My head in the clouds...

While I am at work I am not really allowed to photograph & share the tech that we use... However, we are at sea, and the clouds are as free as they ever were.

I spend quite a bit of time looking at them, and dreaming about being home.

 Here are some of the better cloud piccies:

What is that rainbow around the sun called?

The view from a 747 on my way to Frankfurt

Flying somewhere.....

These type of clouds always looks like the knights on a chessboard.

I like the contrast...

Sunset... .favorite time of the day!

There is a boat in this picture... it gives you a sense of scale.

More contrast!

I was looking for the green flash!

The past holiday, continued!

So, with the car fixed, we took an amazing drive to Betesda, 70km from Sossusvlei.

It was after the rains, so there was a lot of grass and greenery around. The drive up was amazing. Our Land Rover overheated once, and we had to stop for a little while to let her cool down.  This was the view from our stopping spot.

 There was quite a bit of wildlife standing around during our trip up, too.

 Some of the views along the way was just too amazing!

Isolde took most of the landscape photos, and they are amazing!










We finally arrived at our campsite. The campsite we had booked was taken, weirdly enough. Even more weird is that this is not the first time that Betesda messed up our bookings. However, the place is amazing enough to make of for it. In the end we all agreed that the campsite we eventually got was way better anyways:

 This was the view....

          This is what the campsite looked like when we finally had everything up:





Some more views of the campsite...













 

















One really nice campsite, huh? Anyways, the first day we just unpacked, and had a good nap. Aiden slept through for the first time on a camp on this night, too. He must have been really tired from exploring. The next day we just lazed around a little, and then we went to see the Hauchab fontein, and quiver tree forest.

The kids had a chance to nap in the car..

Aiden really enjoyed the fountain!


 We ran out of daylight before getting to the quiver tree forest, but we got this cool picture anyways:
 

 On the way back we stopped at the river crossing...




 Actually, we stopped about every five minutes!

 Aneske was along for this trip too, and she looks like she enjoyed it.

The next morning we kicked off early to go and see Sossusvlei.  

 It's 70km  from the campsite, and then there is another 70km of blacktop before getting to the vlei. The next time we will be camping inside the nature reserve!

Neverteless, there was plenty of pretty around... 

 Hmm.... it was lovely!

No matter where you point your camera, you get a nice picture. This place has to be visited to be believed!

 Finally we got to the dead valley itself. Does not look so dead now, after all the rains..

 Aiden wanted to crawl all the way, and was being a little pest about being carried.

Ah, water in the Sossus... this is truly rare, only for a few days per year, and not even every year....












It took us three hours to break camp the next morning, and the trip back was uneventful apart from the Land-Rover overheating almost constantly. Needless to say, I made some work of the cooling of the car later in my holiday...But for now, here are a few piccies of the trip back:

The rusty cars at the Solitaire petrol station are quite photogenic...

We stopped under the Kuiseb bridge for a breather. The Landy's one front brake de-laminated and I wanted to take it easy on the brakes. So, we decended the pass with a handbrake and in first gear. Isolde chewed up her fingers from stress, and a stop here was quite needed!













The rest of the holiday we chilled at home, doing some small odd jobs around the house. Eckie's Galenderwagen was also fixed, and we took the cars to the duns for some testing:

 The cars performed quite nicely, and we managed to get back home safely after following some route mapped out on my new GPS.

I picked up a crack on my windshield on the Sossus trip, so that will need replacement on my next holiday. So far I am quite proud of the Landy, even though she is quite thirsty!









Towards the end of the holiday, we managed to fit in a fishing trip. It was on mother's day, too..

 We dug a massive hole on the beach... It was freezingly cold, but this sort of thing has never stopped us.
It was nice to have Eckie and Helen along for this fishing trip...

 So.... finally, at the very end of the trip, I managed to get the Landy's cooling sorted, and we managed to make it all the way to the lighthouse... travelling an average of 40km/h over soft sand with the wind from behind....

