Secret Namibia - WorldWild Adventure - pic heavy

[C_Claycomb]

WorldWild Adventure's 9 day safari exploring this vastly empty and beautiful country.

I was lucky enough to go one of these trips last June and cannot recommend it highly enough.
http://worldwildadventure.com/tours/namibia/

I have heard a rumble that they have been planning another and might have some places still. I meant to post these photos immediately after returning, but work got in the way and time passed.

We had a bit of an international mix of people on our trip. Jaimie, the expedition leader and co-founder, is based in British Columbia, Stuart, the second driver and medic/mechanic/logistician, is based in Wales, Stuart's dad was along on the trip, all the way from Brunei, we had a young lady from Cornwall, a French lady from Calgary, Canada, and an American couple from Seattle.

What follows are a bunch of my own photos. If you want to see better photos, I recommend Jamie's professional work in the WWA gallery:
http://worldwildadventure.com/galleries/namibia/

When I got back, remarkably, one of the first things people asked me was where is Namibia? Probably not a problem in this company! But just in case the next country north of South Africa on the Atlantic side and is the second least populated country on earth, after Mongolia.

Namibia1 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
As a former German colony, it still seems to benefit from a certain Teutonic efficiency; for Africa things work very well, the road network is good with tarmac to get you across a lot of the country, violent crime isn't a particular concern, and there is even remarkably good mobile phone coverage of the main routes and towns. So this is "Africa-lite". The perfect place for a first (or second) visit to the continent.

A number of companies run bushcraft expeditions to Namibia, Bushcraft Expeditions, Wood Smoke and Woodlore are the ones I know off the top of my head.

Worldwild’s safari is different in that it is not primarily a bushcraft trip, this might make it seem less appealing for folk here, but don't be hasty. This could (and should) make it much more appealing for non-bushcrafting partners who can otherwise veto plans for wild and woolly expeditions overseas. So not only is Namibia a gentle introduction to Africa, but the WorldWild trip is a gentle intro to bushcraft adventure. It went far enough into the wild that I thoroughly enjoyed it, but there were roof tents, camp chairs and tables, proper knives forks and plates, and most important of all, Jamie the expedition leader, was a fantastic cook. He even managed to produce a plate of Ferrero Roche to finish off a buffet lunch which had already included smoked mussels, miles from anywhere, in the shade of a baobab!


Our trip went up into Bushmanland by the Botswanan border, then west to tour Etosha. The following week the guides and remaining clients headed out to the big dunes, then up the coast into Himba country. While there wasn't a lot of bushcraft instruction, there is no doubt that both weeks were adventures, way off the beaten path and out into real Africa.

Namibia2 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Arrival:
Flying in to Windhoek via Johannesburg, we met up with Jamie and Stuart at the Roof of Africa hotel in Windhoek. First night was spent at the hotel with dinner just down the road at Joe’s Beer House. Visiting Joe's is an event in itself! Over our Oryx Schnitzel, Kudu loins and mixed meat Bushman Sosaties, Stuart ran through a very thorough briefing on safety, proper hydration, navigation, camp routine, itinerary and the potential cultural and emotional aspects of spending time with the Bushmen.


Kick-Off:
An early but civilised start, packing gear into one of our two rented Hilux before setting off on the first 370 mile, 7.5hour leg of our safari.
IMG_8734 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
En-route a brief stop at the local Spar shop. Who would believe that that little chain of local mini-marts is THE supermarket chain in Namibia. Not that you would really mistake this one for being in south Wales!
IMG_8754 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Stuart spoke the truth at the briefing when he said that all visitors go through the same pattern upon driving out from the city for the first time. Every creature standing by the side of the road, be it warthog, baboon or passing vulture is pointed at with great excitement amid calls to stop and scrambles for cameras; but by the time the trip is over it would take an elephant crossing the road to generate such excitement. Hard to imagine becoming blasé to African wildlife, but it happens

After a night at Roy's Rest Camp
RoysCamp Panorama1 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Head east down an endless gravel track towards Grashoek Living History Village.
IMG_8766 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Bushmanland: - Grashoek
I could try to explain the set up of this special village, but it is better just to point to this site: http://www.lcfn.info/en/ju-hoansi/ju-hoansi-museum
P1040010 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
We had the chance to follow some of the villagers on a short bush-walk. It was impossible not to notice how well suited to moving through the bush they were...
P1040014 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
and how ill-suited us visitors were! LOL
P1040015 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

