Mon. 13th May 2024
After a hearty cooked breakfast at Olive Grove we say our goodbyes and hit the road, that is the five minute drive to the nearest Spar and stock up on provisions for our first two days camping. Mungo is not built for town driving or supermarket car parks so we are glad to leave Windhoek and head out on the Nambian roads we have been so looking forward to. After half an hour on tarmac, Dave announces “I may regret this but I can’t wait to swap the tarmac for a dirt road”. His wish was soon granted as we turn off onto the D1463, which Jens had suggested to us, and we left the big lorries and passing lanes behind. We let two locals pass us and then had the road to ourselves heading straight into the dessert and did not see a soul for ages.
It was great to be rolling along through the amazing scenery without a care in the world. No Internet out here to disturb the peacefulness. Around coffee time we saw a place called Brack on the map where we thought we would stop, stretch our legs and switch drivers. Not even a house appeared. Never mind, let’s try the next town. Well that was not much better – an air strip and a local store. At least we had provisions for lunch so we found a shady tree in the middle of nowhere and set up our table and chairs for lunch. It took a few attempts to remember which box was for cutlery and plates and which had the glasses for our yummy lemonade.
As we expected we drove through a vast nothingness occasionally slowing for a man with a red flag warning that his cows were feeding by the dirt road and likely to cross without warning. We did spot some ostriches, kudu and smaller antelope nonchalantly feeding off the small bushes or trees scattered around the sandy landscape but too far away for our small compact camera to capture. The enormous weaver bird nests however were easier to photograph and we remembered these from our last trip to Africa. They are an amazing result of teamwork with all the birds contributing one small straw at a time. Tomorrow we will get our photographers heads on.
Mungo behaved well on the tarmac and dirt tracks which I expect are tame compared with what we will encounter later on our trip. I am sure Mungo will be more capable than the idiots behind the steering wheel. Let’s hope we remember what we learnt at our 4×4 course last October. Mungo even coped with the sandy entrance to our campsite in 2wd. We will have to save the 4wd for later in our trip. Our tent was much easier to set up than the one in Western Australia but it is a lot smaller so we will have to see how we get on sleeping tonight. Bagatelle was a good site for our first night as each camp spot had its own ablution bock with attached kitchen and brai
There are also lodges for other guests and a restaurant, so pleased with ourselves today we treat ourselves to the buffet dinner in the restaurant so we don’t need to cook tonight. As we settled down to check the Internet in the lobby before heading to the restaurant, we were told there were rhinos by the swimming pool. Sure enough two rhinos were drinking from the water trough. In hindsight we think they are tame animals on the hotels private conservation reserve.
The Lodge life is a taster for what we have booked later in our trip. We had forgotten that in Africa there are at least twice as many staff members than in the UK so the service was excellent and the food well presented and quite tasty. The Lodge even provides lifts back to the campsite in the dark. We are in for a great time exploring old places and new in Namibia and Botswana.