3 RV-7s to Namibia (Africa)

[Janekom]

We down here always look at the wonderful places you guys in the USA fly to, but we also have wonderful places to visit by air. I was born and raised in Namibia so I know the place quite well. In 2007 my wife and I took some of our friends on a tour around Namibia by car.

This time around we have decided to make it an RV experience.
It was a 7 day, 2500 nautical mile tour that took us through mostly the western side of Namibia. This is basically Namib Desert with many surprises. I will try to add one day at a time.

I really hope you will enjoy it.


This was our route for day one. It took us from Brits (about 80km north west of Johannesburg) to Upington for our first overnight stay. Bound by the Orange River and the Kalahari, Upington is the principal city in the Northern Region, an ideal winter holiday resort with all the modern conveniences on the major routes to Namibia and Kalahari, Augrabies, Fish River Canyon and Northern Cape. It also has one of the longest runways I have ever seen. The main runway is 17/35 and is 5740 meters long and 60 meters wide. To learn more about Upington go to http://www.places.co.za/html/upintgon.html

[Janekom]

Side tracking a bit, but I thought I should show pics of the three AC.

[Janekom]

Pictures taken on the first day. A typical winter inversion.

A view of the Orange River.

Finals runway 01. The main runway here is over 5800 meters long!

[Janekom]

Below is our route for day two.


We basically followed the Orange River to Augrabies falls.

As it is winter there is not much water now, but it gets really big in summer time.



From the Augrabies falls our route took us more or less directly to the most Southern end of the Fish River Canyon. The landscape on the way there is unbelievable. Big farms and only one or two major roads going through the area.

Then we flew along the Fish River Canyon from South to North. The views are out of this world! One can learn more about the Canyon at http://www.namibia-travel.net/southn.../fishriver.htm
At stages I could swear the engine went rough :^o . Here are some pictures taken at the Canyon.

[Janekom]

The Fish River Canyon is so vast that one cannot really do justice to it with pictures - you have to sit there in your "bubble" and observe it. Here are a few more pictures.




From here we turned left (almost due West) in order to go and overfly Roter Kamm. This is a 2.5 km wide Meteorite Crater, about 3.7 million years old.
One can read more about it at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications.../slide_14.html



At Roter Kamm the mountains rapidly changes to vast vast Namib desert flats with one or two mountain peaks. Here we also had to 'duck' underneath the well known and dangerous West Coast fog layer. We had to go down to about 300 ft amsl to see where we are going.


When we hit the coast we swung North and flew around Bogenfels. This is a magnificent rock arch with it's foot pounded by the cold Atlantic. There is a rumour that someone actually flew right through it, but we all decided NO - not possible and not us.

[hydroguy2]

keep the updates coming. I enjoy seeing far away places that I'll probably never experience. Thanks

[jpw]

Thanks for the post great photos....
Can you see the diamonds on the beaches of Namibia from this altitude?

[Janekom]

Thanks guys - here we go again. We will get to the diamond story later. Unfortunately you cannot see them on the beaches

From Bogenfels we set course North to our destination for the day, Luderitz.
This coastline is still part of the "Spergebiet" run by Namdeb and very much a restricted area. So only from your RV cockpit - if you know what I mean.

Below are pictures of the typical coast line and what is left over of Elizabeth Bay Mine - an old diamond mine.




We arrived at Luderitz still under the typical West coast fog and haze. It was founded in 1883 when Heinrich Vogelsang purchased Angra Pequena and some of the surrounding land on behalf of Adolf Lüderitz, a Hanseat from Bremen in Germany, from the local Nama chief. Lüderitz began its life as a trading post, with other activities in fishing and guano-harvesting. In 1909, after the discovery of diamonds nearby, Lüderitz enjoyed a sudden surge of prosperity. Today, however, diamonds are mostly found elsewhere and offshore, and Lüderitz has lost a lot of this interest. One can read more about Luderitz athttp://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCderitz. when I lived there years ago, there were still people who could only speak and understand German.

Very nice runway and we have arranged hangar space here as Luderitz is well known for it's South Easterly and South Westerly winds blowing at storm strength many days a year. This is also where we did customs and immigrations entering Namibia.




After checking into our very German hotel ( Zum Spergebiet) we did some sight seeing and also enjoyed a welcome draught beer or two - or was it three
The day was ended with arguably the best EISBEIN arround at Barrels.

[Janekom]

Day three arrived a beautiful day in Luderitz as it has rained about 4mm during the night. With a yearly rainfall of about 15mm that is special! We went out to Kolmanskop, a desert diamond mining town also known as Kolmanskop Ghost town.



In 1908, Luederitz was plunged into diamond fever. People rushed into the Namib desert hoping to make an easy fortune and within two years, a town, complete with a casino, school, hospital, theatre with pinball alley and exclusive residential buildings, had been established in the barren sandy desert. The diamond-bearing gravel was screened and washed in huge recovery plants. Over 1 000 kg of diamonds were extracted before World War One. However, the amount of gemstones greatly diminished after the war. Furthermore, considerably larger diamonds were found to the south near Oranjemund, causing Kolmanskop to become a ghost town.

Water came by ship from Cape Town about 1000 miles away and water was about double the price of beer. They even had their own ice factory there. Today one can go on guided tours here and wlk through all the buildings.

[Janekom]

We also drove around in the area visiting Grossebucht and stopping on the way to admire the landscape, the rocks and the desert vegetation.



Spot the Geko in the picture below.





Diaz Point is always a nice place to visit and from there we went to Stormvogelbucht (an old Norwegian Whale station) and some salt pans.





Below are more pictures taken in Luderitz. The first one is with the sun rising over the town and the rest the harbour and us having a nice draught.





So long Luderitz :!: