Our first camping trip...we return alive

Tristan is in the midst of a 2.5-week holiday from School. We took advantage and planned a trip back to the south, where Larkin had visited before with a Polytechnic colleague. You can click on the archived photo link to view photos of the trip. There are only about 80 of them, so pace yourself. There are captions galore, so we won't repeat the details here.

We left on Tuesday, traveled straight south past Hardap Dam and then angled to the southwest to Helmeringhausen, where we spent the night in a hotel. We were traveling with another Fulbright family, the Bates'. You can follow the link here to their blog for their nice description of the trip.

Wednesday found us driving slightly north of Helmeringhausen to the Jorn Miller farm Aubures, where we set up our first campsite with rooftop tents on our rented 4x4. Poly, our lil' Toyota stayed home on this trip. We received a great tour of the farm, and Tristan got his first good taste of rock hounding. A wonderful secluded campsite.

Thursday was a drive through blowing sands of the Namib desert, straight west to Luderitz on the coast. Windy weather kept us from camping, but we had a great night in a guest house high on a rocky hill.

Friday found us searching for agates on the beach and driving northeast of Luderitz to Farm Namtib, another wonderful guest farm where we camped. Camping in these sites is great--running water, showers with hot water (sometimes you have to heat it with firewood), and real toilets out in the middle of nowhere. We met some wonderful ladies from Switzerland who camped near us that night.

Saturday, we drove north to Sesriem, passing through more dry scenery with the Namib on our left and mountains on our right. Check out photos of some friends that Kelly made on the way. We camped at the Sesriem campground, part of the Namibian National Park system. After playing 'road tag' with the ladies from Switzerland, we ended up offering to share our campsite to them this night--when the campground lost their reservation.

Sunday started with an early morning trip to Sossusvlei through the red dunes of the Namib. We climbed a dune. Well, Larkin climbed 1/2-way. Kelly and Tristan got a great view. Larkin got great photos. Then, we headed for Windhoek.

The trip ended with a breakdown of the Bates' Land Rover. We were rescued by (in order) men on horse and donkey carts, a US AID couple who we know, and a wonderfully nice mechanic from Windhoek. All happened to pass by on the lonely road near Klein Aub--two hours from Windhoek. Amazingly (late on Sunday afternoon), a part was found, the vehicle was repaired, and all made it home that night.

It was a great trip. Perhaps a bit aggressive long on the planning for 4 kids to travel each day--and in an area where we could have stayed 2-3 days at each place we stopped. But, we saw great country and met wonderful people. In fact, we didn't meet anyone we didn't like on the entire trip. The hotel owners, farm families, folks on the street, donkey cart drivers, and mechanics all smiled, waved, and went out of their way to make our days great. It's a great country to travel in, for sure.