We spent that night in Clanwilliam, a town most known for the Rooibos tea factory.  No sooner had we arrived and parked our vehicle, when we were surrounded by nineteen cats!!  Some feral, some domestic just out for a free meal.  Two of the kittens decided that the top of our tyre was just the place to hide from the winter wind.

The landscape had become progressively more and more arid.  As we headed for the Namibian border, piles of huge boulders in piles dot the landscape, as if some bored giant hand had built rock cairns.  The rocks give way to hard mountains of brown and red rocks that tower up on either side of the road as we travelled along what appears to be an ancient dry river bed.  Imposing and harsh, without life to be seen anywhere and the winter temperatures in the early thirties (celcius).

The formalities at the border were dealt with swiftly, without fuss and even with a few smiles!!  When you cross the border, it's almost like the land knows it's a different place - dramatically and immediately, flat barren grey earth, dotted with small scraggly thorn bushes and an infrequent Quiver Tree can be seen from horizon to horizon.  The road ahead is long and straight; a black ribbon parting the grey land.

As we drove through the heat of the day only the wind stirred - no birds, no animals, not even insects.  An eerie feeling - a feeling of being quite alone and quite vulnerable in this hot, dusty, dry and unforgiving place.  After driving for some time on the road to the Fish River Canyon, mountains appear in the haze on the horizon ahead.  They grow larger and larger, until we found ourselves driving again through an ancient riverbed between towering lumps of hard rock.  After all that sand and dust, Ai Ais is an oasis!  Hot mineral baths, a restaurant with reasonable fare, hot showers and a place to call home for the next four nights - most importantly, the place where friends from Benoni would meet up with us!

One day late, one blown engine, one lost bag of clothing and a blowout later, they eventually arrived - we were so glad to see them!!  They were really glad to have got there! And so, in our little camp, across the river from a tall mountain that changed colour throughout the day, we sat and caught up with the news from home, drank a little wine, ate more than a little food and had a really wonderful time in the company of friends.   We went on a few walks into the canyon, were visited by a large scorpion in our camp, added birds to our sighting list and spent many hours in the jacuzzi and mineral bath.

It's really quite impossible for me to cover all that we did and all of the moments that are worth remembering.  But I have to find a few lines to mention Klippen Terrace, a stone shanty along the side of the road which certainly didn't look much.  However pressure on the bladders made the choice for use and we stopped; what a good decision!  Clean ablutions, entertainment from the Jack Russell dog and Siamese Cat who played continuously, rich German coffee and hot toasted sandwiches. We even got to add our names to their grafitti wall.

We then moved onto Luderitz, a seaside town on the Atlantic coast.  On the way we passed Kolmanskop, a long abandoned diamond-mining village which is slowly being reclaimed by the desert.  The weather has warmed up again considerably and as I type I am looking over the gently lapping waters of the ocean, while gulls lazily ride currents of air.

Our next update will be from Windhoek closer to the end of the month.  

Today we leave Luderitz and head north again; sadly we will be leaving our friends who are going on their way back south.  We loved spending time with Bill and Kathy, and Norman and Elize - travel home safe folks; we will think of you everyday, but particularly when we go to buy something and go through the whole "do I need it, or do I want it" story!