We also had the chance to try our hands at making snare cord and bow strings from yucca leaf fibre, work on our own Bushman bows and then try our hand at archery.
DSCF3378 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
DSCF3427 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
There was also dancing, which we also joined in, much to the amusement of the villagers!
P1040031 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

 

[C_Claycomb]

Bushmanland: Tsumkwe, Hunters Village, Nyae Nyae

From Grashoek its another 90 miles east to the little town of Tsumkwe, which is on a cross roads and boasts about 400m of tarmac in three directions. The petrol station/store protects its largely thorny and spiky ornamental planting from the freely roaming cattle with concertinaed razor wire...gotta love it!
P1040047 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

One thing that the Bushmen of Grashoek can't do these days is go hunting, because although they might go with their traditional bows, there are, in their words, blacks who share the village, who would want the same rights but would hunt with dogs and guns, so hunting is prohibited for everyone. Our next destination was another but much more recently set up Living Culture Village, which being much more remote still allowed its villagers to hunt in the traditional manner.

The Living Hunters Village was a further 12 miles north from Tsumkwe up a deep sand road and we didn't get there till well after dark. Sadly I don't have any pictures of the site. Set up in similar lines to Grashoek it hd two chemical toilets, a couple of shower shelters (bring your own water and shower head) and a fire site.

The following day we went for a bush walk with three guides (whose names, to my shame, I cannot now recall.)

p1040092 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

We got a bit of a trapping demo, got to sample one of the water bearing tubers and had a LOT of tracks pointed out. Well, one of them gave a demo of a leg trap while the younger guys gave a demo of lighting up a smoke with the hand-drill!

P1040067 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

P1040068 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Under Stuart's instruction, the girls succeeded in lighting the evening's fire with the hand drill!!
P1040103 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
P1040105 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
P1040107 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
The next day the plan was to drive right up to the edge of the Khaudom reserve, hike about 5km into the bush, see if we could avoid spoiling the Bushmen's hunting, then spend the night out under the stars. It didn't come as a surprise to me that we didn't see much in the way of wild life, African animals aren't stupid, and our caravan wasn't exactly stealthy. On the other hand the sandy ground and bush told quite a tale. There were so many tracks that our guides only pointed out and identified the largest and freshest; giraffe, kudu, roan, wildebeest, hyena, wild dog, leopard, and of course, elephant! Elephant tracks everywhere, and dung, and places they had dug, and smashed down trees.:yikes:.

When mid-day came around, the noise, clumsy white folks were all parked (not ungratefully ) under the shade of a small baobab while the hunters went out to see what they could find un-hindered!

P1040129 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
P1040131 by Last Scratch, on Flickr​

When the guides came back though, it was with less than welcome news. Lion tracks, lots of them; crisscrossing the area. Not a good spot to camp out! So, we made a beeline back to the vehicles. This gave me a chance to marvel at the navigation of the guides. We had walked quite a way, meandering, before getting to our rest spot, but we took quite another, much shorter, route back to the trucks, and we hit them dead on.

Plan-B, drive to Nyae Nyae Pans:

Drive down south of Tsumkwe to the Nyae Nyae pans and spend the night there! It didn't take much persuading for the guides to agree to come along and have a look somewhere they hadn't really been before. We arrived as the sun was setting. Sunsets are spectacular!
P1040136 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Stuart decided that we shouldn't miss our chance of a night under the stars, so some of us hauled ourselves out onto the dry bed of Vodel Pan. Some folk, including the Bushmen, elected to sleep in the nice comfy roof tents, but five of us gave the pan a try. Nothing stomped, gored or ate us during the night, and the dawn was every bit as spectacular as the sunset.
P1040142 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

P1040143 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Nyae Nyae Panorama1 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

It was out on and around the pans that we started to see wildlife properly. This was wild game and it didn't stand around readily for pictures, but we had good views of ostrich, springbok, wildebeest, bustards and a few jackals. Oh, and some elephants! Sadly, I don't have a mega zoom, so my pictures do not do the encounter justice, but the rest of the group got pretty close, and the two guys with big lenses got superb pictures.
P1040212 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
P1040209 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Having read too much Peter Capstick, this was as close as I wanted to get, but I was more than happy with having my hand in a track so fresh it still had the elephant's "fingerprint" showing.
P1040228 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Our last night's camp with the Bushmen was under a great elephant scared baobab.
P1040231 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
We took the Bushmen back to their village, making a stop at the store on the way and loading up with groceries to take back to the village.

