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Category: photographs

Rare, shimmering…with musical bonus (#12 in Namibia single-image series)

 

 

Khowarib Gorge is one of very few Namibian places through which water flows, visibly, “permanently”.

This post’s (Tunisian) musical bonus was doubtless inspired by larger waves, dancing somewhere else entirely, but Anouar Brahem’s Dance With Waves dances well with a desert river’s rippling.

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Kunene River daybreak, with musical bonus (#10 in Namibia single-image series)

 

 

Photo was taken a few hundred metres upstream of Epupa Falls.

At 6.37 am on 11 November 2022 I was standing on the Namibian side of the Kunene River.

In Angola it is the Cunene; above, you are looking at both nations…and the moon.

The Kunene and the Orange (which is the border between Namibia and South Africa) are the only two of Namibia’s rivers that “permanently” have water flowing – above ground, visible – all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

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Featherlight, superabundant (#8 in Namibia single-image series)

 

 

 

Most Australians have never heard of – let alone, seen – a member of the species pictured above.

Quelea Quelea – the Red-billed Quelea – is, however, almost certainly the most abundant bird on “our” planet!

It is a significant agricultural pest. Sometimes in flocks of millions, billowing in the sky like smoke…

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Heaviest living flying thing (#7 in Namibia single-image series)

 

On average, this (contested) title probably rightfully belongs to males of a species widespread in southern Africa: Ardeotis kori – the Kori Bustard.

They commonly weigh 18 kilograms apiece.

The so-called “World Wide Web” is in fact more than a tad Northern Hemispere-centric/ USA-centric/ Eurocentric; I strongly suspect that Africa has the biggest bustards.

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Sand “sea” at Namib’s seaward end (#6 in Namibia single-image series)

 

These dunes are just behind the Skeleton Coast, not far from the generally-dry mouth of the Hoarusib River.

Their appearance changes radically, as the sun’s position shifts, clouds form, move or disappear, and as fog rolls in, intensifies, or “burns” off.

Generally reckoned the world’s oldest desert, the Namib is “another world”, albeit part – a singular part – of “our” planet.

Humans cannot yet directly experience the Martian landscape, but a few of us are lucky enough to have experienced the Namib.

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Namibia, rocks/ Namibia rocks! (#5 in Namibia single-image series)

 

 

The Namib’s “sand sea” has to be seen to be believed…and when you do see “our” planet’s most exquisite dunes, you may still wonder if you are dreaming, or hallucinating.

Namibia also has the most beautiful rock faces I have ever seen; as is also true of Central Australia’s rocky ranges and outcrops, their beauty is in part thanks to the highly specialised vegetation with which they are sparely “punctuated”, rather than fully “clothed”.

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“Surreal”, actual landscapes (#4 in Namibia single-image series)

 

Atlantic fog-factor permitting, early morning affords your eyes and camera their best chance to experience/capture crisp, sharp views of some of the world’s most astonishing vistas.

(Namibia’s western side is one of “our” planet’s least rainy regions, but also one of the foggiest)

Once the sun is “high” and the heat is “on”, the light becomes flatter, yet harsher, and heat haze destroys fine detail.

However, late morning has its own special charm…

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One in (more than) a million (#3 in Namibia single-image series)

 

 

As even the most cursory googler will discover almost instantly, “facts” and opinions concerning Namibia’s seal population and human “management” thereof are widely/wildly divergent/contested.

Suffice for now that all of Namibia’s seals are Cape Fur Seals, and that an enormous number (and major proportion of the global population) of them live and die on Namibia’s coast.

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