Coast Desert Wild Camp – Handpump Wild Camp (Day 36)

20 June 2019

Distance: 190km Distance to date: 7896km

Road Conditions: (out of 10)

General: 4 (sandy roads, some tricky spots)

Coffee, Tea, Rusks

Snacks, Leftovers

Beef Fillet Stir Fry, Homemade Beer Bread

We packed up camp this morning, waiting to see if another vehicle would come past so we could join them and drive the Death Acre together. Unfortunately no one had come along this morning, and we also didn’t pass anyone on the way up the beach so we decided to rather drive around inland to the Kunene Mouth instead.

We’d already seen the Consortium Alpha, an abandoned fishing trawler that was shipwrecked (or what was left of it anyway) and headed up to see the Vanessa Seafood that we had missed the day before.

The fishing trawler has mostly washed up on the beach, and is almost completely covered with sand. We looked around, took a couple of photos and I also got down on my hands and knees to see into the cabin (which had a really bad stench). I always wonder about the history of such wrecks.

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We pushed on, heading back towards Tombua and stopped at the filling station where we had turned off to fill up with Diesel and to inflate the tyres. To go towards Iona Park, you have to drive a little further than the Arco Lake turnoff and then also turn right. The first bit of road is not very pretty – its mostly sand, and then mostly sand and rock and then eventually the landscape becomes pretty. There are some hills and it almost looks like someone has made thousands of rock gardens.

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In this area we also spotted our first “blou boud” as we called them: Small species of antelope, almost like steenbok, but with a blueish grey hindquarter. These little animals are incredibly cute, with huge eyes and tiny little bodies. We managed to snap a photo before one of the two that we saw disappeared into the bushes.

The point that we wanted to reach before nightfall was the Iona Park entrance. Only, the GPS had the wrong distance and we were there sooner than anticipated. There was a handpump around three kilometres before the gate, which had running water, so we decided to turn back and spend the evening there instead of paying for the extra day in the park when it was already so late.

So we headed back and set up camp in a decent clearing and went about pumping water for us to shower with. Mom tried her hand at making a beer bread in the cob (and she was successful, despite the underside that was slightly burnt) and Dad helped to make dinner. We all had warm water to shower with after dinner and then spent a good amount of time looking at the stars. The moon only came out later so we had a great view before heading to bed.