Namibia Skeleton Coast - Leg/Day 3
Leylandsdrift bush camp, Hoarusib Valley, Himba People, Hartmann Valley, Kunene River bush camp
'Leylandsdrift' bush camp cabins. Wonderful panoramic cliff view overlooking the Hoarusib River which runs just a trickle of water.
Haydee making a 'balcony-bino' check of the 'Leylandsdrift' surroundings
Breakfast time in the spacious 'Leylandsdrift' common area.
The Hoarusib river vegetation is patchy but lush enough to sustain the (threatened) desert elephant.
Magic sunrise view down the Hoarusib river valley from the 'Leylandsdrift' bush camp
Mother and calf 'desert elephant'. We were lucky to find just these two down in the valley straight below the 'Leylandsdrift' bush camp.
The small calf was barely visible in the shrub thickets. Trailing mighty mother ....
Mother's different tusks give her an easy to recognise identity .....
Sparse but eye-catching desert plants
The Auger Buzzard
We were lucky to see just this one gliding straight overhead. Allowing a good shot from the landrover
The shovel-snouted lizzard
Fascinating to watch this desert-dweller and marvel at its desert sand agility and adaptations. It can dash across the sand at high speed and suddenly, when it feels threatened or needs to cool down its body, dive down into the sand. Its body and leg shape enable it to swim in the sand and stay down there for very long breathing the air in between the sand grains.
Another claim of its fame is its performance of the so-called 'thermal dance'. Lifting its front left and right foot intermittently out of the sand to cool off the lifted foot. Here it has both back feet lifted simultaneously by a tail push-up.
Link: Shovel-snouted lizzard facts, and 'thermal dance' BBC video
Oryxes passing by in the Hoarusib river valley
Dry wadi river bed
The vertical light-yellow wall are the remnants of young river sediment layers which once filled the entire valley. Later the river has cut down into these sediments and has eroded away the greater part of it.
Driving back to the 'Leylandsdrift' bush camp along the Hoarusib riverbed
Touch down and car pick-up for the drive to the 'Kunene' bush camp on the 'Kunene river'. The Namibia-Angola border river.
Sunset over plains and hills in the 'Kunene' region. Driving northward towards the border with Angola, the plains became increasingly 'grassy'. The thin yellow-green grass blanket almost made us forget we were in a desert still.