Tag: Namibia

Namib Desert’s northwest (#5 in series: Hoarusib River, in context)

Published February 26, 2024 by Pelidoug

Namib Desert’s northwest (#5 in series: Hoarusib River, in context)

I urge you to have a good look around: enlarge the featured image and zoom in on every element within a very complex landscape.

Finding the river is no great challenge.

However, you will need “eagle eyes” to be able to discern any evidence of the lightly-used access tracks on which “our” vehicles had travelled along some of the Hoarusib River’s lower reaches, and then up to the hilltop vantage point.

Within the photo’s field of view – which is similar to that of a naked-eyed human’s – those tracks are the only man-made feature.

No human lives here.

Not even a single signpost has been erected.

Comments closed

Namib Desert’s northwest (#4 in series: complex reality)

Published February 25, 2024 by Pelidoug

Namib Desert’s northwest (#4 in series: complex reality)

All of this post’s photos were taken from the bed of the Hoarusib River, less than 20 kilometres from where it (on occasion) meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Here, rainfall is a very rare event.

The featured image shows ducks flying along a river; most of the time, terrestrial animals can walk across the lower reaches of the Hoarusib without wetting their feet.

The ducks’ presence is much less “surprising” than most people imagine.

Comments closed

Namib Desert’s northwest (#3 in series: atop its edge “2”)

Published February 24, 2024 by Pelidoug

Namib Desert’s northwest (#3 in series: atop its edge “2”)

Our vantage point and the time/date were essentially “as per immediately-preceding post”, but instead of looking due west, to the Atlantic, this post has heads and camera turned in other directions.

To our east, south and north, the view was almost 100% “dunescape”.

Comments closed

Namib Desert’s northwest (#2 in series: atop its edge “1”)

Published February 22, 2024 by Pelidoug

Namib Desert’s northwest (#2 in series: atop its edge “1”)

At 5. 26 pm on 14 November 2022 we stood on shifting sand, and in pleasantly cool air.

Below, in front of us, was the Atlantic Ocean, lapping Namibia’s “Skeleton Coast”.

We stood in a “sea” of sand – sand, only, it seemed.

However, the beach/coastal plain below us was clearly not devoid of vegetation.

Comments closed

Namib Desert’s northwest (#1 in series: Atlantic shore)

Published February 22, 2024 by Pelidoug

Namib Desert’s northwest (#1 in series: Atlantic shore)

The world’s oldest desert gives its name to one of the world’s sunnier, hotter, dryer (and least-populated) nations.

Q: so why would a series that celebrates the northwestern portion of the Namib Desert begin with a photo taken on an Atlantic Ocean beach, as obviously-moist air swirled around me, on a cool early evening?

Comments closed

Desert-adapted elephants & tourism-adapted humans (3 of 3: “invasion”)

Published November 24, 2023 by Pelidoug

Desert-adapted elephants & tourism-adapted humans (3 of 3: “invasion”)

The featured image, above, shows a most unusual circumstance: desert-adapted elephants right inside the walled, gated, “tourist accommodation” section of northern Namibia’s Palmwag Lodge.

The “invasion” was unexpected but it was not at all violent – nobody was attacked, no buildings were damaged, and no trees or bushes were uprooted or seriously hurt.

Comments closed

Desert-adapted elephants & tourism-adapted humans (2 of 3)

Published November 22, 2023 by Pelidoug

Desert-adapted elephants & tourism-adapted humans (2 of 3)

Jimbo – this chapter’s star individual – is an adult, desert-adapted elephant.

As is generally true of adult bull elephants, his is a mostly-solitary existence.

Only two nations are now home to desert-adapted elephants: Mali and Namibia.

Namibia’s live in that nation’s northwestern corner (some of them do set foot in the southwest corner of Angola) – an area long known as “Damaraland”, although the currently-preferred name is “the Kunene Region”.

Contrary to popular misconception, they do not comprise a separate species; desert elephants and African bush elephants (aka “African savanna elephants”) are fellow members of Loxodonta Africana, the current world’s largest terrestrial mammal species.

The desert-dwellers are very different/distinctive, but what sets them well apart from savanna/bush elephants is largely a matter of behaviour/culture rather than genetics.

Comments closed

Desert-adapted elephants & tourism-adapted humans (1 of 3)

Published November 20, 2023 by Pelidoug

Desert-adapted elephants & tourism-adapted humans (1 of 3)

I really loved the pictured signpost.

We did indeed see Jimbo, not very many metres away from it; neither he nor we encroached upon the other’s “personal space”.

Jimbo himself will star in this little trilogy’s second chapter.

“3” will feature some other desert-adapted elephants; their behaviour was much more unexpected/unusual.

All three chapters involve the same northwestern Namibian location, inland from the Skeleton Coast.

Overlooking the sweeping northern Damaraland landscape, the peaceful oasis of Palmwag Lodge & Campsite is set amid swaying palms, robust mopane trees and rich red rock.

Comments closed

Word power: (un)common sense on cats as pets, in Australia (with cat-connected Namibian & Tunisian bonus content)

Published November 15, 2023 by Pelidoug

Word power: (un)common sense on cats as pets, in Australia (with cat-connected Namibian & Tunisian bonus content)

“Our” world is so oversaturated with sensationalism, misrepresentation, haranguing, intolerance, name-calling, “cancelling”, “virtue signalling” and the “100% this versus 100% that” school of argumentation.

It has become an increasingly rare pleasure to read a measured and sensible newspaper article, devoted to a highly contentious topic.

The relevant piece was published this week in the Australian edition of The Guardian.

Fully cognisant of cats’ devastating impact on Australian wildlife, it addresses this question:

can we have cats (as pets) in a sustainable and ethical way?

You may be surprised to know that the answer is yes, albeit yes, if…

One Comment

Quirky moments (#16 in series: big numbers/small numbers)

Published September 2, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#16 in series: big numbers/small numbers)

This post’s featured image was taken beside a waterhole in Etosha National Park in northern Namibia.

Visible are two members of one species, and more than hundred of another.

A mature African elephant is currently “our” planet’s most massive terrestrial animal.

Imagine this:

On one side of a colossal pair of scales you place one of the pictured elephants.

In order to balance those scales you would then need at least forty thousand of the pictured birds…and if a substantial flock of red queleas was present, forty thousand would not be an unusually high number!

Comments closed