Namibian safari - Worldwild Adventure

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WorldWild Adventure’s 9 day safari exploring this vastly empty and beautiful country.

I was lucky enough to go one of these trips last June and cannot recommend it highly enough.
http://worldwildadventure.com/tours/namibia/

I have heard a rumble that they have been planning another and might have some places still. I meant to post these photos immediately after returning, but work got in the way and time passed.

We had a bit of an international mix of people on our trip. Jaimie, the expedition leader and co-founder, is based in British Columbia, Stuart, the second driver and medic/mechanic/logistician, is based in Wales, Stuart's dad was along on the trip, all the way from Brunei, we had a young lady from Cornwall, a French lady from Calgary, Canada, and an American couple from Seattle.

What follows are a bunch of my own photos. If you want to see better photos, I recommend Jamie's professional work in the WWA gallery:
http://worldwildadventure.com/galleries/namibia/

When I got back, remarkably, one of the first things people asked me was where is Namibia? Probably not a problem in this company! But just in case ;) the next country north of South Africa on the Atlantic side and is the second least populated country on earth, after Mongolia.

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As a former German colony, it still seems to benefit from a certain Teutonic efficiency; for Africa things work very well, the road network is good with tarmac to get you across a lot of the country, violent crime isn’t a particular concern, and there is even remarkably good mobile phone coverage of the main routes and towns. So this is “Africa-lite”. The perfect place for a first (or second) visit to the continent.

A number of companies run bushcraft expeditions to Namibia, Bushcraft Expeditions, Wood Smoke and Woodlore are the ones I know off the top of my head.

Worldwild’s safari is different in that it is not primarily a bushcraft trip, this might make it seem less appealing for folk here, but don’t be hasty. This could (and should) make it much more appealing for non-bushcrafting partners who can otherwise veto plans for wild and woolly expeditions overseas. So not only is Namibia a gentle introduction to Africa, but the WorldWild trip is a gentle intro to bushcraft adventure. It went far enough into the wild that I thoroughly enjoyed it, but there were roof tents, camp chairs and tables, proper knives forks and plates, and most important of all, Jamie the expedition leader, was a fantastic cook. He even managed to produce a plate of Ferrero Roche to finish off a buffet lunch which had already included smoked mussels, miles from anywhere, in the shade of a baobab!


Our trip went up into Bushmanland by the Botswanan border, then west to tour Etosha. The following week the guides and remaining clients headed out to the big dunes, then up the coast into Himba country. While there wasn’t a lot of bushcraft instruction, there is no doubt that both weeks were adventures, way off the beaten path and out into real Africa.

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Arrival:
Flying in to Windhoek via Johannesburg, we met up with Jamie and Stuart at the Roof of Africa hotel in Windhoek. First night was spent at the hotel with dinner just down the road at Joe’s Beer House. Visiting Joe’s is an event in itself! Over our Oryx Schnitzel, Kudu loins and mixed meat Bushman Sosaties, Stuart ran through a very thorough briefing on safety, proper hydration, navigation, camp routine, itinerary and the potential cultural and emotional aspects of spending time with the Bushmen.


Kick-Off:
An early but civilised start, packing gear into one of our two rented Hilux before setting off on the first 370 mile, 7.5hour leg of our safari.
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En-route a brief stop at the local Spar shop. Who would believe that that little chain of local mini-marts is THE supermarket chain in Namibia. Not that you would really mistake this one for being in south Wales!
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Stuart spoke the truth at the briefing when he said that all visitors go through the same pattern upon driving out from the city for the first time. Every creature standing by the side of the road, be it warthog, baboon or passing vulture is pointed at with great excitement amid calls to stop and scrambles for cameras; but by the time the trip is over it would take an elephant crossing the road to generate such excitement. Hard to imagine becoming blasé to African wildlife, but it happens ;)

After a night at Roy's Rest Camp
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Head east down an endless gravel track towards Grashoek Living History Village.
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Bushmanland: - Grashoek
I could try to explain the set up of this special village, but it is better just to point to this site: http://www.lcfn.info/en/ju-hoansi/ju-hoansi-museum
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We had the chance to follow some of the villagers on a short bush-walk. It was impossible not to notice how well suited to moving through the bush they were...
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and how ill-suited us visitors were! LOL
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We also had the chance to try our hands at making snare cord and bow strings from yucca leaf fibre, work on our own Bushman bows and then try our hand at archery.
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There was also dancing, which we also joined in, much to the amusement of the villagers!
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Bushmanland: Tsumkwe, Hunters Village, Nyae Nyae

From Grashoek its another 90 miles east to the little town of Tsumkwe, which is on a cross roads and boasts about 400m of tarmac in three directions. The petrol station/store protects its largely thorny and spiky ornamental planting from the freely roaming cattle with concertinaed razor wire...gotta love it!
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One thing that the Bushmen of Grashoek can't do these days is go hunting, because although they might go with their traditional bows, there are, in their words, blacks who share the village, who would want the same rights but would hunt with dogs and guns, so hunting is prohibited for everyone. Our next destination was another but much more recently set up Living Culture Village, which being much more remote still allowed its villagers to hunt in the traditional manner.

