2025 Namibia

4th December 2025

At long last here’s a bit of a mash-up of the lots and lots of video taken through the windscreen. Namibia is a huge country but not terribly overcrowded, The roads are long, very long and pretty decent quality, even the gravel ones (mostly). The scenery seemed to change every five minutes!

28th November 2025

Here’s a final selection of photographs. What a country and what wonderful people.

14^th November 2025

Last night was a birthday for one of our travelling group. The Grootberg Lodge baked a huge birthday cake for her and all the serving and kitchen staff gathered to sing “Happy Birthday to You” as well as a couple of local folk songs. It turns out they are all members of the local church choir and gosh, how they could sing. The timbre of their voices and the varying harmonies were a real delight to hear.

Yesterday’s drive was long and quite boring. Lots of lovely smooth tarmac to begin with but it did deteriorate to decent gravel and then truly awful corrugated washboard. All the cars were skipping all over the place and it was hard to keep any sort of decent speed. The traction control light on our dashboard was flickering on and off nearly all day.

As I said before, the lodge was at the head of a valley, perched on the edge of an escarpment and over 6,200 m (nearly 5,500 ft) above sea level. The views were stunning.

Today was quite a longish drive of 325 Km; starting on poor gravel then improving to lovely smooth tarmac. Long, long laser straight roads can be quite soporific. We passed thousands of ant or termite mounds and lots of warning signs for Warthogs and Springboks but sadly we didn’t see any. At one crossroads we were flagged down by a local constable who asked to see our driving licences. He quipped that we were getting down the road a bit too fast “were we trying to catch our friends?” With a smile I told him that there were lots more following behind. He said he wanted to search our luggage compartment so I offered to pull off the road so we didn’t impede any other vehicles. With a grin from ear to ear he said “Don’t worry, I’m only joking!” so with a smile and a handshake we both wished each other good luck and have a nice day. Where else in the world to cops behave like this?

Finally, beside the entrance to or digs for the night, Etosha Lodge, we filled up the diesel tank and drove a wee bit further to check in, have lunch (delicious) and finally un-pack. Our cabin tonight is a real luxury, surprise surprise. While we ate, we had a group of eight or nine, including a juvenile, Rhinos only a few metres away.

Sory but yet again but the WonderWeb isn’t good enough for any pics.

13^th November 2025

Just a short update tonight because we are the top of a mountain and access for everything is limited – even the entrance drive as you can see from the photograph. The next time we have a decent connection to the WonderWeb I’ll post more info.

One thing though. We have enjoyed some spectacular views from our various rooms but I think you’ll agree that this is more than a bit special.

12^th November 2025

Apologies for no posting yesterday. We had a very long drive North then West, just a bit shy of 480Km and there really was no time between arriving, downing a very refreshing G&T then Dinner.

Swakopmund is a delight. Obviously a seaside resort – think Clacton in Essex or Bangor / Newcastle nearer home. We went out for a walk in the evening (10^th) and ended up in the Lighthouse restaurant. Lots of lovely shellfish, straight out of the tide and landed nearby and truly wonderful service.

Yesterday was another long haul heading North up the coast. We stopped at Henties for a coffee and to fill our wee truck’s tank because we have nearly 500Km ahead today. Mostly pretty decent, well surfaced roads through amazing landscapes. Nearly always within sight of the Atlantic and so very flat, the countryside lacked any topographical features but made up for that with all the colours of the rainbow in the sand and salt flats we drove through. Vegetation was sparce or quite often non-existant but if it sounds boring, rest assured it wasn’t. Named “The Skeleton Coast” for the number of shipwrecks, it turns out that most of the hulks have been eroded to nothing bay the huge breakers along the coast.

Eventually we stopped at the entrance to a National Park and had to fill in some paperwork before we were allowed to proceed. On looking at the register, we were the second vehicle of the day at about one o’clock.

