June 1, 2022
We’re exploring the Lüderitz Peninsula, the aforementioned Toyota making easy work of the well-laid-out salt routes and dirt tracks and acting as a very adequate barrier between us and the wind.
June 1, 2022
It is our tradition, whenever the Sesriem Canyon fills with water, to go and swim there. In January the time had come again.
June 1, 2022
I wonder if any of those pioneers in the early 1900s ever saw Barlow’s
Lark (Calendulauda barlowi) at Pomona, or the Dune Lark (C.
erythrochlamys) in the dunes near Lüderitz? Looking at the barren
‘killing fields’ those diamond hunters left behind as memories for
later generations, I doubt it very much. I suppose the diamond’s
blinding effect on your eyes has the same effect on your mind. In
the end, it’s the larks that are still around, and not those diamond
hunters.
June 1, 2022
Not many people can claim that a rain frog was named after them – even fewer can assert that they were once almost arrested for searching for one – in a desert of all places. Let me introduce you to the world of frog expert Vincent Carruthers.
June 1, 2022
Namibia is well known for its diverse, vast landscapes and abundant ocean life. The latter make it a premium fishing destination.
June 1, 2022
When American scientist Dr Laurie Marker launched the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in 1990, she had no idea where this new adventure would take her. A zoologist from California, she learned about threats to a declining wild population while conducting in situ research in Africa in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. Dr Marker routinely travelled to Namibia and other cheetah-range countries from her positions with Wildlife Safari and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo to study the habits of the world’s fastest feline. But it’s what she learned about human behaviour that shocked her. Habitat loss, loss of prey, and conflict with livestock and game farmers put cheetahs on the fast track to extinction. Livestock and game farmers were shooting, trapping and removing hundreds of cheetahs each year – more because of perceived threats than actual predation. She realised if no one would soon intervene, the cheetah might be lost forever.
June 1, 2022
According to unconfirmed reports the Namibian blue crane population is seriously threatened because of poaching.
March 20, 2022
In Damaraland you don’t measure a trip from here to there in distance; you measure it in time. Forged from an outpouring of lava some 130 million years ago and then exposed to millions of years of erosion, fluvial drainage, sun, wind, temperature extremes and seismic activity, the landscape is so rugged, it ranks as one of the harshest terrains on our planet. In this regard, the extreme terrain acts as its own fortress, a barrier to outsiders and a haven for those that can adapt to live within this land of sun-baked basalt and hardship. The wildlife that has forged a life in Damaraland’s mountains and valleys is unique, not in their physiology, but in their generational knowledge – survival messages passed on from old to young – which enables them to survive the very extremes of life itself.
March 16, 2022
The car is packed, the rooftop tent strapped and you bought more snacks than you should have for the nine or so hour drive to Bwabwata National Park from Windhoek. It’s a long haul north, but now you have hit the sharp right turn, leaving Rundu in your rearview mirror. Each tree is starting to look greener than the one before as you cruise alongside the Okavango River, keeping a keen eye open for the entrance to your accommodation.
March 10, 2022
Cradled by the Kwando and Linyanti rivers at the Zambezi Region’s southernmost point, lies Namibia’s largest conserved wetland area, the 28,500-ha-large Nkasa Rupara National Park. Complex tectonic, climatic and hydrological events have shaped and reshaped the wetlands over countless aeons. The most dramatic change took place millions of years ago when uplift along the Linyanti Fault diverted the Kwando River into a northeasterly direction.
March 10, 2022
All of us had to adjust while the pandemic filtered into our day- to-day life, making major lifestyle changes as we went along. For nearly two years of having to find new creative ideas and hoping for the travel industry to recover, conservation continued… education continued… and so did the passion for sustainable tourism. You see, while the world seemingly came to a standstill, nature forced us to keep going. Conservation had to continue. Supporting communities had to continue. Therefore, tourism had to continue. Because conservancies and communities still rely on tourism.
March 9, 2022
The area bordering the Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia’s south, which may seem like a wasteland to some, has become synonymous with conservation. Unsuccessful commercial small livestock farms having given way to large tracts of fencless land allowing for the unhindered movement of desert adapted wildlife.
March 9, 2022
Early one morning at the end of November 2021 at the Chudop waterhole in Etosha National Park, a black-backed jackal bitch appears. Hundreds of Cape Turtle Doves and a few Laughing Doves, now called Palm Doves, come to drink at the water’s edge. In the usual jackal trot the female moves around the waterhole watching the thirsty doves while keeping a distance of two to four metres from the water. The moment a dove starts to drink, with its back turned towards the prowling jackal, the small predator lowers its head and body and tries to sneak up close to the dove. Most potential victims are too wary or warned by nearby doves taking off. Several attacks end with a splash of water and feathers in the mouth while the prey gets away with a big fright and sometimes the loss of a few feathers.
March 4, 2022
Rièth van Schalkwyk followed the whim of a family member to break the tradition of Christmas at the seaside, packed the camper for two weeks of slow travel and camped on the banks of the Kavango, Zambezi, Chobe and Kwando to discover the magic of looking closer and staying longer.
December 1, 2021
As widely as the Namibian landscapes can differ when comparing the northeast of the country to the southwest, as quickly it can change over short distances. Such changes in scenery will not be as drastic, of course, but can nonetheless give one the feeling of being in a completely different place.