Finally I get to visually return to Namibia… I thought I’d lost all my photographs from the first time I arrived in the UK, September 2000, until around 2012, just after I returned to South Africa. My external hard drive had crashed, devouring all my photos from every trip I’d been on while living in Europe: Thailand, Turkey, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany and the list goes on. Devastated was not the word…
The other day my friend mentioned he had a copy of every photo I’d taken while we travelled together. Of course! I’d sent him a copy of our memories after every trip, and he’d done the same for me.
Right now I couldn’t be more delighted. I’ve started going through our Namibia trip and the only problem is I want to return with my more professional camera kit – I, after all, upgraded from a Canon to a Nikon – and experience every moment again. Somebody twist my arm!
The first time I visited Namibia was for a friend’s wedding in 2006 and I promised myself I had to return.
Two years later, (I can’t believe it’s seven years ago) I fulfilled such promise. Three of us drove from Durban to Windhoek, stopping over for a night in Botswana, that lasted over 2020 kilometres. I recall being surprised to find that Botswana’s roads were in a better condition than South Africa’s.
We picked up my friend from Windhoek airport and the four of us spent two weeks exploring as much of Namibia as possible, and I still felt we didn’t do it justice.
From Windhoek, we drove just over 300kms to Sossusvlei, a salt and clay pan enveloped by tall red dunes, located south of the Namib Desert. Here we explored Big Daddy (the highest dune in the area), Big Mamma, Dune 45 (composed of 5 million year old sands) and the Deadvlei (the contrast so vivid with dead blackened acacia trees, shiny white of the salty pan floor and a backdrop of intense red dunes).
Next came Swakopmund, a quaint coastal city of western Namibia where the Namib Desert meets the Atlantic Ocean; Walvis (Whale in English) Bay, 35kms south of Swakopmund where we swam with dolphins and seals; Dune 7, the highest dune in the Namib Desert reaching 383m up in to the sky; the skeleton coast, north of Swakopmund brought us face to face with jackals lying on the beach patiently waiting for a seal cub or two to munch on; the Moon Landscape, so stark and inhospitable, the Damara Granites have pushed upwards through the Earth’s crust from 500 million years ago; Etosha National Park, a 22 750km² (1.6 times bigger than Northern Ireland) wildlife sanctuary housing the Big 5 and other magnificent creatures; the great Fish River Canyon, 161km long, up to 27km wide and almost 550m at its deepest, the largest canyon in the southern hemisphere and second biggest to Arizona’s Grand Canyon.
And then after dropping my friend back at Windhoek airport, we drove straight back to Durban without stopping for the night.
Julie
November 11, 2015
Wow Nicola, wow! These photos are amazing. Each one tells a story and you have captured every essence of the atmosphere, the beauty and the colours. You are a true photographer. Continue with this because you have a real talent. The camera helps, but its the photographer who knows how best to capture the best picture and you sure have that talent.
Nicola
November 14, 2015
Thank you, Julie, for your inspiring comments; I truly appreciate them.
Nicola @ BeanOn
Nicola
December 02, 2015
I greatly appreciate you appreciating my photos of Namibia, Peter. Thank you for taking the time out to comment in detail on BeanOn.
And I truly hope that you make it to Namibia one day; it’s definitely worth an ‘Explore & Discover’ or three.
Best wishes,
Nicola@BeanOn.Photography
Peter
December 03, 2015
What a joy for you to have rediscovered these images, Nicola; the reds and rusts, the textures and colours of your trip. What feelings you must have had as you looked at each lost photograph.
The dark acacia trees on the Deadvlei with red dunes looking like piles of painted sand from a film set, do not look natural but they are and it made me thirsty just looking at this photo.
I loved the colours and textures of the abandoned, rusting car, left to the extremes of weather, unlikely ever to be restored. This contrasts so strongly with the shiny green bus in the background that one day may breakdown and suffer the same scorching fate.
The landscape with blue sky appears to have strips from other photos that have been photoshopped on to a blue background making a collage of colours and textures but you know it isn’t, you captured it.
The ripples of red sand with grey potholes behind is a scene from another planet, the Moon or Mars perhaps. The yellow sand drifts on a later photo show such beautiful soft ripples. It is a challenge to appreciate the scale and size of the dunes. Was the ‘Zela’ abandoned or just listing in the sea? It was certainly in better condition than the bird laden, grey hulk in a later photo.
The dingo looks menacing as it patiently waits, alert, ears pricked in contrast to the basking seals, some even seem to be rolling about laughing. I prefer the sleek, playful dolphins effortless zipping through the sea. At least they seem to be avoiding the gaze of a blood thirsty predator.
There is almost a trail of blood on your left hand side as you lie prostrate on the side of the rock face with a huge diamond shaped boulder perched on the crest. I wonder if it is still there?
You have shown more contrasting shapes and features with waves crashing onto a beach, a bird swooping for fish, boulders preventing erosion and supporting the foundations of the buildings and road bridge. All this action with silky sand dunes in the background set off by a fragile blue sky.
Your photos of wildlife are just beautiful. I felt the heat, the stillness, the smell of the air; Africa. A blackened zebra, perfectly camouflaged chicks and gregarious, grainy, grey elephants jostling with each other.
I love the gentle movement in the water reflecting the zebras as they drink, your photo partly framed by rough rocks in the foreground and background.
You have caught the movement and force of the two elephants fighting with each other and some antelopes (perhaps?) sauntering off in to the distance, uninterested.
Your award winning shot of the dozing leopard would be the one I would want on my wall. How could any human be as comfortable up in a tree like that? It is fabulous. It makes me want to stroke the fur of this magnificent, regal, proud animal.
The clouds in the bright blue sky are almost ghostlike. I could imagine the image racing across the sky but it probably didn’t.
And finally, the timeless cliffs of the gorge you were gazing into have clearly differentiated bands of rock, layered over thousands or millions of years. I wonder if that ghostly sky was the one above when you took this photograph?
I am sure you must have gasped, grinned, laughed with utter delight as you rediscovered these photographs. Thank you for sharing them on your website. What I would give to have experienced this in real life but you have captured these images of nature at its best and most beautiful with your experienced photographer’s eye. I hope you get your wish and go again with your new camera.