misteroverland

 Before leaving the UK we had talked about the things we really want to do – ballooning over the desert was certainly on both our lists! With an extremely early start we headed into the Namib desert for this treat. The ride was so peaceful as you are moving with the wind it doesn’t feel windy at all. We also got to get rather close to the animals as the balloon doesn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. At the same time we were learning a lot about the creation of the desert, how the winds are blowing and that the 2 dune banks will eventually meet up – in about 1million years time! Added to this we also gained the knowledge that springbok are able to delay the birth of the babies by up to 1 month while waiting for the rains, this really reminded me how intelligent and resourceful animals are, too often we think we are superior. 

We flew down an old riverbed with a sea of dunes on either side, finally landing in the riverbed to a champagne breakfast -what a magical experience!
On leaving the site after breakfast the crew got their brooms out of the cars and started sweeping the desert. They were erasing the tyre marks where they had to drive off the main tracks as these can be left in the sand as scars for decades as we saw later in our trip the marks left by ox wagons around the time of the world wars.