Looking for larks

 

Road trip through Namibia with eight Zimbabwean fossils

Namibia - a country of 825,615 square kilometres - houses some extraordinary fauna and flora including around 688 species of birds.  Among these are roughly 20 lark species, which are rather ordinary looking LBJs to the uninitiated but for expert birder and professional safari guide Steve, spotting one is akin to finding treasure.

As for me, ever since Monty Python’s ‘Ethel the aardvark goes quantity surveying’ skit I’ve wanted to see an aardvark. 

So, while Namibian safari guide Charl Schoombee and Steve Edwards of Musango Safari Camp relentlessly pursue larks, I search for signs of Ethel. Many large termite towers are dotted throughout the vast landscapes, so my hopes are up. 

Charl has both tenacity and patience, necessary qualities for driving 8 x 60-something-year-olds all with their foibles around his country for 17 days. The converted Toyota Land Cruiser with pop-up roof, slide windows and a/c is our home and friend for the duration.

We all meet in the capital Windhoek at the Windhoek Luxury Suites on Rob Mandy’s 62nd birthday, six pax flying direct from Victoria Falls Airport and Rob and I coming from Dubai via Johannesburg. 

Jobson 

The Zimmer Tour 2020, 2021, 2022, cancelled twice thanks to Covid, planned by Footsteps of Livingstone and handled by Namibia Tours & Safaris, is finally ON. 

Jobson (safari consultant and professional guide) aka Chris Worden is our semi-tour leader who wafts in and out of taking charge as although the trip instigator, it is his holiday too, so he pipes up only when the group’s dithering gets beyond control.

    

Interesting facts: Namibia’s official language is English, yet Oshiwambo and Afrikaans are more widely spoken; it has a population of around two million (as opposed to similar sized Pakistan’s gob smacking 220+ million). 

Swakopmund by the sea

Wilhelmstal Pad Stal

The six-hour drive (360kms) between Windhoek and Swakopmund reveals long empty stretches of scrubby bush, desert, scree, blue sky, brilliant sunshine, goats, quaint dorps with German influences and Wilhelmstal Pad Stal where Liz Worden, Wendy Edwards and Chooks Langerman buy half of its contents.

 About 15 kilometres from there we need an emergency loo stop; Charl’s local knowledge is a godsend as he conjures up a garage with a suitable receptacle literally out of nowhere. 

Swakopmund

Namibia’s main roads are excellent. Slowly the terrain changes from shrub acacia savannah to open desert plains and then, as we approach the Skeleton Coast, the hills in the distance are shrouded in fog. It is cloudy and chilly in Swakopmund, a town of German colonial-era architecture, because of this fog blanket. After a few whiskies et al at the comfy Swakopmund Luxury Suites hotel we weave to The Jetty seafood restaurant for dinner, helped by a strong cold wind. Liz is almost blue. 

And what an extraordinary spectacle it is from our table! Hartlaub's gulls, Cape cormorants and other seabirds dive or bob in the waters around The Jetty which juts way out into the Atlantic Ocean. Come nightfall rows of cormorants line the outer deck, waiting for something – sleep? dawn? food scraps? 

The enormous meals are uncomfortably OTT; quantity seldom matches quality. Most of it is put into take-away boxes to give to local people in the street.

Lost in translation

We roll out of bed at 0700 next morning to rendezvous at Café Bojos for breakfast.
Some of us ask our hotel receptionist for directions, others follow instructions from our half-tour leader and get lost. But we all make it to the Namib-Naukluft National Park for a marine tour in the Walvis Bay lagoon about 37kms south of Swakopmund.

    Mossie Mostert of Laramon Tours throws fish into the air and instantly a huge greater white pelican thumps onto the catamaran. An excited seal follows in the boat’s wake even as we pick up speed, it is loving the ride – and the free fish. The 3 ½ hour cruise shows us hundreds more Cape fur seals wallowing and basking on the shore, plus penguins, dolphins, a sun fish and even the fin of a hump back whale. 