I asked the chap who was acting as interpreter how many groups of visitors they had, and he said that they had had a group the previous year, which staggered me. It can only be that this place is so far off the beaten path that people don't know about it. The chance to accompany Bushmen on a hunt cannot be something that comes along often, and with the world moving as it is, it can't be something that is likely to last for ever.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Etosha

So, if your partner has survived this far, the rest of the trip is easy! Next stop, Etosha park, Namutoni camp. We arrived about 10 minutes before the gates closed for the evening, and in the short drive to the campsite passed about three giraffe, a steenbok, and a herd of impala. There is a good reason to go to Nyae Nyae first, since the game there is wild and it is an achievement to see anything at all, whereas the animals in Etosha are totally blasé about vehicles.

The morning was admin.
P1040283 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
NamatoniCamp by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Checking out the visitors' centre
P1040290 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
and getting checked out by the local clean-up crew, a gang of banded mongoose, absolutely fearless!
P1040309 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Even with my little point and shoot camera, I still managed to get a few pictures of animals. With them concentrated around the water holes, it is all but impossible to miss!
P1040342 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Lions getting up to romantic dalliances, shot through my 8x binocular!
P1040356 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Big Boys!
P1040377 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Bolshy teen
P1040396 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Family life..
P1040408 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
P1040409 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

Different camp...
P1040433 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

....different cleaners!
P1040429 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

P1040442 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

The Etosha planes are just vast.
P1040500 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
but far from empty.
P1040507 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Spotted this fellow in the half light and he kindly stood and posed long enough for me to get Stuart to stop and reverse back up the road!
P1040537 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Something to appeal to the other half... Okaukuejo camp
P1040518 by Last Scratch, on FlickrThere are also some rather nice restaurants.


Stuart had to show off with the cleaners at the last camp
P1040554 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

All the camps have flood lit waterhole viewing areas, but it was only at the last one that we saw anything after dark. You could say, the best was saved to last. Four black rhinos, two going in for skinny dipping, briefly joined by two lionesses and two cubs!
P1040583 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Not the sort of trip I am used to, but had a great time anyway despite it being cushier, with much better food, much more comfortable sleeping arrangements and no schlepping of gear. The company was great, the sights and locations were awesome.


Cheers!

P1040249 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

 

[Mesquite]

That sounds and looks like a fantastic holiday Chris, thanks for the excellent write up and pictures

 

[Buckshot]

Brilliant
This brings back so many memories
The San at Grasshook are really nice people aren't they

 

[crosslandkelly]

Fantastic report and pics! Thanks for sharing.

 

[bopdude]

Fantastic write up and pictures, looks like a great time was had, I've 'only' ever been to the South of Namibia, that was 3 months working but we still got to see and do a bit, the fishing was great, the people friendly, yep, you've got me thinking.......thanks

 

[ADz-1983]

That looked awesome! Thanks for sharing


The price on their site, probably a daft question but is that per person or per group of max 12?

 

[MartinK9]

Thanks for sharing your trip.

 

[sandbender]

Great write up and pics, I recognise some of those places.

 

[John Fenna]

A great report - and even better pictures!
This takes me back to my days of leading expeds in SA. The best bits for me were canoeing down the Namibian border on the Orange although St Lucia foot safaris were interesting. We never had a Lion problem, the only big cats we saw when we were not in vehicles were leopards...

 

[Twodogs]

What a fantastic trip ,,

Thanks for posting

Twodogs

 

[dump of the stig]

EPIC! really something else. Central/southern (what would you call that?) Africa is something ive never done but absolutely have to get it off the list.
Great pics and story mate. I think id have a permanently cricked neck from swivelling round looking at the flora a fauna.
Was this self organised or did you go through somebody?

 

[treadlightly]

Fabulous Chris, thanks for posting. You've got me thinking......

 

[C_Claycomb]

...
Was this self organised or did you go through somebody?

Organised and run by WorldWild Adventures, see links at start cheers.

 

[Tony]

Good write up Chris, thanks for sharing

 

[dump of the stig]

apologies, I see that now