Roxanne Reid's Blog, page 18

NamibRand: fairy circles and dark skies

By Roxanne Reid
When I visited the NamibRand Nature Reserve in southern Namibia it was love at first sight, if for nothing else than its dazzling landscapes and its peaceful isolation. But there’s even more to love, like its fairy circles and dark skies. There’s a strong conservation and education ethic here too, something you’ll understand if you appreciate wilderness and recognise the need for youngsters to learn to appreciate it; that’s the only way they’ll help to conserve it in future...

Spitzkoppe campsite in the Namib Desert

By Roxanne Reid
If you’re a rock hopper, star gazer or even a serious climber and you’re travelling the road between Usakos and Swakopmund you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t stop for a few days at Spitzkoppe campsite in the Namib Desert. Here on Open Africa’s Arid Eden Route, you’ll find bald granite peaks popping up theatrically out of the surrounding flat plains. Gross Spitzkoppe is the highest at about 600m above the desert floor, or 1728m above sea level. There’s a riot of gian...

The Kalahari in bloom

By Roxanne Reid
Anyone who tells you that the Kalahari is just red sand and lions either hasn’t visited or simply wasn’t concentrating. In fact, it’s full of fascinating small creatures like whistling rats and barking geckos. After good rain in summer the dunes are dressed in a jacket of green grass and a throng of colourful flowers will just about slap you in the face. This, then, is the Kalahari in bloom. When we visited the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in late summer, recent rains had p...

Desert Horse Campsite and Namibia’s wild horses

By Roxanne Reid
The landscape around the little town of Aus in southern Namibia was hot, parched and dusty. Klein Aus Vista’s Desert Horse Campsite, on the fringe of the Namib Desert and the Gondwana Sperrgebiet Rand Park, was our stopover for a couple of nights. We were there to see Namibia’s wild horses, but what we found at sunset were rocky koppies washed in ginger light. We set up camp under a camel thorn tree at Klein Aus Vista’s Desert Horse Campsite. This is how camping should be:...

Swakopmund’s dunes are more alive than you think

By Roxanne Reid
He was a whirlwind of energy, sand flying as he dug in search of creatures that had left tiny hints of their presence, wiggling his bare feet into the sand where it was cooler than the hot surface. This was Tommy Collard leading us into the dunes of the Dorob National Park outside Swakopmund,Namibia, proving that the dunes are more alive than you think. The first stop on our Living Desert Tourwith Tommy was in the Swakop river bed to let down the tyres of the 4x4 from 2.5 b...

Gamkaskloof: a hidden heaven called The Hell

By Roxanne Reid
A one-legged flying doctor. A madman who lugs a car over the mountain to a place without roads. These are the kind of stories you’ll find among the silence and solitude at Gamkaskloof near Prince Albert in the Karoo, otherwise known as The Hell. Imagine it. A farmer living in an isolated valley gets seriously bitten while castrating his donkey. A one-legged doctor flies to the rescue in his Tiger Moth, landing without brakes on a makeshift strip, but the farmer resists gett...

The Himba: my dilemma over the clash of cultures

By Roxanne Reid
We were passing through Kamanjab in Namibia’s Kunene district when we saw a Himba woman in traditional dress pulling a wheelie suitcase to the bus stop as if she was in an international airport – a strange jumble of two very different cultures. Now we were on our way to meet a whole village of Himba women and children but my dilemma over the clash of cultures was still prickling at the back of my mind. We found the village in the Anabeb Conservancy surrounded by mopane tree...

Camping in the Namtib Biosphere Reserve, Namibia

By Roxanne Reid
We were completely off the grid in an area more beautiful than a rainbow. Surrounded by pinkish mountains and open plains speckled with camel thorn trees, we couldn’t see another human or hear even an echo of the hustle and bustle of normal life. We were camping in the Namtib Biosphere Reserve, Namibia,our surroundings flawless. Our day had started at Aus, where the wild horses of the Namib inspired us with a sense of freedom. We’d taken the winding D707 through the Tirasbe...

Shimuwini Bushveld Camp, Kruger National Park

By Roxanne Reid
There’s something special about the atmosphere of the bushveld camps in the Kruger National Park. They’re quiet, without shops or restaurants, so there’s a sense of being closer to nature. After camping in the Kruger National Park for a couple of weeks, we treated ourselves to two nights at Shimuwini Bushveld Camp – with mixed success. Once you leave the tar road to drive along the riverfront S141 to Shimuwini, northwest of Letaba in the northern section of Kruger, you find...

The Himba: the supermodels of Kunene

By Roxanne Reid
Skin of reddish hue, elaborate hair extensions, handmade skirts, and metal, shell and leather accessories, these are part of what makes Himba women so beautiful. There’s a grace and ease of movement too, making the Himba the supermodels of Kunene district in northwestern Namibia. We were about to meet some of them in the Anabeb Conservancy near Sesfontein, on Open Africa's Arid Eden Route. Our Himba guide Ueera Kasaona was on hand as a translator and source of insider info...