We picked up a bit of driftwood and so on...

The last couple of days of my break was spent cleaning up the back yard. It took us quite a few loads to get rid of all the muck.

No before/after pictures, though. I guess there will be some in the video once I do finish that.

One more holiday gone!

It's at the end of another successful holiday, and I find myself in Frankfurt Airport with some time to reflect on the past few weeks.

We managed to pack quite a bit into the last holidays. First and foremost, we managed to get the Landy back on the road. On our road trips it was giving us 5.3km/l on the open road, and 3.7km/l in town/on sand. So, I christened it "Rand Rower" ( Afrikaans speaking people should be chuckling now ) Obviously, some more tuning is in order, and I still need to sort out center diff lock and low range on the transfer case. That is a little project for next trip.

During the first week of the trip, it was Bernt's birthday, and he took us on a sailing cruise around Walvis Bay to celebrate. It was beautiful and awesome. Thanks, Bernt!

 We had a lovely group of people out, and it was a day to remember.









Hmm... I am running out of time here, I'll post the rest of the holiday update at a later, unannounced ( hopefully soon ) date.

14 March... Ah, the last trip was uneventful, and I arrived home only a day late. This delay was only due to the vessel being so far from the shore that it took two hours by chopper to get to land, and then it was too late for my favorite flight down to South Africa. The break was fairly uneventful, too. I got my Landy in 4x4 mode for a week, and we did a bit of driving around. Unfortunately, the conversion to the car was destroying a gear, and we had to take it all out again. Eckie and me both have offroad vehicles that are not fully capable of their intended function. We have been having a year-long race to get these vehicles back to a driving state. Eckie has a Galendarwagen, and I have a Discovery. So far I have had more off-road action, as I had a week with it working properly. His car is due to be fixed soon, too, and then he will be clocking up the kilometers while I have to wait for mine to come out of the shop. The next break should be interesting. It largely coincides with a school holidays in Namibia, and hopefully we will be able to go see some real lions this upcoming break. So, the long running Land-Rover saga is not over yet. Still, for the time we did have it, it was great to be able to go anywhere we want again. The shock absorbers were upgraded, and the ride is amazingly better than it used to be. The engine still keeps purring along, and it's great all around, apart from the conversion not working quite right.

What a year...

Well, here we are at the start of yet another year. 2011 sure was a dusey of a year, and quite expensive. Not that I am complaining, of course, it was all money well spent. The move to the new house went pretty well, and we were all settled in by Christmas. It was a lovely time with a lot of family around, and all round relaxation. There was plenty of footage taken, and once I have a bit of spare time I will be working on the videos for it. Unfortunately my Land-Rover is still 2x4 only. While the conversion spares were all finished, there were some small flaws, and so we will be trying again next year. I posted some photos of Aiden on facebook, but this holiday was so much more than just that. Thank you, to all my friends and family, for an especially lovely 2011.

Ah, time for another blog entry. It's all quiet, and we are counting the days before going home. Just a few days to go! The trip has been busy but uneventful. At home there are a few developments. Our current neighborhood is a bit dodgey, and noisy day and night. We love our house, and have spent a long time making it pretty and Isolde did amazing work with the garden. Unfortunately, no amount of work will improve the neighborhood, and so we decided to move to a better neighborhood in the same town. We'll certainly miss our old house, and I will take a few photos just as we move out. The new house id a gem, though. I was leasing it out, and it will take a month before the current tenants vacate the place. Then it probably will take another week of serious fixing and painting before we can move in. The we will have to do a bit of painting on the old house and then we can start looking for tenants for that house. One of the unexpected benefits of the new house is that Ethen's current best friend will practically become a neighbor. Here is an image from google earth.

We will have to start all over again with gardening, but at least we have the sea to one side, and the desert on our doorstep. Hmm, maybe I will need a better picture of just the sort of neighborhoods involved...

Yep, I am actually looking forward to moving!