92 Sossusvlei - Swakopmund
March 13th 2011
Yesterday morning I got up before dawn, to go for a ride with Roland to the Sossusvlei sand dunes.
Entering the national park in his 4WD we drove along the most magnificent landscape of red sand dunes in a corridor, flanked by the dunes, that slowly became more narrow as we drove along. Our first stop was Dune 45 ( 45 kilometers from the entrance to the park), and I climbed the dune to the top to enjoy an extraordinary view over the red dunes with the plain in a greenish color below.
It had rained heavily the night before(?) and recently they had a lot of rain as well, so there was a relatively lot of greenery around.
Further on I saw the Deadvlei and the Sossusvlei (vlei meaning something with water or oasis). It was on a day with cloud cover - and the temperature was reasonable. In the lodge, they have air conditioning that cools the air to 25 degrees.
This morning Roland, from Dessert Air, had offered to fly with me over the dunes, and we started out at sunrise, for another sight seeing - this time from the air. Truly breath taking scenery!
From the lodge I rang Eros briefing to file a flight plan to fly to Swakopmund by noon.
After taking off, I flew again along over the red dunes at Sossusvlei, and then continued due west from there, until I reached the ocean. Then I turned north along the beach. Roland had been kind to give me the coordinates of a couple of old diamond mines and of the shipwreck of Eduard Bohlen, a wreck from the beginning of the nineteenth century. I passed by it at low altitude.
Further along I passed Sandwich Harbour, a beautiful area with a lot of pelicans.
I called Walvis Bay and abeam the VOR, I changed frequency to the unmanned Swakopmund airport. After landing, I got picked up by a car from the hotel, where I stayed the night.
