BIG SKY Country

Namibia. Twelve friends, five vehicles, 4000 km, thirteen days. Eight punctures, one angle grinder. One martial eagle, one full moon, one ghost town. Plenty of top-quality braais, maybe not quite enough oysters... and the best time ever.

- SUZY BROKENSHA

It didn’t start off well. We’d been planning to drive in my husband’s somewhat ancient vehicle, but a few days before we left the engine more or less just dug in its wheels and refused to go. We looked into hiring a 4x4, but it was so expensive we might as well have charted a private jet. I was all for it, at that point. But in the end we settled on an affordable but distinctly bottom-of-the-range bakkie; a good thing, as it turned out, because it was big enough to carry everyone else’s water, spare tyres, mattresses, chairs, beers, tents, clothes and… I actually have no idea how any of us would have managed without it.

We were a motley group made up of writers, farmers, architects, amateur historians, art dealers, medical researchers, carbon traders and artists, and it all worked out beautifully. The farmers are wine and bubbly producers, which almost totally compensated for the fact that they woke up at 5 am every single day absolutely raring to go, while most of us favoured a slightly slower launch (usually as a result of their excellent produce the night before).

The trip

Penny, one of the early risers, put the trip together, and it was a damn good itinerary: When we stayed just one night, it was usually in hotels, chalets or glamping sites, and when we were properly camping we always stayed for two nights – just to offset the schlep. She also made sure there was somewhere to swim in most places we stayed: essential!

The Namibian dollar is basically 1:1 with the ZAR, and most places will take either.

It’s a huge country, and you’re going to drive for miles. The roads are generally pretty good, especially if they’ve just been graded, which seems to be an ongoing process. We did go to some quite remote spots too, which is where things got a bit dodgy, but otherwise we were absolutely fine in a non-4x4.

O’Kiep (one night) and /Ai-/Ais Hot Springs