More and more amazing scenery with more and more gravel roads and eventually we turned inland and after a while found the Eastern gate. On the paperwork it look as though we were the third vehicle to leave today and it was nearly four o’clock. Soon after we stopped for a quick bite of our “rally lunch” – normally made up from whatever we could purloin from the breakfast buffet. Today’s offering was quite nice ham and cheese rolls. Soon enough we turned off the road and drove the last three Km to our fantastic mountain lodge.

Because of numbers the group is split into two, half with us and the rest at another campsite, We have a stunning chalet looking over an amazing savannah landscape with stunning rocky outcrops. If the wind was a bit cooler we’d have the screens wide open all night – almost sleeping under the stunning celestial display above our heads.

Today is a more relaxed affair – our time is our own. Some have gone on a very early game drive looking for elephants (they found them), another couple chartered a light aircraft to flay back and look for the shipwrecks. We had a lie-in until eight o’clock, tucked into breakfast then took a short drive to vir=ew some rock formations nearby. Sadly they weren’t that impressive and we also decided to give the nearby rock art a miss as the temperature was soaring.

That’s it for now. Dinner tonight and a shortish drive of just 200 Km tomorrow. Sorry there are no videos but there really isn’t enough bandwidth out here to cope with them so I’ll get all posted when we get home.

10th November 2025 – pt 2

This is the hotel car park. Our car is the white truck.

10^th November 2025

Today was a long, long transit day. It has to be because the country is sooooooo large. We left Le Mirage near Sossusvlei at a reasonable hour with about a ¾ tankful of diesel to drive about 370 Km to Swakopmund on the Atlantic coast. Plenty we thought! After some respectable tarmac the wide, mostly deserted road eventually turned to gravel, then rough gravel then rough, pitted washboard gravel and then it got worse. Endless straight nothingness and a couple of twisty mountain passes with contorted, folded rock formations were the norm. Occasional scrub and a few ostriches glimpsed in the distance were about all there was to see.

At mid morning believe it or not, we stopped at a bakery / coffee stop for delicious apple pie with ice cream and some coffee at exactly the right time. Hundreds of kilometres from anywhere and baked on site! Local attractions included a “collection” of vintage vehicles at the main entrance and Meerkats to clear up any crumbs. Of course there was a gift shop and fuel pumps but we decided that we had enough juice and pushed on. The slightly softer tyres for the gravel and the general driving conditions really hammered our fuel consumption so we ended up at Swakopmund with the needle very nearly pointing to “E”. When we finally filled up we saw that there had been less than five litres left in the tank – quite scary out here. About two thirds of the way, driving through the Great Namib Desert (apparently the oldest desert in the world), we experienced something we haven’t seen since the Gobi Desert in 2007. While traversing a wide open plain with almost no points of reference like trees or even hills on the horizon all around, we felt like were very gradually climbing a very long, gentle incline but never reaching the top. Eighteen years ago it took us a few days to work out what was happening so now the reason is recognisable. We were quite simply driving over the horizon – an optical illusion.

Tonight we are at The Strand Hotel, right on the beach and we seemed to have lucked in yet again. Our room has a fabulous view out to sea. As we walked in to register, who should we meet but and old rally compatriot from events such as The 1000 Mile Trial and The Sierra Nevada – Sue Shoosmith, a very competitive Bentley driver. It’ll be great to catch up later.

We have been promised more interesting roads tomorrow.

9^th November 2025

Last night we had some G&Ts on the terrace, well, sundowners seem to be compulsory so it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it? As we were about to head in for dinner (that turned out to be as good as everything else here), a couple of Jackals turned up to make sure we hadn’t left any rubbish lying around.

Up this morning at the totally unholy time of ten to four to quickly get dressed and head out into the night. Thankfully after only a short drive we arrived at the HQ of “Namib Sky Balloons” where we were given a quick coffee and safety briefing. Things such as “Emergency Exits are all four sides of the basket. Don’t bother to open the doors or wait for the shute, there aren’t any” or, “Seat belts are not required as in the event of a frisky landing, you might have to jump for it and run”. As the sun eventually cracked the horizon, the four giant balloons filled with hot air slowly rose from the desert floor. Sixteen passengers and a pilot in each basket and dozens of ground crew to restrain the whole affair and ensure none of the rigging wires snagged accompanied by the roar of the propane burners and we oh so gently left the ground.

