Page 23 - Cape-Camera-Jan-Feb-2022

Cape Camera January/February 2022

tourists as it was empty wherever we went and we felt sorry for At first, I thought I had made a big mistake choosing Swakop-
the Namibian tourism industry which had come to a complete mund as one of our destinations, but it turned out to be excep-
standstill because of Covid. As a bonus, however, wherever tional. I spent some time in the dunes between Swakopmund
we went we were treated like royalty and nothing was ever and Walvis Bay. The wind was blowing with considerable force
too much to ask. After the endless days travelling, we decided and so I had to be in the lee of the dune and ended up photo-
to take a break and spend a few relaxing days at my favourite graphing the sand patterns rather than the dunes. The patterns
camp: Ngepi. were magnificent and unspoilt by footprints. But the best part
of our stay was taking a 4x4 trip into the Namib Naukluft Park.
Wow! The dunes appear out of nowhere and stretch from the
sea into the far distance inland. Unfortunately, we were too late
for the good light, so I just had to have fun and save the beauty
in my memory and my record shots.
We left Swakopmund and travelled south on magnificent grav-
el roads and for the first 50km, we didn’t see another vehicle,
either oncoming or travelling in the same direction. The coun-
tryside was beautiful with vast open spaces dotted with a few
trees and mountains in the distance. Because of the good rains
last season, there was plenty of grass on the plains. We spent
four nights outside the Namib Naukluft Park near Solitaire, on
the edge of the fossilised dunes which were on one side of our
camp and magnificent vistas on the other.

Fishing on the Kwando River, Ngepi Camp

This beautiful camp is situated on the Kwando River in the un-
spoiled upper reaches of the Okavango delta panhandle in the
western Caprivi region. It is surrounded by seasonally flooded
swamps and the campsites and tree houses are sensitively built
in between a forest of magnificent trees with stunning river
frontage. It is a paradise of flooded plains and secret swampy
backwater that are teaming with wildlife. In addition, the Mhan-
go National Park is only a few kilometres to the south and the
Bwabwata National Park directly across the river.

Fossilised dunes in the Namib near Solitaire

It was stunningly beautiful and I was once again able to play
around with my camera doing ICM and multiple exposures, us-
ing ‘Namibian’ trees as my models.
Our last port of call was a very interesting one. We travelled
Mokoro trip on the Kwai River south to the Fish River Canyon as I had booked us into the Klip-
springer Camps with the idea of doing some hiking. We booked
While we sat leisurely at the water’s edge, watching the locals into reception some 22km off the main gravel road and were
trying to catch Tigerfish and enjoying the game that came to told to follow an old Landrover to our camp. We then drove 14
drink at the river, I at last found the time to play with my camera
and do some ICM and multiple exposures to create my type of
favourite images. The evenings and the sunsets were magnifi-
cent and at night the skies were ablaze with stars, although we
were often kept awake by the noisy grazing sounds of hippos
(sometimes too close for comfort).
We were now at the most northern part of our journey and had
to start the long trek home. It was during this part of the holi-
day that we took up the bookings made for the previous year
and so we left our friends and travelled back on our own. Our
next stop was Swakopmund via the Waterberg. Sadly, we only
had one night in the Waterberg as it was sandwiched between
other bookings, but from what we saw briefly, it will definitely
be on our next travel itinerary to Namibia. Fishriver Canyon from Battlesnake camp

Cape Town Photographic Society 22