When we arrived in Windhoek, I was excited and a little overwhelmed at the same time. Excited for Namibia and our 4×4 with roof tent, and overwhelmed because it had all happened so quickly. We were just in Ethiopia… and then suddenly here, since we pre-poned our flight to Windhoek to avoid potential problems with Ethiopian immigration as they made a mistake and gave us 29 days instead of 30. We had booked an AirBnB to get ourselves a bit organised before receiving our car for the next 5.5 weeks. Yay!

We first headed South, on a nice tar road until shortly before Keetmanshoop where we found a pretty campsite surrounded by quiver trees. They are so cool!! After struggling with the roof tent, a thunderstorm surprised us. We first fled into the roof tent, then realized we were probably not save in there when lightning struck very close, so fled into the car. At least our roof tent withstood the storm and rain test – and it didn’t last too long. Afterwards, we were treated to some beautiful evening light, kitschy rainbows and photogenic dark clouds in the distance. A good start after all!

On day 2, we headed further South to Fish River Canyon, an easy drive during which we spotted some Oryx antelopes. The canyon was really cool, supposedly it’s the 2nd biggest one after Grand Canyon! There’s different viewpoints which can be reached via rough dirt roads – the first time we were glad to have a 4×4. The views were great everywhere!

We then drove further to Aus, where we wanted to camp – but the nice campsite was fully booked and the one in town didn’t appeal to us. So we decided to wild camp at the wild horses viewpoint. We were lucky enough to spot some wild horses over the next day, although less at the waterhole than while driving between Aus, Kolmanskop and Lüderitz.

Day 3 started with a visit to nearby Kolmanskop, a ghost town that is being swallowed up by the surrounding desert step by step. It was much cooler than expected!! We were in photo paradise.

The old buildings, the sand which is piling high in same places, the doors which are barely still hanging in there… it just all looks very photogenic. It was also much larger than expected, so we spent over 3 h wandering around, exploring, taking photos.

From here, we went on to Lüderitz which in return was a bit underwhelming. Took some photos of old houses, checked out the expensive campsite on Shark island, decided not to stay there, moved on to the peninsula to see Diaz Point and the surrounding bays. We were not so lucky on the peninsula: we saw some pretty flamingos around Diaz Point and some seals and penguins on the islands too far away to take proper pictures. The other bays were virtually empty besides the ever-present seagulls. Since there wasn’t really an appealing campsite nearby, we decided to wild camp again – in Witmuur bay which at first seemed sheltered. Later, quite some wind came up and it was coooold. The whole day we had been cold already, with clouds hanging low, strong winds and high humidity in the air. Let’s just say it was not an enjoyable night… The highlight of our stay on the peninsula came next morning when we saw 3 jackals in Griffith Bay! We also saw some more flamingos and other birds.

After this night, we were definitely ready for some warmth again though! We drove back to Aus and then up North, taking the photogenic D707 road with many photo stops, all the way to Betta. Here we found a really nice campsite, not the best views but really good facilities and most importantly: good showers to clean ourselves up after wild camping for two nights. A good day and finish to our „South“ Namibia adventures.