Namibia in the “RAINY SEASON”

Well it’s not all that rainy,  just a lot of clouds and thunderstorms building up, we only got rained on once… or twice, and it usually clears real quick. The good thing is that the backgrounds are simply amazing with all these clouds !

That is, as long as we had them… which was just about during our first week.

But then, we really needed clear skies for the night shots at the quiver tree forest, so all turned out rather well this holiday if I may say.

And the company was brilliant of course, us doing a private tour with Hougaard Malan and his lovely girlfriend Marlee, who turned out to be my favourite model !

WINDHOEK

The capital of Namibia, something between a small city and a big town. We arrived in Windhoek, spent the afternoon at a lovely lodge, and then we really got started when Hougaard arrived the next morning in a big jeep and we left for Spitskoppe. Spitskoppen Lodge is very beautiful, I just love the rooms and the views  !

Back to serious photography, sunset shoot at the arch, there is only one so that‘s easy. Nice clouds but nothing amazing. Climbed onto one of the koppies for sunset, where we got beautiful light on the mountains and a nice sky. Not bad for a first day. It’s just great to be back in Africa again !

SPITSKOPPE

Up at 06:00 which is very humane. Sunrise shoot at the arch, then back home for breakfast after which we have some time to relax. After a lovely lunch we head out because there are so many big fat black clouds all around us. We shoot in the plains from far away, but it is not so good, no light on the mountains, so back to the one and only arch. Not so brilliant either, damn. We head back to the lodge as it starts to rain. Really rain hard I mean !  After a G&T and a little nap all is well again. We climb another koppie for sunset. This turns out to be amazing. Nice holes, unfortunately not filled with water as we had expected after the rains,  but they made for great foregrounds, super light and great clouds.

Just getting down from these koppies was a bit of a pain in the ass. After dinner we went back to the arch for a star shot, which was cool. Have had just about  enough arch for a while now !

SWAKOPMUND & WALVISBAY

The next morning we get up at 6:00 as before. Crappy sunrise shot, don’t ask where please…. then breakfast, pack and go. A short 2 hr drive to Swakopmund where we have a super coffee at Slowtown. Boy, that was good ! Swakopmund is a cute little town full of colour and history, and with nice moderate temperatures, Jürg loves it here. I love the coffee.

From there it’s just a short drive to Walvisbay, our B&B is at the waterfront. It is raining and we are almost blown off our feet.

We go look for the flamingoes. They were right in front of the B&B this morning, but can’t blame them in this wind, not a bird in sight. We find some further along the coastal road in a little pan, not brilliant but at least I got some !

The next morning we meet at 7:00 right in front of the house. At sunrise lots of pelicans right in front of our B&B, unfortunately totally clouded, no light on them, it starts to rain, but what the heck, we stay. Some flamingoes come as well and in the moody sky a rainbow shows. Not so bad after all !

SOSSUSVLEI

After breakfast we drive the 400km to Sesriem. The first part is very boring, flat and empty, after the Kuiseb canyonit gets a bit better. We pass through Goab canyon, have lunch at Solitaire and arrive at Sossus Dune Lodge around 15:00. Storm clouds all over the place, so we leave at once. Drive to Sossusvlei, photograph a lonely oryx, but no stormclouds here. We decide to head back but there are no other brilliant options so we decide to climb a dune near camp. My foot hurts, the wind picks up and we get a free sand peeling as soon as we approach the ridge, the view is moderately average and there is no light. Jürg and Hougi climb to the top, but I’ve had it,  I head down, waste of good pixels. To be honest, when I saw the photos… it wasn’t so bad after all.

DEAD VLEI

Aaahhhhh, next mornig we are up at 4:40, coffee at 5:00, leave shortly after. It takes 45 min to get to the end of the road, another 15min through the sand, then hike 20min. We reach Dead Vlei by 06:45 or so, and have it all to ourselves. No light for ages, it is very cloudy. We have Marlee as a model, make her walk up and down in a red dress, looks rather good. Around 9:00 we get a little bit of sunlight and immediately the colours change.

This afternoon we do the „helicopter without doors“  thing ! I was so scared, I am very afraid of hights, the pilot said not to worry, I’d be okay once up there, bullshit ! I didn’t believe him for a second. But honest it was so quiet and gentle, and once up there I was much to busy taking photos to be scared. It was absolutely sensational, not just the dunes which are tremendous, but especially when we circled low over the oryx, found a porcupine and springbokkies and saw fields full of fairy circles in best light, I absolutely loved it, and even dared to lean out. Plus of course, the pilot was a really cute guy !