The Living Hunters Village was a further 12 miles north from Tsumkwe up a deep sand road and we didn't get there till well after dark. Sadly I don't have any pictures of the site. Set up in similar lines to Grashoek it hd two chemical toilets, a couple of shower shelters (bring your own water and shower head) and a fire site.

The following day we went for a bush walk with three guides (whose names, to my shame, I cannot now recall.)

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We got a bit of a trapping demo, got to sample one of the water bearing tubers and had a LOT of tracks pointed out. Well, one of them gave a demo of a leg trap while the younger guys gave a demo of lighting up a smoke with the hand-drill! :D

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Under Stuart's instruction, the girls succeeded in lighting the evening's fire with the hand drill!!
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The next day the plan was to drive right up to the edge of the Khaudom reserve, hike about 5km into the bush, see if we could avoid spoiling the Bushmen's hunting, then spend the night out under the stars. It didn't come as a surprise to me that we didn't see much in the way of wild life, African animals aren't stupid, and our caravan wasn't exactly stealthy. On the other hand the sandy ground and bush told quite a tale. There were so many tracks that our guides only pointed out and identified the largest and freshest; giraffe, kudu, roan, wildebeest, hyena, wild dog, leopard, and of course, elephant! Elephant tracks everywhere, and dung, and places they had dug, and smashed down trees.:yikes:.

When mid-day came around, the noise, clumsy white folks were all parked (not ungratefully ;)) under the shade of a small baobab while the hunters went out to see what they could find un-hindered!

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When the guides came back though, it was with less than welcome news. Lion tracks, lots of them; crisscrossing the area. Not a good spot to camp out! So, we made a beeline back to the vehicles. This gave me a chance to marvel at the navigation of the guides. We had walked quite a way, meandering, before getting to our rest spot, but we took quite another, much shorter, route back to the trucks, and we hit them dead on.
 
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wow.. looks like a great trip. some great pics there. were any of you armed in case the lions became a little too curious? thanks for sharing
 
Armed? No, it bothered me some, but I comforted myself that as there was no water on the pan, there would be no game animals, and therefore not much reason for predators to nose around. Mostly I was worried about hyenas and elephants. Although there were lions further north, where we had planned to camp, they weren't meant to be any in the area of the pans.


Cont.


Plan-B, drive to Nyae Nyae Pans:


Drive down south of Tsumkwe to the Nyae Nyae pans and spend the night there! It didn't take much persuading for the guides to agree to come along and have a look somewhere they hadn't really been before. We arrived as the sun was setting. Sunsets are spectacular!

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Stuart decided that we shouldn't miss our chance of a night under the stars, so some of us hauled ourselves out onto the dry bed of Vodel Pan. Some folk, including the Bushmen, elected to sleep in the nice comfy roof tents, but five of us gave the pan a try. Nothing stomped, gored or ate us during the night, and the dawn was every bit as spectacular as the sunset.

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I believe that's Stuart from BCUK? If so, did he ever complete his book on traps and snares?

Doc
 
It was out on and around the pans that we started to see wildlife properly. This was wild game and it didn't stand around readily for pictures, but we had good views of ostrich, springbok, wildebeest, bustards and a few jackals. Oh, and some elephants! Sadly, I don't have a mega zoom, so my pictures do not do the encounter justice, but the rest of the group got pretty close, and the two guys with big lenses got superb pictures.
P1040212 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
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Having read too much Peter Capstick, this was as close as I wanted to get, but I was more than happy with having my hand in a track so fresh it still had the elephant's "fingerprint" showing.
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Our last night's camp with the Bushmen was under a great elephant scared baobab.
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We took the Bushmen back to their village, making a stop at the store on the way and loading up with groceries to take back to the village.

I asked the chap who was acting as interpreter how many groups of visitors they had, and he said that they had had a group the previous year, which staggered me. It can only be that this place is so far off the beaten path that people don't know about it. The chance to accompany Bushmen on a hunt cannot be something that comes along often, and with the world moving as it is, it can't be something that is likely to last for ever.
 
