Author: TravellinPenguin

Today we travelled from Windhoek west through the Namib Desert to Sossusvlei. This amazing desert has been in existence for some 43 million years and its current landscape has remained unchanged for the last two million years. We were in the 4 wheel drive bus for about 6 hours. The road was mostly dirt, full of potholes and had we not been belted in, would probably have hit our heads on the ceiling. What a rough ride. The land is harsh. I saw a meerkat running along a dusty roadside carrying dead prey in its mouth. Not sure what it was. We saw a jackal running as a solitary figure across the stark land. We stopped under a few trees to have a lunch that we put together ourselves. Our guide’s wife baked a lovely spaghetti lasagna type dish and we had baked beans, salad, tea and coffee and a large pack of biscuits for dessert. As we ate our lunch in the welcome shade of the trees we faced a fairly large hillside of rocks. At the top of the rocks we could see baboons sitting across the skyline and we could hear them barking. Angry barking sounds. Nearby there was a skeleton head of a baboon. All teeth were still intact.
Travellers along the road ranged from small cars through to four wheel tour buses. We also passed a donkey cart with a singular man and three little donkeys pulling it. One would not want to get lost in such a place. Hot, dusty, mountainous, eerie, stark with dangerous animals behind every rock. It was always good to get going again.
We arrived at our lodge at 3:30 and the cool showers were a welcome relief. Enjoy that photos. Try not to sweat onto your keyboard.

Our Vehicle

Six hours on these roads.

The donkey cart we passed

These birds are weavers

More road photos

Having lunch under the trees

A rock agana (lizard)

This is a Weaver’s nest. The weavers fly into it from below. More than 1000 birds can be in it. They build the next so eagles will roost above the next. When the snake climbs into the weaver’s next they all make a lot of noise. The eagle hears the weaver’s alarm calls and catches the snake. HE then lifts the snake high into the air, dropping it, catching it, dropping it, catching it until it dies. He then brings it back to earth when he eats it. Clever eh?

More beautiful scenery. 

The view from our hotel room now we have stopped. We will be here two nights.

We had an extremely long hot day today and I am really tired tonight. We have an early start so I won’t write a great deal today but I will share some basic photos I took. Haven’t had time to touch any of them up in Lightroom or Photoshop but you’ll get the point.

We visited N/a’an ku sê Activity Centre today. It is a wildlife sanctuary for injured and orphaned animals that can no longer live in the wild. There are strict rules around visiting these animals. You must be on  a tour. You can’t take selfies with them. You must follow the directions of the guide and they remove you from the tour. The compounds the animals are in are huge. You can’t see but only a tiny part. They are fed according to how they would eat in the wild. They only give them treats when the tour does the rounds. They are treated as wild animals with all the respect that involves. We felt privileged to spend time with such magnificent animals that have had a rough time in life. They are now happy and comfortable. I hope you enjoy the photos.

You can see here how massive this wildlife sanctuary is.This is the vehicle we rode in.

These wild dogs were beautiful. Their coats were very colourful.

These wild cats are solitary animals. There were only two in the compound. This one got upset when the second one sauntered up to see what treats were on offer.

This beautiful cheetah only had three legs. Caught in a trap years ago, she was rescued and brought to the sanctuary. She is very old now. 

The baboons were very funny.  They loved their treats and spending time with us. They looked us over pretty good.

There were three babies playing king of the mountain on this stump, knocking each other off, playing like kittens do. Jumping into the air, running then climbing back on the stump.

There were two leopards in this compound and both came up to see us. The guide threw it a piece of chicken and this guy caught it with his paws.

We weren’t allowed to get out of the truck with the lions as they have been relocated here recently and are very wild and dangerous.  They were relocated when the farmer decided that should happen rather than shooting them after they attacked domestic stock (cattle).  Very dangerous the farmer thought a sanctuary was a better place for them and allows them to live their lives out in this very large area safely. They have a couple of miles of area to room in the compounds.  We stayed in the truck as they get upset if people are on the ground walking near them. 

This was her partner.  A beautiful guy. He was so laid back. Wasn’t even interested in eating much of the chicken treats.

The Penguin enjoying a bit of lunch.

(All photos taken by PSParks-The Travellin Penguin- copyright)

The Penguin sends his apologies. He is asleep in my backpack and won’t be moving for awhile. IN fact we are still in transit.  We have been travelling since yesterday, 11:00 am Australia time. That is about 30 hours ago.

We arrived at the Hobart airport, boarded our Virgin airline flight to Melbourne only to be  told after half an hour of waiting the plane was leaking hydraulic fluid. Only a one in a million chance that would be a problem but would we mind disembarking until the the problem could be sorted.  Into the airport we went. To make a long story short, amidst chaos at this small airport with the bad food and no Virgin lounge for Business class, a new plane was sent from somewhere in Australia with a crew who came in on their day off to fly to Hobart. Our flight from Melbourne to Perth was lost and we feared we’d miss the connection to Johannesburg. Virgin, to their credit did get us booked on another flight out of Melbourne to Perth. We arrived in Melbourne at 8:30 pm instead of 2:30 pm and had less than an hour to catch the flight to Perth, which we made. It was a very pleasant flight with good entertainment and food and staff were lovely. I watched the film LBJ which I really enjoyed and Mr. Penguin caught up with Three Billboards which I had seen before and loved.

Arriving in Perth we had one hour to get the flight to Johannesburg. Virgin staff in both Hobart and somewhere else along the line, I forget, told us to pick up our baggage in Johannesburg because it is the first point of call into Africa.  We arrived. We went to baggage claim and after waiting for everyone else on the plane to get their bags ours were nowhere to be seen.  A ground crew woman told us go here, here, do a you turn, end of hallway, by carousel 13.  No such place. Finally found an office for baggage enquiries with no one there but rounded up some people who came to help us and a few others in the same predicament.

Turns out as we are only transiting through South Africa we do not claim our baggage. Our cases were checked to Windhoek, Namibia and that is where they probably are.

Now 30 hours into this journey we still have another hour before going to board our 2.5 hour flight to Windhoek.

On the bright side the airport here is easy to navigate and everyone is so friendly.  I went into an electronics shop to get an adapter and three people were dying to serve me.  We don’t see this in Hobart, so I was impressed. Staff everywhere and everyone wanting to help while smiling at the same time.

Hopefully our bags will be in Windhoek when we arrive. The tour only has 12 people on it and the guide will meet our plane.  We have managed to get some Rand and found the South African Lounge. I know, I know…we’re spoiled by flying business class, but hey, we never had children and we both worked 40 years.  You save a lot of money that way for things you want to do once retired. No school fees for cats and dogs.

I might add we also have a welcome dinner tonight to attend after a few hours rest in our hotel.  I’m going to use this blog as a bit of a travel journal for us.  If you’re interested, please feel free to follow along. If you’re not interested, that’s okay and I’ll be back to talking about books and other things in April.  Stay tuned…. or not….