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Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
We got up at 04h30 to be ready when the park gates opened at 05h15 to drive through to the actual vlei (pronounced: flay) (pan). George, the Land Rover, woke up feeling a little flat and slightly hung over... One rear tyre was 70% deflated. Fortunately, George has the equipment on board to inflate his own tyres and Philip quickly took care of this with the intention of repairing the tyre after we had visited the vlei. We stopped every 15 minutes on the way to the vlei, to make sure the tyre was okay.
As it was still dark, Philip observed that the “mountains” on either side of the valley we were driving through, were huge. As the sun came up, we realised that the large mountains were in fact, some of the highest dunes in the world.
Philip clambered up one of the dunes and took a short-cut down the dune by sliding down on his butt.
The drive to the actual vlei was 60km. The last 5km was through very thick sand that only a 4x4 can get through. We passed a picnic table in the middle of nowhere all decked out with breakfast without a person or vehicle in sight (it was tempting). We stopped under some trees and enjoyed our breakfast al fresco, along with lots of birds, who begged lots of crumbs off Lynne, before heading for Windhoek.
We returned to the campsite to repair the tyre. There was not one hole but many, minute holes which indicated the tyre was on its last legs. These tyres were bought in 2004 and had had a good innings, but as most of you reading this blog know, George had been standing, exposed to the elements in Pretoria, waiting very patiently for his owners to return from Dubai and release him into the wild where his heart is and where he ultimately belongs…and his tyres had perished, to some degree from being exposed to the elements for the last four and a half years. They have also taken quite a beating on some of the 9000Km terrain we have covered since leaving home. As the minute holes could not be repaired at the garage, we bought a can of emergency tyre fix which solved the problem until we could replace the tyres in Windhoek.
The drive to Windhoek took us through terrific mountain, valleys and streams (C24/M47 road). The trip was a bit like Baviaanskloof, but less water and not as extreme. As we were on a mission to give George a pedicure, we did have time to visit Gochaganas where Christoph Mertens comes from.
When we arrived in Windhoek, we asked Gypsy, the GPS, for directions to the closest tyre fitment centre and drove directly there to replace all four tyres. George has now had a pedicure that any, self-respecting gentleman would be proud to have and looks superb with his newly fitted tyres (BF Goodridge).
We were surprised by the mountains and green vegetation that surrounded Windhoek as we were expecting something totally different (flat, hot and dry). Actually, the trip up from Sossusvlei was very different from the desert and grassy plains of South Western Namibia.
We booked in at the Arebbusch Caravan Park which had excellent camp sites and the ablutions were in terrific condition.
We were suffering from (serious) withdrawal symptoms due to the lack of pizza and beer so we hunted down a pizza restaurant and enjoyed our first pizza since starting our journey on 20th December.
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