Jackson with sea shanty inducing beverage

Deckhand Jackson pours some Old Brown Sherry into tiny tin mugs and distributes to all, taking me right back to when I was 18. Could feel a sea shanty coming on. 

A seal suddenly leaps from the sea and ploughs into my back, its smooth, freezing cold wet fur glistening, followed by a pelican with a dangerously large beak, both of which soon plump down onto the deck to wait for more fish, putting paid to any said sea shanty.

Ocean Conservation Namibia states the Cape fur seal population along the entire coast is around 1.5 million, with a huge breeding colony at Cape Cross headland on the Skeleton Coast. 

In the pink

On dry land again, two 4x4s take us past the lagoon where there are thousands of lesser and greater flamingo plus pied avocet, tern, teal, and countless more waders feeding in the shallow nutrient-rich waters. 

A little further south pink salt lakes from a salt refiner [Walvis Bay Salt Holdings] create astounding sights. The lakes have pink hues due to the presence of salt-tolerant algae and a chemical reaction taking place.

About 60kms south of Walvis Bay is Sandwich Harbour, accessible only by 4x4.

Its name refers to the former harbour as well as the lagoon where giant sand dunes dramatically run straight into the cold Atlantic Ocean.

Steve’s mission here is to find a Dune lark, Namibia’s only 100% endemic bird that hatches, matches and despatches in this specific stretch of desert. While most of us have never heard of one we go with it but he continues to endure a lot of verbal flak from the peanut gallery. 

Seriously seeking larks

Our guides Ekkehard Bollinger in a Nissan Patrol and Rene Mervins driving the Landcruiser find palmero geckos in the soft sand, a side winder, oryx, ostriches, flamingoes, Ruppell’s korhaan, Grey’s lark you name it, but no Dune lark. Up and down crazy-ass towering windswept sand dunes we enjoy looking for larks, to no avail.

	Palmato gecko
	Another kind of lizard

 I’m normally terrified of dune bashing having got more than I bargained for in the UAE but have complete faith in these exceptionally skilled guides – Ekkehard, a freelancer with Sandy Horizon Tours today, has been coming to this remote endless desert for fun since a child so knows it like the back of his hand. 

Steve with guide Rene

As the afternoon progresses we go deeper and deeper into the sea of sand, until Ekkehard hears a little peep. Steve’s Roberts bird guide app peeps back. And there, in the late afternoon light, are two insignificant looking birds cheep cheeping away in a scrubby clump of sand and grass. Dune larks, hallelujah! Steve is speechless.
The cherry on top is the ostrich with her or his 12 chicks, just around the corner, totally oblivious of our presence. A magnificent day!

The elusive Dune lark

Welwitschia 

Bushman's bum

On November 11 we visit the Moon Landscape region just north of Swakopmund - a dry desolate area of hills, rocks, sand and what appears to be little else. Yet it is alive with hardy plants such as Nara melon, firebush, dollar bush, lichen, Bushman's bum plant and of course the extraordinary living fossil, the two-leafed Welwitschia mirabilis. Endemic to the Namib desert and southern Angola, some specimens are estimated to be between 1,000 and 1,500 years old.

    As we drive on gravel roads through rugged countryside featuring basalt dykes and massive weathered granite boulders, Charl tells us that a Mad Max crew came here to film (Fury Road 2015), for which his seamstress wife made some of the funky leather costumes. Amazing!

Welwitschia plant

Dassie Rat

It’s about 410kms from Swakopmund via Hentiesbaai then right onto the C35 past the Brandberg Mountains to Mowani Mountain Camp, a lodge that blends into the surrounding granite boulders so typical of the Damaraland region in north-central Namibia. On high wooden platforms luxury tents with outside showers are built into the natural boulders. From each viewing deck is a spectacular private view.

Viewpoint Mowani Mountain Camp

At the main lodge we are in time to watch the sunset torch the kopjes gold then orangey-red while we sip cocktails and the odd G&T.

