First drive on gravel roads

GPS throws a tantrum

We started on our drive towards Sossussvlei after a hearty breakfast at Olive Grove Guest House. I pride myself in the accuracy of my research so I freaked out when our GPS told us that the drive from Windhoek to our port of call, the Namib Desert Lodge was about 700 kilometres and would take us more than seven hours. All my previous research on Google had prepared me for a less than three hundred kilometres journey spread over four hours.

We started off, throughroughly confused but deciding to follow Google because that suited us better. The GPS protested vehemently when, after leaving the city we did not take the turn it asked us to, then gave up on us a few kilometers later when we continued straight just as it asked us to turn left. It seemed to lose it’s bearings as the screen went totally blank. By then metaled roads had given way to gravel. The GPS seemed to want to avoid gravel. And then it suddenly hit us! May be that what it was. We stopped to check the settings of our lost GPS. Sure enough it had been set to avoid graveled roads! Settings were changed; from then on GPS and Google agreed for the rest of our trip.

Owning the roads

This was our first experience at driving long distance on gravel roads. And what an experience it was! Once we left the city traffic left us too. There were long stretches of times during our drive when we could not spot any vehicle, any building or even a single human being as far as eye could see. Namibia really lived up to its title of the second most sparsely populated country in the world.

Once in while a car would pass us by kicking up a swirl of dust in its wake and obscuring our vision for the next few minutes. The trail of dust was a very eficient way of keeping tailgaters away. We also had to keep the car air-conditioning to re-circulated air because taking air from surroundings would bring in the dust as well.

It was a beautiful day – dry, cool crisp and sunny. We wished time and again that we could drive with the windows open and the wind in our hair but the dust on the roads robbed us of this experience. Along the way we realised that Google had mis-judged our efficiency, it would take us much longer than four hours to reach. But still, we could not resist the urge to stop the car in the middle of the road and get off – it was like the road belonged to us.

The almost slip

IB and I always share the driving. And IB invariably falls asleep when it is my turn to drive. On one such turn, after I had driven almost hundred kilometres, the landscape changed. The road started going up and down mountain slopes. On a particularly steep downward slope the gravel was loose and our car’s wheels slipped. I held on to the steering tightly as I applied brakes hard. The wheels still slipped and zig zagged and the car hurtled down the slope while I clutched on to the steering wheels with all my strength to keep it from going off track. When finally the car did stop, I realised that, in my panic I had done the wrong thing. One should not apply sudden hard brakes on loose gravel. IB woke up after all the excitement was over to ask me if anything was wrong.

Passing through passes

After a while the road started a very steep climb. At the top of the climb was a resting place, a view point and a campsite area. We stopped and got out of the car. The view point looked out to an expanse of brown scrubby plains below a spotless blue sky and, as became the new normal for us, no trace of mankind. We spent a few minutes enjoying the view and taking a few touristy photos and then we were on our way again.

As we started going downhill the road changed from loose gravel to cobbled; we realised that we were at the Spreetshoogte Pass. The road took a deep dive, so steep that we could almost see the floor of the downward slope. The speed limit here was 30 kilometres per hour, down from the 80 kilometres that we had been seeing so far.

We were tip toeing down the pass at about twenty kilometres speed when one heroic driver overtook us, thundered down at more than double our speed and vanished from sight. We wondered whether he was an expert or an absolute novice, brave or foolhardy; and just hoped that he stayed safe.

The first Oryx

The landscape flattened out at the base of the pass. After about half an hour from there we saw a sign which welcomed us to Solitaire. We noticed the petrol station there. It was the first one that we had seen after we had left Windhoek. We saw the oryx as we drove onward from Solitaire. It was the first wild animal that we came across in the trip. We had to stop to take a picture.

Around 3:30 pm our GPS told us to ‘turn right’. We were going off the highway into what looked like wilderness. Two small tower shaped buildings stood with on two sides of a wide dirt track marking a sort of entrance. Somebody came out of one the buildings to check our names and reassure us that this was indeed the way to the Namib Desert Lodge and we were expected at the lodge.