Dawn arrived a lot quicker than expected.
I suppose it had something to do with wishing that this part of our journey would never end. What we had seen of the Richtersveld was nothing but a pin-prick of what the area has to offer. What is it about the desolated desert? Why is it so difficult to leave? Perhaps one day I will have an answer, but for now, let us get on with packing up the tent, boiling the kettle and having our last cuppa on the Orange River before we begin our new adventure.
After we had all pulled ourselves out of our camping area, we lined our vehicles up for the farewell group photo.
It was with a touch of sadness that we had to say "so long.." to a couple of the people we had spent our time with and one especially I have to mention is Nic Nel, "Sir Winston" as I fondly named him. Something about his character is the way I would imagine the great Statesman of all, Sir Winston Churchill. Perhaps it was the way Nic would take a walkabout with his whisky and have a chat with everyone in the early evening or was it the cloud of smoke from his pipe? Perhaps it is his knowledge of traversing difficult terrain and he has done a lot of exploring. Perhaps it's just the way he is.
His wife Jenny, appeared to be the epitomy of patience and I can actually picture her picking wild flowers and pressing them, keeping record of their journeys in a giant journal ...
After having taken each others photos and hugging and wishing each other well, the convoy took to the dusty track leading away from our little nest. Driving out of the area, we turned towards what looked like a patchy yellow carpet - very difficult to believe that these flowers are weeds and grow in very little soil.
One often sees them along the roadside and they just add such a bright touch to what can sometimes be colourless arid land...About twenty minutes later we reached the Nababiep Nature Reserve where one will find "Peace of Paradise",
well that is what the sign
says, but by the look of things everything has been allowed to rust in peace and perhaps paradise is just beyond the palm trees...
I should imagine this must have been quite a spot in its heyday, but I believe it has been closed since about 2005 and there are no funds available to rebuild and restore the facilities that have crumbled to nothing...
And so we travelled on and once again, the vista was forever changing - all nice and green along the river side of the road
And dry and dusty arid land on the other ...
There are huge farms along the riverside and everything seems to grow in abundance. The soil is almost black and is exceptionally fertile, as is land along rivers...
We pulled up outside a "General Dealer" store, found some Bully Beef from Botswana for future trips, and bought some frozen water ices. The temperature had soared to 25 degrees and it was only 10:20. We all gathered our refuse bags and placed them in the bins provided at the shop and continued about two kilometres further where we pulled up alongside the road to pump up our tyres as the road had improved and tar was not too far ahead and after final farewells we each left as and when we were ready to and vanished off into the distance, leaving nothing but dust in our wake...
We hit the tar at about 11:30 / 12:00 and took the turn heading in the direction of Port Nolloth, while everyone else headed toward Springbok...
And so, our adventure home begins...
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