Wed, 14 Aug
653 km. Super long drive and of course, some sealed, some very rough roads
Destination - Canyon Village, Gondwana Collection Namibia
Up in the dark due to the length of the drive and that Misheck wanted us at breakfast before the horrible European groups. He’d decided to change the route so that is was longer but also took us out to a sealed road.
site plan of Desert Camp
The stars were just amazing here. Photos with my iPhone just sat out on the edge of our porch
off to breakfast in the dark
the sun was up by the time we finished breakfast and hot the road
One of the hlos (H) had been complaining since we set off. K was very quiet and quite pleasant really. He had worked in national parks at some time but described himself as a long retired teacher. Someone found our that H was paying for K. H complained about paying AU$12each for 20 days of porterage because they were hlo (weirdly their bags were loaded and unloaded from under the bus each day). Complaining about the lack of ventilation on the bus. Complaining about having to get up so early and have breakfast because H didn’t usually eat until 10.
H also had trouble choosing when confronted with a buffet so whereas everyone else would get in, eat, and have a meal finished, they went back multiple times and were always still eating when everyone else was ready to go. They sure didn’t seem to have an issue with eating at least three servings of breakfast at 6:30.
As everyone was just about ready to leave, one of the group came over and said that H had fallen and had cut her hand badly. H had somehow caught her foot on a ramp, overbalanced, dropped her dish/plate and fallen on it. That we were all finished and ready to go is a different matter entirely.
With the wound cleaned and dressed quicker than anyone expected, we headed off to Fish River.
you can see the corrugations in this pic
Bushy bushy was at a cool little cafe called Lily in a town called Maltahohe. Amazing stock. The date bun was delicious! All of their baked goods were.
The re-route was fortuitous as it gave Misheck the opportunity to stop in Keetmanshoop at a chemist in an attempt to get some dressings for our wounded hlo. Ultimately we ended up giving H one of our larger waterproof dressings out of our travelling pharmac_.
We drove past some of the first vines we’d seen (there was a large dam providing irrigation to this area)
date palm groves, a distillery
and onto the gravel towards Canyon Village
Canyon Village, Lodge and The Roadhouse are all inside a gigantic private reserve owned by Gondwana. I'm sure that Misheck said it has predators (lions, cheetahs, hyaenas) plus mountain zebras, giraffes and multiple kinds of antelopes, but I'd have to look that up and I'm now well overdue to get this report finished.
Ok, I did have fruit and yoghurt first
