Wed. May 22nd ‘24
This morning I am reminded of the final day after walking the Inca Trail. Dear Benny (the German in our group) wanted us to be first in the queue when the Sun Gate opened so we could be first to see Machu Picchu. On that occasion we were first by some 30 minutes! As we left our hotel at 6:15 to join the queue waiting for the park gate to open we can see about a dozen cars had beaten us there. Benny would be disappointed in us!! At 6:30 on the dot the gate opened and we were off, a snake of white and red lights spread down the road in front and behind us. We joked the first car was a plant as he stuck to the 60km speed limit. First the local hotel sunrise tour trucks overtook and sped ahead. Soon everyone else started overtaking and the lights disappear into the distance. Vindication of not rushing to be first!!
So why the rush? Some wanted to get to Dune 45 or Big Daddy and climb to the top to see the sunrise from there. Others like us wanted to get to Deadvlei to take photos as the sun came up, others just followed the crowds, no idea what to do. The thing about Deadvlei is that when the tarmac runs out you either let some air out of your 4×4 tyres and slide through the sand for the last 4km or you catch a shuttle truck and let a local drive you the last bit after giving you the hard sell that you will get stuck and have to pay a fortune to be dug out.
Once at Deadvlei, we are reminded of why we have been planning to come back here, as the possibilities for photos are endless. Including apparently models in shimmering dresses playing a violin (no we did not take a picture!) . Nature here is amazing enough without the addition of models. Deadvlei was once full of trees which took water from the underground river but over time the river changed course and the trees died leaving this incredible spectacle. We stayed for almost two hours just watching the ever-changing light and taking so many photos, along with a few other photographers and a growing number of gawpers.
It is now far too hot to climb any of the dunes, but we do want to find a place called Hidden Vlei and head off past Big Daddy dune, another dune favourite for climbing, until we find a group of growing trees in dried cracked mud. Not sure if this was it but again there were many possibilities for us to explore. We watch those walking the ridge of Big Daddy and are glad that is not us in this heat. I would say the daily temp gets up to low 30s and this is the beginning of winter.
Our tummies are reminding us we have not yet had breakfast and it is gone 10:30. The hotel is very organised and offers breakfast packs to take away, for those departing early in the morning. We are now regretting jumping on the shuttle rather than deflate tyres at 7am before we were fully awake. We have to wait for the next shuttle back to the car park. They are like London buses and also quite disorganised. We finally get allocated to the tractor and enormous trailer for an interesting ride back. The tractor driver had to work really hard, standing up, bouncing from side to side in his cab and making exaggerated movements left and right to get the trailer through the deep sand.
The whole park is much busier now with big coaches and tour minibuses as well as many private vehicles. I never did find out how many daily visitors the park gets. We are on a full board package at the hotel, so the obvious thing to do is to head back for lunch. We are almost at the pack gate when we come across a group (herd??) of Springbok, so lunch has to wait whilst we get some photos. It’s then definitely 
time for a siesta ready for our evening visit to the park for sunset. There is some debate over whether to drive to Dune 40 as we missed the best light there yesterday, or visit Elim dune, which is only 5km from the gate, as it is also known as sunset dune. We settle on the latter.
I had read Elim Dune was 1/3 the height of Big Daddy so thought it would be easy to appreciate sunset there. Sadly, the sunset is on the other side of the dune so to appreciate the view we needed to climb to the top. That was more of a workout than we needed, and I am sure my calves will feel it in the morning. Climbing up a sand dune is two steps forward, one step back and I was soon well beyond glowing like a lady. We never did make it to the top but satisfied ourselves with the views from part way up. All in all, we had a fantastic day and we hope our photos reflect that.