To begin, it was hard to discern the vertical movement in the silence but occasional bursts of flame and lots of juggling with control ropes soon had us soaring higher and higher. What an experience. We’ve never done anything like this before and it really is difficult to put the sights and sounds into words. Simply magnificent. We drifted along in the gentle breeze using different heights to make use of the varying directions of wind shear to actually steer our transport.

All too soon (actually over an hour later) we were expertly guided down and touched ground oh so gently right beside the trailer positioned to take all the gear back to base. While the ground crew gathered everything up we were presented with a champagne breakfast – in the middle of the desert. Fresh fruit, sliced meats (including smoked Zebra), cheeses, pastries, yoghurt and cereals set us up for the day very nicely. All too soon we were delivered – by road – back to base to collect our cars. We, along with a few others drove back into the park and down an excellent highway to the famous “Dune 45”. In this part of the desert, like the Kalahari, the sand is very, very fine red dust, almost like talc and the dunes are absolutely monstrous. This one is named because it is 45Km from the gate, nothing more romantic than that I’m afraid. We wandered around for a few phots then headed back for a late (ish) lunch, quick siesta and then dinner.

Tomorrow – we’re off to Swakopmund, on the coast and, we’ve been told some 368Km with occasional challenging conditions.

8th November 2025

We decided to forego the Desert Walk to meet the Kalahari bush people and learn their ways to enjoy a bit of a lie-in until about half seven. Breakfast, pack the car then off again on a 300Km trek with about the last 100Km on well graded gravel then very rutted (washboard) sand to our billet for the next two nights, the Le Mirage, right on the edge of the Great Namib Sand Sea. I looks a bit like an old desert fortress (think old Foreign Legion films) and is very, very sumptuously kitted out. Oh dear, more G&T sundowners tonight.

7th November 2025

We set off at a respectable time for the most boring 300 Km ever. First things first, we stopped off to buy a local sim card then crossed the street to the local version of Asda. We stocked our cool box (supplied by the car hire company) with lots of water, tonic and ice but sadly no Gin. Once out of town, there were no proper bends at all just a very few very gentle curves. About 2/3rds of the way along we paused at the only small town worth speaking of and found a Liquor Store (thank heavens) so now we also have sufficient supplies of nerve tonic! A quick cheese, ham and tomato toastie at a a roadside café and we continued the trek South. Eventually we turned off and finally started the last 20 or so Km on well graded gravel and arrived at last at the Bagatelle Safari Game Ranch. We had no time to spare so dumped our bags in what looked like a pretty comfortable chalet and joined everyone else for an evening game drive. Except, the whole 30,000 hectares of the ranch is fenced in with no predators so it really was a bit more like a “petting zoo safari”. Our driver even called the Rhinoceros and her calf by name……

When that was over we were taken to some other compounds where they run a Cheetah sanctuary. Run as a charity they rescue orphaned cubs and nourish them to full health. Sadly, because they have never been trained by their mothers, they could never survive in the wild and are kept in huge paddocks for life. After super sundowner G&Ts on top of a Kalahari red sand dune then a wonderful supper with delicious Oryx steaks we toddled off to bed.

6th November 2025

We landed in Windhoek expecting to see our car-hire rep waiting for us with our name board but, no sign at all. We hooked up with a pair of other couples from the group on the same flight and after they’d bought their local sim cards, sent a WhatsApp to the organiser. I had a bit of trouble getting my Skyroam to see the local ‘phone network so couldn’t help. After a while, one of the other hire company reps sidled up to me and told me he had our car hire chap on the ‘phone for me. This all sounded far too suspicious so I politely said thank you and, as you do with hawkers, tried jovially and lots of bonhomie to tell him as nicely as possible to “push off”. After a while he asked for me by name which is far too much of a coincidence so I took the call and after an apology, was told they’d be with us ASAP and sure enough they were. Six of us and all our baggage were crammed into a jeep and driven to the depot in the city where we were given the most comprehensive hand over walk-around ever. Soon enough we headed off in convoy to our hotel for the night.

