Sunset panorama by Keith Titley! I can’t claim ownership to such iPhone artistry.
I always feel a step behind … Hirsh gets his Gravel Road Adventures Facebook post in waaaay before I get there. A blog needs a little more thought and composure and planning, so by the time you get this, it’s old news! Wailing lament, gnashing of teeth … Please don’t be bored already?!
So [sigh] … you’ve already seen the pictures, heard about the long wavy trek zigzagging up the side of the plateau, the sheer verticality of the steel staircase that undoubtedly challenges those with vertigo, and the (heavily meat-based) braai menu at the top. My meal was a specially made white fish steamed in foil with onions, though.
But it really is magical up on the mountain at sunset. Or is it a cliff? Or a mesa? Actually, the Ugab river-valley has all of that … long, free-standing, flat-topped rim-plateaus; isolated rounded hills; the cliff and its pinnacle that rears over the lodge. And of course, the unmistakable rock finger.
From Eagle’s Nest, you have 360-degree views over them all.
Geologically, the Ugab landscape is a little like the Karoo … eons ago sea levels rose and fell across the ages, with the Ugab River swelling and subsiding. It cut and eroded and carved its path, creating canyons and valleys, and leaving sediments. Wind and weathering did the rest, sculpting the shapes we see today. Which is why the texture of the golden-coloured rock is so fascinating. It’s buffed and bulbous, or chunky with rock, stone and pebbles, or crumbly from sand and sediments. Holding it all together is the mineral, lime, like a binding agent, from the carbonate content of the soils.
Top row, right The structure of the ceiling is fascinating; hanging from the centre is a wild, tangled mesh sculpture with a metal eagle perched at the edge (sadly too dark to photograph). Below The wind-polished bulbous texture of the rock face with a waxing half-moon.
Then when you wander down again, the lights winding down the path are like fairy lights sprinkled across the side of the cliff.
PROST!