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The desert day tours will take you to some of the most favorite places in the Namib Naukluft Park. These tours can be customized to visit the area of the park that you want to see. You will be amazed at the amount of wildlife you will see in a day in the desert. The landscapes is a geologist's dream to see the rock formations and how the Namib evolved in the millions of years that it has been there.
Ganab - Gemsbokwater (+- 250 km)
We leave Walvis Bay 09h00 and stop at the Vogelfederberg for morning coffee or cold drinks depending on the weather mostly it will be for some thing cold. We make then drive around the back and stop for a back view of the mountain. About 10 or 15 km from Vogelfederberg we go
through the ritual of watering the garden. No it is not what you think, it is a small garden of succulents that somebody planted next to the road with a small sign "If you have a drop to spare". We carry extra water cans for this purpose. The next stop is on the lookout on the hill just above Kriess se Rus. Here you can also have
a closer look at the "Koker bome" (quiver
trees). From there it is a left turn off the main road and we head to Ganab. At Ganab we should see a lot of game at the water hole and we will treat you with a barbeque for lunch. After lunch we head out to Gemsbok water for some more game viewing. We will also see herds of Springbok, Oryx, Ostriches and Zebra on the way. From Gemsbokwater we head back to Walvis bay with a quick stop at Tumas view to have last look over the Namib plains. If we have any water left over we will make a stop at the succulent garden again to do our bit for nature.
We will be back home around 18h00.
What do you get
Guide with air conditioned vehicle. All food and beverages consumed, and
permit fees for park entry.
Overnight camping trip in the Namib Naukluft park. (450 km)
I got a request from Ankie Roux from Cape town if it would be possible to arrange an overnight camping trip for him and his wife Wilna in the Namib a while ago. I have done this with family and friends so I jumped at the opportunity to actually get paid to go camping. I put together a few options for them and they decided on an option of about a day and a half trip visiting as many places as possible in this time.
On the 16/07 just before 09h00 I met them at my office and we put their car in our warehouse for safe overnight parking. We packed their overnight bag in my bakkie and of we went. I took them on a small part of our topnaar graves trial as no trip in the Namib would be complete with a little bit of dune driving. We stopped at two topnaar grave sites, a fresh water fountain and drove down a steep slip face to a topnaar camp.
We then came back through the town and then headed out in to the desert on the Rooikop road. I made a quick detour at dune 7 to show them how big the dune actually is up close. Next we stopped
about 20 km out of town where I showed them the lichen fields and also demonstrated how a lichen opens up when water is poured onto it. The next stop was Vogelfederberg where we climbed to the top to get a view of the surrounding plains.
From there we headed to Homeb stopping at some of the interesting rock formations along the way. At Homeb we stopped under the Camelthorn tree canopy next to the river where we had a brunch of brotchens and coffee and took a small walk in the river bed where we saw some of the topnaar people's goats and sheep.
We now headed more east into the desert stopping at the Gorob mine where we explored a bit more. It is a old copper mine which on a claim 314 belonging to a Mr. B. Seigfried the whole area is quite rich in copper as you can spot the green oxidation on lots of the rocks. After this stop we made a small stop at Zebra pan waterhole but it was dry as the pump had been removed for repairs. From
there we headed past Bakenkop to Ganab where we would make our camp for the night. As soon as we crossed the C14 we saw herds of springbok, oryx and the ever present ostrich all the way to Ganab.
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We reached Ganab 15h30 and we had Ankie & Wilna's tent pitched quickly. We battled with the 2 man tent I borrowed at the last minute from Torsten I could not find mine anywhere this really made for some good laughs but we figured it out in the long run. Ankie and Wilna had a shower while I setup the beds etc in their tent and got the campfire going. I then had a shower and we all settled down next to the fire to enjoy the sunset. I started the preparation for the dinner. We had a
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starter of tiger prawns pan fried with garlic butter and lemon juice. The main course was lamb saddle chops, Vleisland boerewors and vegetables baked
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on the grid in a oven baking bag with beacon and garlic butter.
While preparing dinner we lights approach our campsite form the direction of the game ranger's camp so we thought it was the game ranger coming to check our permits. We where very surprised to see it was a white Toyota Corrolla with 2 foreign tourists that we passed earlier on the road to Ganab.
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They had their camp setup a little bit away from ours in record time you could see the are expereinced campers. I went over to them to invite them to join us at the fire as I saw they did not make any fire. They introduced themselves as Laurenz and Judid from Switzerland, Laurenz is a freelance photographer
and is on a 5 week photo tour of Namibia.
They joined us after they had their dinner it was really interesting to talk to them as they have been on similar tours through South Africa, Botswana and Kenya. We also enjoyed the rise of the almost full moon over the desert. We could hear some animals making a noise at the water hole so we decided to
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take a walk to the water hole as the wind favoured us. We got to about 50 m from the water hole and the wind changed direction and we could see and hear the animals run away. We went back to the camp and had coffee with sandkuche and custard for dessert. We sat around the fire chatting till after 23h00 when our Swiss friends left.
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I got up at about 05h00 and started brewing some coffee. Ankie and Wilna where also up before the sunrise. We where treated with a spectacular sunrise over the Namib plains. I then prepared breakfast of beacon & eggs and brotchens and fruit juices. After breakfast we started breaking camp and packing everything back into the bakkie. At about 09h00 we greeted our
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swiss friends which just came back out of the veld after leaving at 06h00 to get sunrise photos from a nearby rocky outcrop.
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We now headed to Gemsbokwater and before 10h00 we had seen all the species of animals in the park. It was amazing to drive and just pass one herd of animals after the other we even spotted a big warthog along the way. We stopped at the waterhole at Gemsbokwater where we saw a herd of zebra, springbok and ostriches.
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From there we headed to the Blutkoppe using the 4x4 route past Big Tinkas. We stopped a few times along the route to look at the interesting rock formations and desert plants. Just before you get the Blutkoppe there is a rock sculpture trail which we walked to have a look at natural sculptures created by rock formations and fallen rocks.
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At the Blutkoppe we drove around looking at all the campsites and we stopped at one of these sites for lunch of our left over lamb chops and
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boerewors. From the Blutkoppe we headed back to the C28 which would take us to behind the dunes South of Swakopmund. We made one more stop at a Welwitchia next to the road for photos. We took the route behind the dunes back to Walvis bay and arrived back in Walvis at 14h00.
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