To appreciate the Naukluft Mountains, you need to walk into them and not just look at them from a distance. There are many trails to hike, their duration ranging from three hours to eight days. From the camping site at Naukluft in the park, you can tackle the Waterkloof or Olive Trail, eight and five hours respectively.

The dunes are singing. While sitting amongst them on a windy dawn, an eerie music can be heard vibrating through the sand, like a whale song, or a didgeridoo moan. It’s as if the Universe has plucked a chord on her ancient harp and it is resonating here in this red world of sand.

The so-called fairy circles are a prominent and enigmatic feature of the Namib Desert that has puzzled scientists and environmentalists for many years.

The Namib-Naukluft Park was established in 1907, simultaneously with the Etosha National Park. In celebrating more than a century of existence we explore the treasures encountered in the park.

“You’re going where?” I heard whilst fiddling with my corseted dress and battling the onset of nerves. Our registrar seemed both surprised and quietly impressed when I told him our destination for our honeymoon, which was fast approaching.

The Namib Desert – an ancient landscape with a long human history and an array of bizarre plant and animal adaptations – is Namibia’s invaluable west-coast asset. Nestled in the middle of this coastal strip is the Namib-Naukluft Park, poised to become, in its second hundred years, the centrepiece of a protected area extending from South Africa to Angola. A more effective configuration for sustainable development of Namibia’s desert lands is hard to imagine.

Sossusvlei, formed by the Tsauchab River, is a world-renowned destination attracting thousands of tourists a year. And the allure of this famous draw card surrounded by wind-sculpted red dunes continues to grow, attracting visitors from all over the world.

There are landscapes in which we feel above us not sky but space. Something larger, deeper than sky is sensed, is seen, although in such settings the sky itself is invariably immense.