Northbound to Namibia

The second part of the journey has begun. Jessica flew out on the same new Kenya Airways Dreamliner that Peter flew down on and the two missed each other with less than 5 minutes. Peter will join the adventure until Victoria Falls and my sister Aletta will travel with me all the way back to Nairobi.

But now it was time for me to turn the car around and start heading north. The trip north will take me through Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and finally back to Kenya. We will be spending most of the next month in Namibia and Botswana, followed by a quick stop at the Victoria falls. After that it will be a few days of 10+ hours of driving to make it back to Kenya on or before the 31st of August. It is going to be a shock to my system to arrive back in Kenya on the 31st of August and having to go back to work again on the 1st of September. But that is the only way to do it if I want to maximize my time in Namibia and Botswana.

On Monday morning, Rhino (as Jessica renamed the Prado) was packed to the rim with the extra 2 tents and luggage for Peter and Aletta. We left Potchefstroom just after 7am and by 10am the outside temperature finally rose above freezing point. We traveled about 700km to Upington and started roughing it by camping at Sakkie se Arkie (Sakkie's Arc) next to the Orange river. Cost was only R100/$10 per person - great value for money considering the fact that they have warm showers, clean facilities and a beautiful view of the Orange river. Camping next to the river has its benefits, but the down side is that it was freezing cold this time of the year and I was truly thankful for the hot shower the next morning to defrost.

Our wonderful guard dog at Sakkie's Arkie that woke me
a few times during the night with her barking.

Breakfast: Individualized hassle free omelets.

For breakfast we had omelet's. A tip for the overlanders and campers:

Break two eggs into a Ziploc bag. Add any ingredients you want and mix it with the eggs. Place your bag with that of the other fellow travelers into slow boiling water for about 5min. What I like about this method is that each person can do their own individualized omelets with whatever ingredients they want, you add all the bags into the water and all the omelets are done at the same time. Easy and quick with no messy pans to scrub.

Birds build their nests on telephone poles. When the nests become too big they either
break off, or slip down the pole. Both can be seen on this picture.

One of the largest nests we have seen. The telephone pole is about
 6m high and the nest covers about two thirds of it.

The road between Upington and the Nakop boarder post has some of the longest straight sections I have ever seen. This is part of the Greater Karoo area. There are no trees in sight and the birds became quite creative by building their nests around the telephone poles. As the nests grow bigger they often become to heavy and break the telephone lines and start slipping down the pole. The broken telephone lines sometimes become an anchor for the nest not to slip down any further. It is an incredible sight to see lines of telephone poles decorated with nests of different sizes.

Weather forecast system at Nakop Border crossing.

The most organized border post yet.
Everything is color coded which makes the process so much easier than
what we experienced coming through all the other border posts.

The Narop border between South Africa and Namibia is probably the most organized border post we have yet seen. Everything is exceptionally well organized and the staff are very friendly. The whole process took less than 30min.

This part of Namibia is decorated with a number of ruins and a few old vehicles.

We have been spoiled with beautiful pothole-free tar roads all the way into Namibia, but we soon had to turn off onto a dirt road. First thought was that I would have preferred a few more kilometers of that beautiful tar road, but the dirt road turned out to be better than most tar roads in Kenya. Our first stop in Namibia was the Canon Roadhouse, only 23km from the breathtaking Fish River Canyon. It turned out to be a real treat.

You can't miss the turnoff to Canon Roadhouse with this road sign.

The bar at Canon Roadhouse.

The restaurant at Canon Roadhouse,  beautifully decorated with vintage vehicles.

After setting up camp we dashed over to the Fish River Canyon for sunset photos. With the deep canyon being dark against the bright sunset we ended up not being able to take too many photos and would have to return the next morning for better shots of the canyon when the morning sun will give us the best shots.