Category Archives: Namibia

Desert Country

Desert Country

Posted on: 19th September 2023| By: Marielle

For those who don’t follow the Quirky Girl Traveller blog, you might like to visit the site here to see what we got up to recently over a 3-week, 4,700-kilometre road trip from Kgalagadi to Fish River Canyon, then to the Richtersveld, Augrabies Gorge and Falls, and finally Papkuilsfontein, on the West Coast flower route….
Read More

Etosha & its Wildlife

Etosha & its Wildlife

Posted on: 3rd November 2021| By: Marielle

So … here is the promised sequel to our recent Namibian trip. Etosha, and Okaukuejo’s much-loved waterhole, always always deliver. It is such a thrill to spend time there. If you were a lazy traveller, all you’d need to do is book into Okaukuejo Camp for several days and hang out on a bench with…
Read More

Into the Namib Desert

Into the Namib Desert

Posted on: 27th September 2021| By: Marielle

Eighteen months of forced seclusion meant that immensely itchy feet, and a Land Rover and Toyota Prado panting for the sensation of gravel under their tyres, was Priority Numero Uno. So, doubly-vaccinated, it was time to remedy this matter. An unspooling of 3 1/2 weeks and a rough and tumble, corrugated, stony/shalely journey of 6,175…
Read More

Hardap Dam Resort, what a surprise

Hardap Dam Resort, what a surprise

Posted on: 25th August 2018| By: Marielle

Oh my, oh my. Out, damned preconceptions! just like Lady Macbeth’s famous Out Damned Spot!  What a really, really pleasant squelching of low expectations. Hardap Dam took us quite by surprise. Admittedly we’d booked into VIP chalets but, goodness, we were impressed. Particularly as it’s an NWR resort and you know our feelings on that….
Read More

Oh, Swakopmund, where has your charm gone?

Oh, Swakopmund, where has your charm gone?

Posted on: 22nd August 2018| By: Marielle

Sorry, Swakopmund. I just don’t feel the love. This town has utterly lost its early German charm. It is now one great, big, holiday resort. In spite of my laments, we just love The Beach Lodge right on the seashore, designed like a boat complete with portholes, which we return to again and again. But…
Read More

Twyfelfontein petroglyphs, Damaraland

Twyfelfontein petroglyphs, Damaraland

Posted on: 21st August 2018| By: Marielle

Engulfing dust, persistent corrugations, shuddering and juddering and bouncing. The speed at which the rented double-cabs (and local drivers) tear along these gravel roads, no wonder it’s like driving over a cattle grid for 60 kilometres at 60 kph. Which is exactly what we did, driving 2 hours due west to get to the Twyfelfonteintein…
Read More

Heaven is … Vingerklip Lodge

Heaven is … Vingerklip Lodge

Posted on: 20th August 2018| By: Marielle

Love, love, love this place. After Etosha, it is sheer luxury! I will come back here again and again. The drive here was painless. After the park’s eternal flatness, suddenly we had a pimpling of rounded wooded mounds which grew into sizable hills sprouting rock spines and boulders. Ahead, a looming stone barricade of bands…
Read More

A lion’s roar farewell

A lion’s roar farewell

Posted on: 19th August 2018| By: Marielle

What a finale from the Okaukuejo waterhole! The resounding award went to the bellows and rasping hiccoughs of two male lions saying hi to each other (or firmly re-establishing the boundaries of their respective turf) at 3:00 in the morning. One male sat maddeningly just out of sight of the waterhole, very close to our…
Read More

Atonal

Atonal

Posted on: 18th August 2018| By: Marielle

Benches at Okaukuejo’s waterhole A leafless pod acacia at Halali’s waterhole which is a bit of a trek into the thornveld and clambering over boulders — luckily so, as the sound of revelling campers travels pretty far! But look closely at those beautiful striated rocks …   Sections of the park are immensely dry, but…
Read More

Halali to Okaukuejo

Halali to Okaukuejo

Posted on: 16th August 2018| By: Marielle

  We loved our “Family Cottage” (one of only two) at Halali; it also gave us the opportunity to do some self-catering. Dinner was stepped up a notch! Meals at the Etosha Camps have been nothing short of pedestrian, with seriously no imagination. And with the abundanceof meat around, vegetarians are the indisputable losers ……
Read More