Because of all the delays, we had to rush a bit to get to the welcome drinks party in the rooftop bar and were then ushered to our table for a simply superb meal. We met up with a couple of old rallying chums we’d been on the same events together over the years and also a few others we’d passed somewhere else around the world.

3rd November 2025

Well, we’re on our way and the first flight is behind us. At first I thought it was a bit of a Parlimentarian’s Express with three of our Westminster representatives sitting behind but then it urned into an international motorsport trip. Apart from us, the renowned international historic rallyists (not), we had Robert Dunlop, the road-racing motorcycle star on board too.

Here we are in the Heathrow lounge with quite a long layover because the next flight from home might have been a bit tight for our luggage to make the connection.

25th October 2025

I suppose this is the start of our proper Namibia blog. The roadbook and goodies arrived today so Penny is double checking for errors and plotting the route and overnight stops on our map. Thank goodness we bought this a while ago as the organisers told us a couple of days ago that they couldn’t find enough anywhere – Amazon or even the publishers. In the WhatsApp group I posted a link to my preferred supplier and some of the other participants have been able to pick up maps from there. Many thanks to “The Map Shop” in Upton-Upon-Severn – excellent service as usual.

We have been picking, changing and trial packing our bags for a while now. Quite a difficult job as we are leaving late Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and flying to early Summer in the Southern Hemisphere with semi respectable casual to desert outback clothes all needed. Because it is Namibia I’m also taking a lot of camera gear. No drone this time because acquiring a drone licence in Namibia takes about two months and lots of detailed information for their CAA.

Mobile reception is very patchy; there are huge areas where there is no coverage in the deserts at all, so updates to this web page and our FaceBook page might be quite sporadic. Be patient, I’ll do my best!

A week from Monday and we’re on our way!

6th January 2025

Over a couple of weeks around the Christmas / New Year holidays at the end of 2024 we had a chat about “Where to next, what’s up for 2025?” There have been very few events that jumped off the screen and shouted at us – “Haven’t done that before” or “Haven’t been there before” or better yet “you’ll have to come and drive here”.

There were a couple we sort of half heartedly considered and while they haven’t been totally discarded they are definitely on the long finger. We haven’t really done any long distance or endurance events for a while so we drew up a list of where we hadn’t visited and began a bit of a search and came up with a longish short list (if that makes sense) like this:

USA (Yosemite, Death Valley, Route 66, that sort of thing); Transylvania is a possibility; India or the Himalayas – there are three options for there, one in the mountains, the other across India and the final one around Rajastan; Vietnam; The Great Ocean Road, Victoria – Australia; Central America (Honduras, Guatamala, Costa Rica, Panama & Nicaragua – a few options here); Georgia – I’d love to do this but Mr Putin isn’t helping; Bohemia (Czechia & Poland) or finally Kalahari / Namibia.

Some of these could be driven in the Talbot, others in the MGB (if we ever get it running) and some will have to be in 4X4s. We’ve made enquiries about one of them……… and yes – Namibia won the vote.

This will be a 4×4 tour, a bit like Madagascar and Sri Lanka but with a new group to us, Classic Travelling. They only do tours, not competitive events but a lot of their trips can be made in our own cars. Our deposit has been sent off and we’re now waiting for lots more information, including hopefully a list of the other members of the party so we can discover who we know and who we’ve heard of from other trips.

7th January 2025

The office has kindly sent me a link to a few photographs from their “recce”. Looks interesting.

Some roads we can expect: (click on any photo to enlarge it)