Dinner is astounding, starting with beetroot carpaccio, goat’s cheese and almond ‘truffles’ garnished with balsamic dressing followed by a gourmet choice of note. 

Wendy’s dassie rat roomie was less sophisticated – it preferred to chomp on her crisp packets in the dead of night. She never found it, only the holes in the packets the next morning. 

Rock petroglyphs

Guide Alicia

Some history: The earliest Namibians were San hunter-gatherers who were pushed out by other African tribes who later traded with various European nationalities in search of adventure and profit. The country was proclaimed a German protectorate in 1884, to be called German South West Africa. South Africa forces during World War 1 took it over until it became independent in 1990, Dr Sam Nujoma becoming President of the Republic of Namibia. Dr Hage Geingob is the current president.

Rock engravings

Near Mowani Mountain Camp local guide Alicia shows us Twyfelfontein, an area of red ochre rocks containing one of the largest concentrations of rock engravings in Africa. The incredibly well-preserved carvings created by San hunter-gatherers on flat and upright slabs represent animals, fish, birds and humans. Age? Who knows, reports are wildly different so anything between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago.

There’s a government run museum near the site that has been rather cleverly designed using rusty upcycled oil drum lids for the roof and walls, so matching the surrounding rocks. 

Not so impressive is the state of the loos; even long drops particularly in a World Heritage Site can be kept in a cleaner functional state than these are! Just remember not to look down.

Looking for elephants

In the afternoon we search for desert adapted elephants in a dry riverbed. While there are no genetic or physiological differences between elephants found across Namibia, the desert variety appears to be taller and have bigger feet - wider footpads prevent them from sinking into the sand (like Rob’s). 

Desert adapted elephants

We see one, then a herd, quietly browsing underneath mopane trees. Fascinating! The elephants slowly move off, padding nonchalantly past our vehicle so close we can hear their stomachs rumbling. Liz hides under the seat.

Crimson breasted shrike

Excitement over, we join Steve’s quest to find more larks. We spot a Black chested snake eagle, Pale winged starling, Crimson breasted shrike, Bare cheeked babbler, Damara hornbill, Crowned lapwing (kiviki), Mountain wheat-eater and just by Mowani lodge’s office, Southern masked weavers building nests. Not seen but I heard that the Bar-tailed godwit, which visits from northern Europe, flies for around 13 days non-stop to certain Namibian shores. By now we have all become expert Twitchers. 

Apple strudel

Fossils on a fossil

Saying goodbye to Mowani, it is 315kms to our next watering hole at the Etosha National Park. En route we find a Petrified Forest of ancient tree trunks at Khorixas where naturally we pose for photos on a prone 40-metre-long fossilised tree some 100-250 million years older than us. Remarkable. 

    At Outjo there’s a supermarket, ATM and bakery where all FTs (foreign tourists or something like that) seem to stop and take all the apple strudels before heading into  Etosha. We drive through the Anderson Gate to Okaukuejo Resort, one of only six lodges inside the park all owned and managed by the parastatal Namibia Wildlife Resorts. Okaukuejo has a bar, restaurant, swimming pool, filling station and a shop.

    Our waterfront chalets in front of a floodlit waterhole are perfect for viewing game that comes to drink throughout the day but as the sun sets, the silhouettes reflected on the pan’s water are truly magical. Incredibly we see five critically endangered Black rhino with intact horns sparring playfully with each other at the water’s edge.

 

We spend six nights in Etosha, driving slowly through this immense flat saltpan of white, pale gold, blue-green shades and brilliant clear blue skies dotted occasionally with puffy white clouds. There are vast herds of zebra, springbok, wildebeest and other plains game plus elephant, oryx having a fierce duel, black-faced and common impala, ostrich couples sheltering chicks in the shade of one outstretched wing, birds galore – and larks too. 

Hawk-eye Heather

Hawk-eye Heather Pocock, a tough Goromonzi farmer with an uncanny knack of spotting hyaena ears twitching in thick bush – sees yet another one at a waterhole, well fed with blood on its face. 

