Like being on the ocean, there are huge, ever-changing big-sky vistas to get your head around. Your ears take on a new sensitivity in the beckoning silence, though even in the desert the birdlife is astonishing. The body adapts to the Namib massage – local shorthand for the unending corrugated road surfaces which shake both vehicles and people to pieces. And then there is that most elusive of Namib sensations: the “singing” dunes, vibrating with soo-oop-wa. “The sand shrieks beneath your feet”, wrote John Marsh who first described the Skeleton Coast in his 1944 book.
The Namib is the oldest desert on earth – a 200+ million-year-old riverbed of volcanic table-top mountains, gravel valleys and sand ergs. The white sands of the coastal Namib mix with the red sands of the Kalahari further south and further inland. Separating the two, running down the middle of the country – from Etosha to the Naukluft – is a hilly spine of perfect cattle country which is also ideal for elephants, lions, leopards and cheetahs.
On my second day in Africa I drove across the Namib from Windhoek to Swakopmund by myself. The C48 started as tarmac but quickly showed its true character – a graded ‘main’ road that essentially is a dirt road across the desert. They warned me about the heat, but to me 34 °C in the shade was quite pleasant. No blowouts, no flat tyres, no problems. Traffic was not an issue – I saw only six vehicles in 356 km as I was introduced to the washboard corrugation that covers most of the road. The choice between this lane or that lane is a choice between bad and worse!
