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Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
It rained all night, however, it was nice and cosy in the rooftop tent.
We travelled up north to Rundu where we filled up the diesel tanks and had coffee at the Wimpy.
A further 100km on, Gypsy “beeped” once to tell us we would be turning shortly, then soon afterwards, Gypsy beeped twice to say “turn now”. Lynne was really confused as there was no “road”, but Philip suddenly turned into the bush and Lynne discovered that we turned off to the Khaudum Nature Reserve which was our destination for the day. The 55km track to the reserve was along very thick sandy tracks that required a 4x4. Lynne nearly had a heart attack when she saw the thick sandy track and nearly had another one when we waded through swamps of black, muddy water.
We arrived at Khaudum camp reception site after 3 hours of sandy track where a sign warned campers to be aware of elephants, lion and hyenas that roam through the camp sites. The view from the camp site is terrific as it overlooks grassy plains that are surrounded by tall trees. A small monkey arrived and sat up in one of the beautiful trees near our campsite. He sat “bobbing” his head for about half an hour. Lynne then walked towards the tree and “barked”. The monkey sprang around and started to make “barking” sounds of his own, “Stay away from my territory!” is what he seemed to be saying.
The transition in the landscape as we travelled from the coast up north has been fascinating. The coast was desert with no vegetation to speak of and, as you headed inland, small desert shrubs started appearing. After about 100km inland, you get grasslands that slowly start turning into plains with small bushes and trees. By the time we reached Etosha, we were in thick, bushy plains with beautiful trees and further north, the trees starting getting really huge.
Africa has been in eco-construction well before any other continent. Dotted along the B8 highway, were small homesteads built entirely from materials harvested from the surrounding bush. Each homestead had about 4 to 6 small huts built mostly from wood with thatched grass roofs and were surrounded by a fence made from branches to protect the residents from wild animals (elephant, lions).
Most homesteads planted maize all around their living area and many even had these fenced off to keep elephants out. These eco-homesteads were easy to repair and if the family decided to vacate the homestead, everything decays allowing everything to be recycled naturally, or otherwise reused elsewhere.
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