Etosha covers an area of more than 22,000 square kilometres, roughly the size of Wales. Millions of years ago it was a lake that slowly dried up. While the pan is almost always dry, in the southern parts waterholes - either natural springs or man-made boreholes - are scattered throughout.

    Waterholes on the way from Okaukuejo to Halali Resort and onto Namutoni Resort (built around an old German fort) include Nebrownii, where early riser Heather and Charl find white elephants that have covered themselves in the white limestone mud.

    Salvadora attracts huge herds of Zebra and the Lions at Fischer’s Pan are a highlight for Chooks even though she grew up in the African bush (and now manages hospitality courses for learner guides in Victoria Falls). 

Our view for so many days

Steve and Charl get excited about a pair of Spike-heeled larks at Rietfontein waterhole. Others look at other things. Loads of animals everywhere - the Big 4 as the Cape buffalo does not live in Etosha.

Most gravel roads in the park are fine, others seriously corrugated. The government-run camps offer good basic food, just get to the cooking stations before the German tourists as they have no qualms about steam-rolling the polite out of the way. 

Hoba meteorite

Metal from space

Day 14. It takes seven hours from Namutoni Resort to reach Okonjima Plains Camp as we divert to the Hoba meteorite that fell from outer space some 80,000 years ago onto a farm in the Otjozondjupa region. 

Measuring 2.7 meters across, weighing around 60 tons, and made of an alloy of iron and nickel, this is the world’s largest known intact meteorite as a single piece.  A unique find that wasn’t on our itinerary, thanks Steve! 

After a two-hour lunch break for some to eat snails (snails?!), we reach the 22,000-hectare Okonjima Nature Reserve and our accommodation at

Okonjima Plains Camp. The reserve has brown hyaena, cheetah, lion and all sorts of other cats including two noisy mating leopards, all rather intrusively captured by Rob’s amazing Canon Powershot video camera. 

On an afternoon game drive guide Denny tracks a leopard using radio technology. Pushing the Land Rover through dense spiky thorn bush, we get so close to one that Chooks smells it before seeing it. 

Dark grey thunderclouds are forming into magnificent dramatic African skies. Soon it is pelting so Denny folds down the Land Rover’s side shutters. A giraffe skitters across the road in wild panic after a lightning flash, a thunderclap sets a herd of wildebeest scampering, springbok shelter in a forlorn clump under an umbrella thorn tree. 

    Denny’s brings out the beer while we throw bags of nuts and crisps at each other just like school kids. African rain does that.

Some of the school children

Evidence of Ethel

A night drive still doesn’t unearth an Aardvark, but Charl assures me they are around. He says the presence of so many termite towers indicate good sources of underground water. 

    The reserve is home to the AfriCat Foundation that started out caring for rescued orphaned or damaged cheetah and leopard but now the focus is on research and conservation through education, although it will continue to care for the animals already on site. 

Last legs

Zimb team & "Old Dog" T-shirts

Lark species spotted on tour = 14. The others not mentioned already are Stark’s, Long billed, Sabota, Dusky, Monotonous, Flappet, Barlow’s, Pink-billed, Gray’s, Grey-backed finch-lark, Chestnut-backed finch-lark and the Red-capped! Quite a haul of larks.

It's Day 16. The Zimmer Tour 2022 team pack up once again, lunch at Okahandja, and the Last Supper is at Joe’s very quirky Beerhouse in Windhoek. 

Bye bye NAM - 'til next time

Getting out of bed and onto the road at 0430 for the plane to Johannesburg is possibly the most exhausting thing we have done so far. 

But for some there are compensations; Steve and Wendy get upgraded by Airlink to Business Class because he is “being nice” after an altercation with his carry-onboard steel strongbox aka camera case. 

In Joburg Rob and I bid farewell to all apart from Jobson, whose sneaky smoke break outside Johannesburg’s airport terminal while in transit renders him completely lost (and I imagine panic stricken, although we didn’t see him again) before his flight to VFA – but that’s another story!