 

We were a bit early yesterday, so the next day we only leave at 05:30 for Dead Vlei. No clouds this time, but a busload full of Chinese, photographing just about every tree there was, from any possible angle and making loads of noise. We got some lovely shots again, inspite of them, but saw no oryx on the way back today.

In the evening we do a “special arrangement only” trip to Dead Vlei to do some star photography. Being there all alone on a cloudless night is simply amazing, the photography is great…. but the experience is unbeatable.

We sleep late on our last day here, we only leave at 06:30 to do some more dune ridges. First dune 40 which we leave as soon as the first tourists arrive, then “the Squiggle”, a beautiful line in the dunes where no other tourists go. As we drive on to find oryx we find 2, beautiful. We shoot from the car and keep moving to get ahead of them. A little further on we even find a group of 3, this is very special !

QUIVER TREE FOREST at KEETMANSHOOP

After lunch we drive to Marienthal where we have an unhealthy hamburger lunch at Wimpy’s and hope to get the airconditioning in the car fixed. After 2 hours of waiting we move on, without aircon. This part of the journey was very boring, just flat and straight and absolutely nothing to look at. We arrive shortly after sunset and head straight for dinner. Damn the Chinese are here too. We’d better get some food before they finish the dinner buffet. After dinner we head for the quiver trees, and guess who have the same plan… 20 loud Chinese ! Luckily they go to the main forest, which has “too many trees” as Hougaard says, so we go to Giants Castle where there are less trees and lots of rocks. Hope the photos turn out allright, they look splendid on the little camera screen.

Yes ! Sleep late ! Not too bad, the next morning we only go for sunrise shots at 06:30, the trees are so close by, not like Sossusvlei where we had to drive an hour to get there. The sunrise is only mildly interesting. Not a cloud in sight and I can’t seem to find the „right“ tree. We check out the real quiver tree forest after breakfast and there really are too many trees ! At last it’s time for the sunset shoot, which turns out a lot better than the sunrise one.

After dinner, which was very nice, we leave at 21:00 for another star shoot. Just as I start to set up for a star trail  Hougaard notices I have the midrange lens on instead of the wide angle. So he helps Jürg set up his shot, in the meantime Marlee and me do starshots of the tree at 24mm which is the widest I can do with this lens and Marlee being my lightpainter.

We, well to be honest Hougaard, gets the wide lens at the lodge and brings it to me. Now it turns out my remote doesn’t work on this new camera, the plug is much to thick, even worse, I had no batteries in it…..ooops,  so no star trail for me tonight. Still it is good fun and we get a load of cool shots, plus we had a cooler  box with G&T  and Amarula, so it turned out quite allright !  We only get home by midnight, the cooler box is empty. To make matters worse, Jürg figures out  that the 5dmark4 has the remote connecter at a different spot and the remote would have worked. Plus it even has a built in bulb mode, which means a remote is not even needed. I am excused, being a female… at least, now I know for next time, ha ha !

NAMIB RAND -1

Yuhui, we get to sleep late after last nights adventure. We drive towards Aus, on a tar road, the roadside is covered in little yellow flowers and silvery grasses, so lovely. Then via Bethanie to Helmeringhausen it’s dirt all the way. We do a lunch stop at the Helmeringhausen Hotel, and sit in the wonderfully shady beergarten. It’s said to have the best apple pie in the country, competing with Solitaier for the Nr. 1  title. Well that’s for our expert, meaning Jürg, to decide. It really is ! He even takes a second piece !

The further north we go, the greener it gets, we are so lucky to have picked this year, it is the first year with rains after 2008 and 2011.  We arrive at the Greenfire Desert Lodge and I sit at the table at the poolside and look out over the green and orange plains dotted with very green trees, in the back there are mountain ranges, in just about in every direction we look. The wind blows and it is just perfectly fine to sit here, and enjoy the wonderful landscape in front of me. It will be hard to capture this amazing landscape on a photo, it is so special, most photos won’t do it justice.

There are not that many animals here, and we will probably take landscape shots with animals somewhere in the background being very very small. The scenery however, is absolutely amazing and the lines of light green grass between the orange sand make for great contrast.

