandoned car en route. Retrieving a stuck car would be so much more expensive than the bus fare! He dropped us off at the start of the walk to Big Daddy Dune and Deadvlei. It wasn’t a long walk to Deadvlei, but the sand and hilly nature of the walk made it trickier than usual. Still, we were greeted over a rise with a wonderful mix of colours; a pure white salt pan with black dead camel thorn trees, against a huge deep red dune and blue skies. In the background was the sound of a ferocious thunderstorm.

Close to Sossusvlei, Deadvlei is a clay pan characterised by dark, dead camel thorn trees contrasted against the white pan floor. The pan was formed when the Tsauchab River flooded and the abundance of water allowed camel thorn trees to grow. However, the climate changed and the sand dunes encroached on the pan, blocking the river from reaching the area. The trees are estimated to be approximately 900 years old, however they have not decomposed due to the dry climate. Deadvlei is a walk from the parking lot so be sure to take drinking water. Big Daddy is the tallest dune in the Sossusvlei area and at 325 m it dwarfs the other dunes.
After enjoying the walk around Deadvlei we headed back to the park to catch the bus onwards to Big Mama Dune and Sossusvlei (Sossus Lake), which is the only mostly permanent water in the area. It was noticeably more fertile here, with a variety of trees and plants, some flowering, birds and even some wildlife (mainly antelopes). We even managed a quick trip to Hidden Vlei, which most people don’t bother with.

We had to wait a while to go back as there was a large group of Americans filling all the buses, but finally we got a space and I had to squeeze next to the driver. Handy as it turned out because he pointed out the Fairy Circles to me, which I would have otherwise missed. These eerie patches of unexplained circles remain an unsolved mystery. We saw them later on our flight over Sossusvlei, when they were even clearer. There are two realistic explanations for these puzzling desert formations. One is that the circles are the result of neighbouring armies of underground termite colonies fighting it out regularly for territory and nutrients. The other is that the fairy rings are caused by desert vegetation competing for scarce water and nutrients in the soil; or maybe a combination of both!


We collected our car and headed slowly back towards Sesriem Gate, detouring to Elim Dune before branching right towards Sesriem Canyon. The canyon is not visible from the road as it is all below the level of the surrounding land. We walked down into the canyon, now empty in the dry season, but water-filled in the wet, and admired the unusual rock formations inside.

Sesriem Canyon is located approximately 4.5km from the entrance gate of the Namib-Naukluft National Park. Tsauchab River has shaped the Canyon over millions of years and it is one of the few places in the area that holds water all year round, albeit in small pools in the dry season. The early Afrikaans explorers in the region named the canyon after the fact that they had to use six (“ses”) leather straps (“riem”) tied together to create a rope long enough to lower buckets into the canyon below, in order to fetch water. The Tsauchab is an ephemeral river in the Hardap Region. Its source is in the southern Naukluft Mountains, from where it flows west through Namib-Naukluft National Park into Sossusvlei, an endorheic basin. The lower river has in the past had a slightly different courses and also formed two other basins, Deadvlei and Hiddenvlei. The Tsauchab is 150 km long, but as it is in the Namib Desert, it carries water only during the rare times when rain falls in the Naukluft Mountains and runs off, when it becomes a rapid-running, strong river within a matter of hours. As a result of these occasional rains/ floods, it has over the past 2 million years carved Sesriem Canyon, a 1 km long 30 m deep canyon in sedimentary rock. Past the canyon, the Tsauchab flattens and grows broader, and is surrounded by a riparian forest as it slopes towards the Sossusvlei salt pan. In Sossusvlei, the riparian forest consists of both living trees (eg Maerua crassifolia) and skeletons of dead trees.

A note about dunes: A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand, typically the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, but most are longer on the stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and shorter on the slip face in the lee side. The valley or trough between dunes is called a dune slack. The modern word "dune" came into English from French around 1790, which in turn came from Middle Dutch dūne. Dunes are made of sand-sized particles, and may consist of quartz, calcium carbonate, snow, gypsum, or other materials. Aeolian dune shapes: Five basic dune types are crescentic, linear, star, dome, and parabolic. Dune areas may occur in three forms: simple (isolated dunes of basic type), compound (larger dunes on which smaller dunes of same type form), and complex (combinations).
Barchan or crescentic: crescent-shaped mounds wider than they are long. The lee-side slipfaces are on the concave sides of the dunes. These dunes form under winds that blow consistently from one direction (unimodal winds). They may merge into barchanoid ridges, and then transverse dunes.
Transverse dunes: Abundant barchan dunes may merge into barchanoid ridges, which then grade into linear (or slightly sinuous) transverse dunes, so called because they lie transverse, or across, the wind direction, with the wind blowing perpendicular to the ridge crest.
Seif or longitudinal dunes: linear (or slightly sinuous) dunes with two slip faces. The two slip faces make them sharp-crested. They are called seif dunes after the Arabic for "sword". They may be more than 160 km long, and visible in satellite images. Seif dunes are associated with bidirectional winds. Some linear dunes merge to form Y-shaped compound dunes.
Star: Radially symmetrical, pyramidal sand mounds with slipfaces on three or more arms that radiate from the high centre of the mound. They tend to accumulate in areas with multidirectional wind regimes. Star dunes grow upward rather than laterally.
Dome: Oval or circular mounds that generally lack a slipface. Dome dunes are rare and occur at the far upwind margins of sand seas.
Lunettes: Fixed crescentic dunes that form on the leeward margins of river valleys in arid and semiarid regions in response to the direction(s) of prevailing winds.
Parabolic: U-shaped mounds of sand with convex noses trailed by elongated arms are parabolic dunes. These dunes are formed from blowout dunes where the erosion of vegetated sand leads to a U-shaped depression. The elongated arms are held in place by vegetation. Most parabolic dunes do not reach heights higher than a few tens of metres except at their nose, where vegetation stops or slows the advance of accumulating sand.
Reversing: Occur where winds periodically reverse direction, reversing dunes are varieties of any of the above shapes. These dunes typically have major and minor slipfaces oriented in opposite directions.
Draas: very large-scale dunes; up to a few hundred metres high, kms wide, and hundreds of kms long. After a draa has reached a certain size, it develops superimposed dune forms. Draas are more ancient and slower-moving than smaller dunes, and form by vertical growth of existing dunes. Draas are widespread in sand seas like Namibia.
We finally left Sesriem in the late afternoon, filled up with petrol and returned to the hotel where we went for a walk around the hotel before watching a spectacular sunset before dinner and bed.