From the Amanzi Campsite, we travelled north-west towards the desert. This leg of the journey turned out to be a seven-and-a half-hour trip. Thankfully, after the recent floods, most of the road along the Orange River had been graded and were a pleasure to negotiate.
We also needed to shop for supplies as we were low on fresh foods. Cross-border restrictions in Namibia, had prevented us from transporting dairy, meat, fruit and vegetables from our country into theirs. So, we planned to include a shopping spree in Rosh Pinah, which was the last town that we would pass through for the next week…only to find that the local Spar had closed. Fuel stops and shops are few and far between, but thankfully we found a general store in Helmeringhausen that had most of what we needed.
On our arrival at Mount D’Urban Campsite, as I climbed out of the car, I was suddenly aware that my body was trembling. It was obvious that I had begun to release something and that I was responding to what I had discovered on the banks of the Orange River. Thankfully, there would be time to discover what it was.
On this very cool and windy evening, as we settled into our camp, our host, Boeta, arrived to welcome us and handed me the homemade bread that Malcolm had pre-ordered. The heat from the packet penetrated the layers of my clothing and warmed me with a tantalising expectation of delight. Over the next few days, we enjoyed every morsel of our bread and decided to pre-order a brown loaf to take with us to our next stop too.
The next morning, we took a drive to a look-out point from where we could see the vast expanse of the rocky plain below us and the mountains, both nearby and in the distance, that dwarfed us. Malcolm and I felt very tiny in relationship to these ancient rock structures and to the land that had, for centuries, seen a diversity of people pass over it.
That evening, we watched the evening light change the colours of the sky and landscape and by sunset everything morphed into vivid yellows, oranges and bursts of red drama and then slowly turned black. Later, the heavens held us spellbound: Venus shone brightly, the familiar Southern Cross had us plotting our direction, while the clouds of the Milky Way bedazzled us with its millions of sparkles and then, there was also the crescent moon that we watched as it gently dropped below the horizon. My husband and I, felt the magnitude of our universe and with deep gratitude we spoke about how privileged we were to still be physically able to travel to places and experience nature in such a deep and primal manner.