And to our surprise, there are animals here, hundreds of oryx are moving about on the plains, almost like an oryx migration, this is very rare but the lodge owner thinks it is because there is grass here, but nothing further north, so they all aggregate here. Good for us. Dinner is very nice and we even open a second bottle of wine, sit and chat till late.  We are not doing stars tonight, thank God for a good nights sleep.

Unfortunately all the animals here are extremely skittish and we only get them as tiny little animals in a big picture. We do the chocolate peak with tiny oryx, a few oryx on a ridge. As I ask Hougaard to stop for a landscape on the left, he sees a tree in front of a rocky slope on the right. Plenty of photo opportunities here, the difference this time is,  it’s not wide angle but long lenses. We are only back for breakfast at 10:00, and it really is baai lekker !

In the afternoon drive north for a change, but there is not very much to see there. The track suddenly vanishes, proof it hasn’t been used in a long time. So back to our favourite mountain again, drive around it. Back at the lodge just after sunset to get the evening glow on the mountains in the back. Sadly our cloudy days are over. It. Is not that brilliant, so we turn to our G&T whilst sitting at the poolside with our feet in the water, which is a really good option too. Jürg and Hougaard head out in the middle of the night for some more stars and star trails, not me, I sleep.

The next day has the same rhythm, sunrise on the plains, for sunset we drive past our mountain and head towards the pass, it turns out the chocolate mountain is in such beautiful light and has silvery grass waving in the wind in front of it, that we turn back and do the sunset shoot, G&T included, right there.

NAMIB RAND -2

We leave after breakfast and  reach the Namib Desert Lodge near Solitaire around 13:30. The landscape looks promising but no private driving, so we are forced to take the sundowner tour at 16:30 with a busload full of German tourists. First a light lunch and a cold beer, then a dip in the pool to get some of the sand out of my hair, god it feels like a bale of hay or something, you can style it into any form or shape, let go and it will stay that way, yak !

The sunset tour turned out quite allright ! We got a private jeep whereas the other two jeeps were cramped with German tourists.

We drive along the petrified cliffs with Ricardo our guide, this is so beautiful ! It gets even better as we move up the dunes at the end of the cliffs, it looks fabulous on top and the views down are even better ! The first viewpoint is our favourite, must do it again tomorrow. The second one is cool too, it looks down on a washed out black part of the dunes,  little green dots of grass all over the black surface and  three oryx walking in the midst. Sunset light on the mountains in the back, green grass down in the valley. We are so lucky to see so much green.

The third spot looks down at the lodge, that is for tourists, we don’t even get out. The sunset stop is also at a very lovely setting and the cooler box is filled for 9 people, so if we like we can get very very drunk here. We eat the snacks, take some pics and have at least two G&T’s each. No night shoot tonight the boys need a good nights sleep.

New day, new plan. After a coffee at 06:00 we leave on foot to do the dune trail. It is still awful dark and we plough through the soft sand in the light of our little head lamps. We shoot at the one rockface, Hougi and I stay and Jürg moves on to the first viewpoint. Well he tried but never really got there, a herd of 20 oryx was blocking his way. So he did some lovely shots from as far as he could go. After lunch we relaxed at the pool till it was 16:15 again and time for another sunset drive with Ricardo. ….

Damn, it’s already our last full day in Namibia. At first we decided to sleep late, but heck, there are too many cool shots here and it’s our last chance, so we got Ricardo to do the morning drive once more. Just take us to the rockface with the pretty tree, then up to viewpoint Nr.1, untill 07:05 max. Then to the sunset point which is quite close, for just the moment when the sun comes out over the mountains……. it was beautiful ! Jürg helped out, he simply is Mr. Pano. The sunset point was sensational once the sun peeped out over the mountain, just the buggin’ metal table from the sundowners was smack in the middle of the best shot. I asked Jürg to help me move it but he wouldn’t, so I’ll have to pimp it out.

After that back to Windhoek over the Spreetshoogte Pass where the view was amazing and the landscape was so green ! Time to say goodbye to Namibia. It was a great trip, we have full memory cards, and even more incredible impressions of an amazing country and a green desert. Thank you Hougaard !

For our favourite photos Go to gallery

 

Copyright text and photo :  Astrid Bluemel for bluemelphoto.ch 2018