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Tag: Namibia

Namib Desert’s northwest (#7 in series: coat of many colours)

 

 

This post’s featured photo was taken from essentially the same vantage point as yesterday’s; both “clock time” and my feet had advanced barely at all.

However, turning my/my camera’s gaze in a different direction (looking northwest rather than southwest, I think) offered a very different view.

You are looking at many different minerals; in some cases, they comprise rocky hills/mountains.

Others are present as “grains of sand”…grains which have different densities, and which –  to a considerable and visible  extent – have been “sorted” by the wind.

The pink streaks are probably garnets.

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Namib Desert’s northwest (#6 in series: Hoarusib in context, closer view)

 

 

Although the vantage point remains the same, this post’s images were shot with a telephoto lens; effectively, their view of the Hoarusib River is nearly seven times “closer” than that offered by the image in this series’ previous post.

At this point, the river and its surrounding landscape are quite unlike where the Hoarusib – rarely, and briefly – delivers a readily-visible flow of fresh water to the “Skeleton Coast” edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

Yet, where I stood – and the stretch of the Hoarusib visible in these photos – are only circa 30 minutes’ drive from the river’s oft-dryish mouth.

In a straight line, the ocean is almost certainly rather less than 20 kilometres distant.

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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