30 April and 1 May 2016

30 April 2016 - from Kamanjab to Ruacana and

1 May 2016  -    Ruacana to Epupa Falls and back to Ruacana

I don't want to tell you you how tight time is, as everyone of you have your own time constraints and experience of how time should be managed.

We are in this groove that we know our destinations for a few weeks, and by the hour. There is actually no time unallocated.  We HAVE to get up by 6am. When it is good light, we hit the road.  This is 7am to 7.15am. Cattle and goats are king on the road, i mean it. They cross roads at their leisure.  And donkeys,...but i love donkeys.  They also make excellent kudu biltong.  I'll post donkeys.

Ek sukkel. The Bible clearly states that it is easier for a rich man to get into heaven (pass through the eye of a needle), than posting to a blog from Namibia...metaphors, allow me, please.

Monday morning, trying again.

Part of Ruacana Falls, but later more on this

On the 30th we travelled from Kamanjab to Ruacana. 1 May we went sightseeing from Ruacana and drove west to Epupa falls. The idea was to travel from Opuwo on a small road NE to Ruacana. After various attempts we abandoned the idea as the GPS and the road did not correspond.  The road we found was so small that it could not be what we were after.  So we travelled back to the 'main rd' and N to Ruacana.
On the map, S of Opuwo we visited Oromana mission station where i lived briefly while being in the army.  I found the house we lived in.  The mission station has many houses built in the last 30 years and some of the old houses demolished. I could remember many details correctly, the smell was even the same.
1 May we travelled along the Kunene river; the squiggly line on the map.  This is a very scenic road. The worst of all the roads, very much like our forestry tracks.  No chance of getting stuck, but slow going. It took us 6 hours to drive to Epupa falls and obviously we worried to drive this track back at night.  So we spent too little time at Epupa falls. I use 4x4 back for better control and drove the better parts at 80 - 100km per hour and we reached 'home' in daylight. There are many drifts to pass and some have quite steep, sharp, descends, and ascends and you have to take them slow; so it's from 6th gear, to 3rd, and out the other side.  We must have crossed more than 100 drifts, maybe even 200.
The roads are mainly good with various gravel.  Some are smooth gravel and drives nicely, some are coarser and have fist size stones that is worrisome. Some rutted but that is a minority.  The animals slow you down, but they seem to be 'street wise'.

We left Kamanjab just before sunrise and had good tar. The last few 100kms of road to Opuwo was good gravel. Some on the D3709.

We saw more promises of elephants, but did not see them, will today however when we go into Etosha.

Typical landscape in this area

We went through various 'meat inspection' points that prohibits the movement of neat from Foot and Mouth disease areas.  We moved N so no inspections.

Breakfast spot

We past this westerly gate of Etosha on our way to Opuwo.

Landscapes.
The one guy on the donkey car wanted N$100 for the pic.

Signage

Ruacana dam, also pic below.

To visit the falls you have to go into Angola through 'customs'. It is free and they don't check passports.  It is quite dirty and unmaintained, but the scenery is special.

1 May - driving to Epupa falls.

Scenes along the Kunene

Just a view on the track running S of the Kunene

At Swartbooisdrift, we turned away from the Kunene and passed this memorial.  There are also graves, all in pristine condition.  I cannot help but think that this would have been vandalised if it was in SA.

Beautiful landscapes on our way to Epupa falls, passing Epembe.

Part of the Epupa falls

More Epupa Falls scenes

The goats came to drink water, a beautiful scene

Baobab, one of my favourite trees

This was a bit of a rush job, the blog, i mean.  But no decent connection last night, fair this morning.

Today. 2 May, we drive SE past places like Ombalantu (Outapi), Oshakati, Ondangwa, etc, on our way to Halali in Etosha.  This is a highly populated area and i think i wont enjoy it much.  I hope i am wrong.
In Outapi we'll visit a big Baobab that i last saw 35 years ago.  I hope to get pics.