On 29th April 2011, while the rest of the world watched in excitement as Prince William tied the knot with Kate Middleton, Martin and I set off on our greatest adventure yet!
It became clear early on that rather than having the baptism of fire I had feared, we were being eased into our overland trip gently!
Stop 1: Beautiful vineyard close to the South Africa - Namibia border.
Just 3 hours north of Cape Town, our truck pulled into a stunning vineyard, and we pitched our tents on thick, luscious grass before spending the evening wine tasting by the swimming pool!
It became clear early on that rather than having the baptism of fire I had feared, we were being eased into our overland trip gently!
Stop 1: Beautiful vineyard close to the South Africa - Namibia border.
Just 3 hours north of Cape Town, our truck pulled into a stunning vineyard, and we pitched our tents on thick, luscious grass before spending the evening wine tasting by the swimming pool!
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| Beautiful vineyard where we spent our first night |
The following day, we crossed the border and entered Namibia - at last, I finally felt we were on our way!
Stop number 2 was (again) a lovely camp site over looking the fast flowing Orange River. Just one day into the trip and it was here that Martin encountered his first patient - 69 year old Sally who had an infected finger... no rest for the wicked!
After breakfast and a bit of finger draining, we journeyed on to stop number 3: the spectacular Fish river canyon, during which Kim and Sally (the American twins) entertained us all by shoving balloons up their t-shirts to impersonate Pamela Anderson!
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| The Fish River Canyon |
Just as we were enjoying the view of the beautiful canyon, with a chilled Savannah in hand, casualty number 2 occurs. Laurence (of Namibia) stubbed his toe and a phenomenal amount of blood oozed from his foot, much to my horror.
Once the bleeding had stopped and the toe was bandaged up, we retired to our nearby campsite where during the course of the night, I spotted my first ever scorpian, drank too much port and gin by the fire and rescued Henry by assisting him in removing a lizard from in his tent.
Day 4 is when the travelling really started to kick in. We boarded Claudia for a hard-core 13 hour drive, which got off to a rocky start when we encountered gear problems just 15 minutes after our departure. With a little intervention from Olly, we were back on the road in no time and the hours effortlessly rolled on by with countless games of 'Ass hole' with Martin, Max and Mike!
Once the bleeding had stopped and the toe was bandaged up, we retired to our nearby campsite where during the course of the night, I spotted my first ever scorpian, drank too much port and gin by the fire and rescued Henry by assisting him in removing a lizard from in his tent.
Day 4 is when the travelling really started to kick in. We boarded Claudia for a hard-core 13 hour drive, which got off to a rocky start when we encountered gear problems just 15 minutes after our departure. With a little intervention from Olly, we were back on the road in no time and the hours effortlessly rolled on by with countless games of 'Ass hole' with Martin, Max and Mike!
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| Martin and Max go head to heard in cards! |
We finally pulled into our 4th campsite, located close to Dune 45, in darkness. We set up our tents and collapsed by the fire while Denford prepared us a delicious local dish of Pap and peanut sauce.
Getting up at 4am the following morning to watch sunrise was certainly a shock to the system and not really my idea of a 'holiday'. BUT - without doubt, watching the sun rise over the golden dunes was a truly incredible experience and one I'll always remember.
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| Spectacular sand dunes at sunrise |
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| Olly, our team leader, speeding to the bottom! |
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