Sunday 7th April 2013

Today has been amazing and frustrating. Amazing because of what we have seen and frustrating because I got us a bit lost and did not turn off when I should have.  L:  And wouldn’t listen when I said that I had seen all this already, so we are going in circles, Steve…..??

It started out great. We had decided to drive to Kokerboom Camp Site and then return to Richtersveld Camp site to overnight. We wanted to have the opportunity of having a swim at the end of a hot day in the car. On the drive to Kokerboom there are two viewpoints that are a must see.

This place is very difficult to describe. There is something new to marvel at around every turn and over every rise. Just when you think you have seen enough there is another surprise. I will not try to describe the scenery here. All I can say is that a person has to experience it for themselves. Not even the photos we take can do it justice. We will put a few on the blog from the hundreds that we have taken already.

Lesley had her walkabout this morning in De Hoop camp taking photos of sunrises and birds before we set out. L: When I had a shower this morning in the wooden ablutions (cold water), they were very dark and I always shower with my aqua-shoes on so as not to get athletes foot or any other funnies.  I had just put shampoo on and so my eyes were closed when something went crunch under my one aqua-shoe.  I assumed it was the plastic cover of a razor or something, but when I finally finished my shower and the soap cleared, I saw what I had crunched….It was a millipede which I had rendered a centipede, poor thing.

As we were leaving we saw a lone monkey prowling the campsite.

We said goodbye to our Russian neighbours, from Brackenfell. We speculated whether it was just him who had been here for 17 years as he spoke such good English, but she understood very little – perhaps she was a Russian bride….

S:  We then travelled to the Tataberg viewpoint and spent a long time there taking photos. Tataberg is a mountain consisting of a few granite boulders, the largest I have ever seen, I think. A really amazing place. We then moved onto the Springbok Plain viewpoint. Although we did not see any Springbok it was still a beautiful view. We could see all the way to the Orange River and some cultivated fields.

Then it was off to Kokerboom camp site for lunch. This is a campsite situated amongst huge boulders up on the mountain. It was very hot still and we were glad that we had decided not to stay there tonight.

L:  As we were leaving, I discovered two ostrich eggs under a bush.  It was such a strange sight that I was a bit confused for a while.  I told Steve and took some photos and suddenly realised that we would be in grave danger if the adult ostriches arrived back and found us near their eggs.  We left as soon as possible, but I was very worried about poor E and Mu being left in the wild.

Then it was back to finding our campsite for the night. And that is where I went wrong. I missed the turnoff and ended up travelling 20 km further than I should have. Lesley was not feeling that great so I was not popular at all. Anyway we backtracked and eventually found the turnoff after which it was another 13km down another river bed to the Orange River and our campsite.  L:  Really annoying as we did not spot a single animal but saw the same scenery over and over…..

S:  The one and only grassed site under a tree was taken so we ended up camping on the high ground next to the ablutions, which was OK as it was quite a hike from the river.  L:  The reason why that is a good thing, is that the last time we stayed close to the Orange River, or in the Orange River bed, the tributary, Kamgab decided to come down in a flash flood, raising the level one and a half meters when we still had to drive back out, up the “dry” river bed.

S:  We saw another bird of prey, really large and took a few photos of it in flight and will have to work out what it was from the photos. It is really difficult sometimes getting good photos of birds as we are using a ‘bridge’ camera which only has a 20x optical zoom. (A bridge camera fills the space between a compact camera and a SLR camera.)

We arrived, finally at 4pm and had wanted to wash our bedding.  We were worried that it would not get dry by tonight, but with the heat and breeze, it dried really quickly.  We swam, watched the scores of goats, braaied and set up the rooftop tent, ready for bed.

Tomorrow is a long day on the road as we are heading for Port Nolloth so it is early to bed and earlier to rise…..zzzzzzzz.