About time!

Ah, my previous holiday was so cool. I had the time to test my new Land Rover. What better test is there than to pack a trailer and go camping?

The plan was simple. Take Ethen and some of his friends, and go into the wide open desert and get some peace for our souls by a little camping. The first place we were to go to was Vergenoeg. We actually wanted to have a few friends come along just for a night BBQ and chat around a campfire.

When we finally hit the road, it was only Isolde and me as adults, and Ethen, Karl-Pierre and Zonique making up the kiddie ranks. With me testing my new trailer, there was plenty of space in the car, and the kids made the best of it by playing and sleeping and whatever.

When we finally got to Vergenoeg, it turns out that they do not rent out to public anymore, and so we were turned away. We decided to go to Spitzkoppe mountain, and do our first camp there. It was on the way and only an hour's drive away. The view from our campsite was amazing!

We made camp, including pitching tents and everything. The weather played along... it was simply beautiful out there. The mattresses are stretched over the car to air them out a little before going into the tents.

At night out little camping light fused and stopped working, so we all sat around the fire for a bit, and then went to bed.

When we awoke the next morning, this was what the mountain was looking like. Once the sun popped up, all the mist disappeared, of course. The kids were up the mountain like a shot, and it was quite some time before we saw them again.

Isolde started breakfast....

With the mist gone, the view cleared up and the desert was wide open before us once more. I walked around a little while everyone else was getting fed and so on.

At a suitable late hour we packed up camp and prepared for the road to Brandberg, where we were planning on staying for the rest of the long weekend.

Brandberg...

Brandberg had a few surprises for us, like the tame Springbuck in the picture above, a tame meerkat, and two days of blissful peace and serenity.

There were countless birds, too. Whenever we would sit still for some length of time, they could come stealing into our camp, scrounging for food. In the early morning hours they made quite a bit of noise!

We read books and lounged by the pool and made "potjiekos" and read good books. On the second day we went driving up to the Brandberg mountain itself. Although the sights there were beautiful, the place was heating up something awful, even in the heart of winter. Soon we went back to our nice shaded camp spot with warm showers and flush toilets. It was quite a good camp... I enjoyed every little bit of it, and would do it again in a heartbeat! Some days I feel like the luckiest person in the world!