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Etosha

So, if your partner has survived this far, the rest of the trip is easy! Next stop, Etosha park, Namutoni camp. We arrived about 10 minutes before the gates closed for the evening, and in the short drive to the campsite passed about three giraffe, a steenbok, and a herd of impala. There is a good reason to go to Nyae Nyae first, since the game there is wild and it is an achievement to see anything at all, whereas the animals in Etosha are totally blasé about vehicles.

The morning was admin.
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NamatoniCamp by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Checking out the visitors' centre
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and getting checked out by the local clean-up crew, a gang of banded mongoose, absolutely fearless!
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Even with my little point and shoot camera, I still managed to get a few pictures of animals. With them concentrated around the water holes, it is all but impossible to miss!
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Lions getting up to romantic dalliances, shot through my 8x binocular!
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Big Boys!
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Bolshy teen
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Family life..
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Different camp...
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....different cleaners!
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The Etosha planes are just vast.
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but far from empty.
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Spotted this fellow in the half light and he kindly stood and posed long enough for me to get Stuart to stop and reverse back up the road!
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Something to appeal to the other half...:D Okaukuejo camp
P1040518 by Last Scratch, on FlickrThere are also some rather nice restaurants.


Stuart had to show off with the cleaners at the last camp ;)
P1040554 by Last Scratch, on Flickr

All the camps have flood lit waterhole viewing areas, but it was only at the last one that we saw anything after dark. You could say, the best was saved to last. Four black rhinos, two going in for skinny dipping, briefly joined by two lionesses and two cubs!
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Not the sort of trip I am used to, but had a great time anyway despite it being cushier, with much better food, much more comfortable sleeping arrangements and no schlepping of gear. The company was great, the sights and locations were awesome.


Cheers!

P1040249 by Last Scratch, on Flickr
 
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I believe that's Stuart from BCUK? If so, did he ever complete his book on traps and snares?

Doc

Yeah, that is the same Stuart. I think that the trapping book rather bogged down due to the illustrator going on to do other things. A shame, but Stuart is no artist, so he is a bit stuck.
 
Biggets danger to animals in Africa ....... tourists with their tour operators.

Those lovely little cleaners are wild animals. Feeding them attracks them to the camp and they quickly loose all fear of humans .... humans and food are the same thing now....... and when they become a pest, they are shot as they have become dangerous to the same tourists. Not while you are looking and going ooh and aaah but they end up dead. They pay with their life for your enjoyment.

Rule of thumb ...... leave nothing behind, take nothing except photo's.

Africa is beautiful but consider what your actions do in the long run.

Not pointing fingers as I am sure the guilty party was the local tour operator.

Glad you enjoyed the trip.

Cheers from Africa

Aubrey

PS - Sad to see but I doubt that a bear would be considered a cleaner in North America and fed on scraps in camp.
 
And there I was thinking the biggest danger to wildlife were habitat loss and gangs of poachers.

No local tour operator, so you may as well point your finger at us, although I don't feel that your ire is fully justified. I and the guys running the trip agree with you, but when one passes through one of the big park camp sites there are limits to what you can change.

The only feeding we did were a few crumbs to get the jackal picture, and the badger. In the latter case, the site was not very full and most of the steel dustbins were hung from trees. This was no deterrent for the badgers, they methodically climbed the trees and dislodged the bins, whether they had anything in them or not. Rather than be awoken later in the night when they would inevitably overturn our bin and find our meat scraps, we made a pile some distance from the camp and left them to it. We could have packed our scraps in the truck and taken them with us the next day, and that might have been a better way of doing it, but it didn't occur to us at the time. However, I am not sure that there would have been a better, more acceptable means of disposal available later.
 
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And there I was thinking the biggest danger to wildlife were habitat loss and gangs of poachers.

Africa do have many challenges. Poachers and habitat destruction are right on top there with the issues ...... add to that poverty and rapid population growth ...and it's heading down south.

I doubt that you or I will change population growth or habitat destruction. I do know we should do what we can and that is to look at our our own actions first. Pack your rubbish out, bring your own fire wood, if you find a dirty camsite, clean it and take rubbish away. As for disposal, all national parks have big rubbish bins at the entrance and exit gates (ask as they are not always on public display ..senstive tourists you know) If you do a veldkak (doubt Google will trranslate that for you) in arid environment ...burn the toilet paper. First wind that comes up and we call them "kak rose" meaning sh#t roses as little white pieces of paper abounds everywhere. In fact, consider taking it out with you ....feces will not break down in the arid parts ....... it turns into a rock hard turd.

Make no mistake ..... Sefricans in their Toyota Hilux 4x4's are some of the most destructive beings in Africa. I have seen them pull down a dead tree and burn the whole thing ... typical white man fire. This was in the Kalahari in Botswana. That tree would have fed many small creatures in the desert food chain as it broke down, one white, overweight Sefrican stopped that.

