Far & wild

Road-tripping in Namibia

- MIKE BUCKHAM

The Covid third wave was fast approaching and with climbing infection rates in early June, it seemed to be on a collision path with our June/July family road trip during the school holidays. Our 2020 jaunt had been shelved and it looked increasingly likely that the same would happen in 2021. Road trips are our favorite holidays as a family and we knew this may be the last one the six of us would enjoy together, with our oldest son heading to university in 2022 and the divergence of his holidays from his siblings’. We have honed our road-tripping skills to fine art and our time together is in general conflict-free, despite the close confines in a vehicle. Roadside picnics, sundowners, game drives, music playlists, and quizzes (carefully designed to make sure I win) are the perfect tonic to relieve the usual stresses of day-to-day life.

This time we decided to head for the open spaces of Namibia, one of our favorite destinations. It also seemed like a logical way to avoid Covid, given our isolation as a single unit and within a country that has such a low population density. The major problem, however, seemed to be the looming PCR tests that we would need before boarding the plane. Even more worrying was that Namibia was at the peak of its worst wave of infections and the chance of getting there was looking slimmer by the minute. We had all our accommodation booked and we controlled what we could with our self-inflicted quarantine to ensure negative test results. Against the odds, we received negative tests and boarded the plane to Windhoek.