Iona Park Picnic Spot – Ruacana Dam (Day 39)

23 June 2019

Distance: 255km Distance to date: 8549km

Road Conditions: (out of 10)

Picnic Spot – 10kms before Chitado: 3 (two-spoor roads)

10kms before Chitado – Ruacana Dam: 5 (dirt road, some corrugation)

Coffee, Tea, Rusks

Snacks, Leftovers

Beef Fillet Stir Fry Leftovers

Today was a hard day of driving. We were pretty much finished by the time we stopped.

While we were packing up this morning, three vehicles of more travellers arrived from the road coming in from Oncocua. They stopped and we spoke with them about our way forward, and told them about the road that we had just come from the day before. They mentioned to us that we wouldn’t be able to finish driving 100km by the end of the day.

We learnt an interesting fact about the Damara Dik-Dik, what we have been calling the ‘Blou Boud’, from the other travellers. They told us that the Damara Dik-Dik has many muscles in its nose; almost similar to a small trunk and that they are able to move it around in all directions.

As soon as the other travellers left, we had some new guests: Some locals that sounded like they wanted a lift. They stood around and watched while we were packing up. Soon we were all packed up and we bid them farewell, not having any space for anyone else unless they wanted to sit on top of the fridge.

There were a few more villages along the road today and at one point, as we crossed one of the few fords that actually had some water, we came across a Himba town meeting in progress. They were all seated under a tree and some waved as we went past.

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Some of the trees and vegetation along the road.

Not long after we arrived in Oncocua and were a bit confused about which road to take next. Between the GPS, the road maps and Maps.me, we couldn’t figure out which road was best. We turned back toward town and found the Police Station. Here we were very lucky to find a gentleman that spoke English and he helped us to find the right road.

The road eventually broadened and became much better to drive, so we decided to push a little and see how far we could go. We set our sights on a spot next to Ruacana dam, even though it was getting dark and we weren’t sure if the road would hold up. The road stayed the same and we reached our camping spot for the evening just before 8PM.

We built a fire just to warm us up a little and then heated up some leftovers from one of the previous evenings. Dad decided to sleep in my tent, because he was still coughing, and I slept in the rooftop tent with Mom.

It was colder than some of the previous nights, and Mom was concerned about Dad who only had a blanket. Dad was fine though and had no trouble sleeping, except for the two or three times Mom asked him if he was okay.