Something that amazes me ..... Sefricans drive 1000km to get to the bush to play crap music, very loud and till late ........and get stone drunk ....why??? Can't you stay at home and be noisy and drunk there?

You may believe my ire is misdirected but tell me ...can we justify our own behavior by pointing out other obvious problems? THere is indeed a word that in Afrikaans ..... and before I am banned just believe me :D

BTW, loved your comment on efficiency in Namibia. German heritage ...... I do travel to the old British colonial areas as well ... and wow, 3rd world by many miles. No comparision.

But I am glad you came ..... send more. Toursim is labour intensive.

Cheers from Africa
 
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Thanks for the info on the rubbish bins. I was just now trying to think why we didn't spot them, then remembered that in addition to getting in late, our exit was complicated by my half the party having to leave a day earlier than the rest. We got to the gate, only to find that our papers were with the other vehicle! If I ever go back I will keep an eye out and try to prevail up on the group to do as you suggest.

Your remark about the fossil turds had me laughing. Burning "veldkak" paper is standard practice, I even use special extra flammable paper :D but I admit I might have been guilty of coprolite dumping on one occasion, although we were in dry savannah and when the rains come the area gets pretty wet. For the rest of the time in Bushmanland however I maintained an environmentally friendly state of constipation:p which I think was fairly common across the group. The nice thing about both Bushman campsites is that they have toilet facilities and so no hole digging. :D

Couldn't agree more about noisy drunk people. Didn't see any in Namibia, but have had beautiful peaceful evenings disturbed in other places by people cranking up the volume. I can't even recall people in the big sites being particularly noisy. I think most were keen to sleep, then get an early start to see what they could view before it made it back to cover.

Interestingly, the nights in the bush were pretty quiet too. Before going, I had imagined that there would be more noise from animals at night. In the UK you get owls, foxes and some deer that call at night. We heard a hyena on one night, but it sounded like it was alone, and that was pretty much it. In Etosha we heard lions roaring on two of our three nights, but given the number of animals around it was surprisingly peaceful.

On the other hand, the night sky was astonishing. My camera wasn't enough to take any picture that came close to showing what the stars looked like through the dry, light pollution free, air, but Jaime had fancier gear and this was one of his.

SORRY, PHOTO LOST TO PHOTOBUCKET

The milkyway was very clear, including the "Coalsack" black spot, which I had never seen before.
 
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Thanks for the fantastic trip report. I especially liked the Bushmen pictures. Spending time with them would be truly special.

Thanks, also, for the 'Stuart sighting' confirmation. Just recently he was mentioned by a buddy who was wondering if he had actually finished the book. Now we know. Still looking forward to it Stuart, if you're listening.

And, strange as it may be, if Jaimie is the guy with the cowboy hat, I'm thinking he's a guy that used to post on here that went by the handle, Misanthropist. I remember him particularly because we share the same birthday (in a couple of weeks).

Aubrey, good to see you in here again. :thumbup:

(Are there any awards for the most disjointed post here? :D)

Doc
 
SUPER COOOOOL.....
The pic with the Bushmen lighting the cigarette is classic. Do you have any other pics of the hand drill or fire making..the spindle in the pic looks like its a spiral shape.

Again very nice
THANKS
 
Hi jcl-MD.

Here is a close-up of the Bushmen's cigarette lighting gear, followed by our groups use. The spindles are not carved, just decorated by a scorched spiral pattern.





Stuart is pretty good at the hand-drill and it was quite funny how on several occasions the Bushmen would invite him to demonstrate...after all, if you can con some enthusiastic tourist to do all the hard work to give you a light, why not ;)
 
Don't think Jamie and Misanthropist are the same guy. I think the similarity ends with British Columbia, and that hat! If he made knives, or was really interested in them, he made no sign of it all the time we were out there.
 
Hi jcl-MD.

Here is a close-up of the Bushmen's cigarette lighting gear, followed by our groups use. The spindles are not carved, just decorated by a scorched spiral pattern.





Stuart is pretty good at the hand-drill and it was quite funny how on several occasions the Bushmen would invite him to demonstrate...after all, if you can con some enthusiastic tourist to do all the hard work to give you a light, why not ;)

Thank you very much...the bushmen pic is one of the coolest photos I have viewed in a long time.
Again Thanks.
 
That looks like a trip of a lifetime! Ironically, I'm now reading, "African Game Trails," and Roosevelt writes endlessly of Africa's beauty.

I was close to experiencing its beauty first hand when I almost attended a wildlife veterinary experience program (I plan on becoming a Vet), but it was too much to swallow for a soon-to-be college grad. One day, though ;)

Again, awesome pics and thanks for sharing :D:thumbup:
 
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