Changing landscape is a big surprise all the time

Namibia

A 4200 km long mineraltrip in Namibian sand- and stone desert 2002

Part 2 of 3

Day 6: After many hours in the car we arrive at the Russ´ Claim in The Goboboseb Mountains. Here is the home of Russ and his wife and three children. This place is far away from the nearest village. In the evening Andrea went up to them with water and tobacco. Russ told him that the water pump in his car didn’t work!!

Next morning starts and the whole family is invited from the hill to have breakfast with us. During some hours before lunch we found some Amethyst, Barite, Siderite and Quartz xls in Russ Claim.

Later when we left their home we almost stepped on a poisonous Puff Adder snake. Happily for us, it was a little cold in the morning and the snake was not awake and not interested in biting us.

We continue our trip on dirty roads to a good site with Prehnite, Epidote, Quartz and Celadonite. We visit another miner and his wife and kids and bought some goodies here too - nice Quartz and Tourmalines xls.

This evening we slept indoors at Brandberg Rest Camp in the village of Uis and had dinner at The White Lady. When I mentioned to the barkeeper that I am a Swede he asked me - do you know the geologist mister x in your town Filipstad? Of course I do, was my answer and I thought it is a very little world we all live in.

Changing landscape is a big surprise all the time. There was everything from sand desert, stone desert, savannah, and bush land to farming land. In the sand desert we could see small bushes but it was a long distance between them. The ground was often covered with small gypsum xls. Sometimes I slept in the car and when I then woke up it was often a totally new landscape. It could be the length of the dry grass, or the shape of the mountains. The latter could be sharp, round, flat and have variations in colours and altitude.

Day 7: In the morning we put all the stone boxes from the trailer and left them at the bar in thetown Uis. Some days later the owner of the bar drove it all the way to Windhoek. After that we went to some local mineral sellers. They had very good quality but also very high prices.

Twyfelfontein is the name of next place. There we can visit some 4,000 year old rock engravings. They were made by the locals and the writing was on sandstone cliffs. The pictures were animals and today one thinks this place was some kind of school to train young people to see how the tracks look and how to hunt the animals.

We continue our trip and next stop is close to the town Khorixas. There we could see a lot of big petrified wood. At last we come to one of our highlights of the trip - Mesopotamia 504 Copper Valley and here we camped for the night.

Welwitchia is the national plant of Namibia. We could see it many times out in the desert. This plant reproduces by throwing seeds out in the air and then it grows down for 25 years. Then it becomes visible and comes up from the sand. The seed can be up to 1,500 year old and still live. It is considered as the world record for living plants. (seed or tree) ?

Day 8: This day starts with early breakfast and off we go in different directions. I myself found Beyerite, Brochantite, Chalcedony, Chrysocolla, Cuprite, Malachite, Quartz and small pieces of Namibite. Some deadly snakes and some scorpions also accompanied us.

Another three km away we found Shattuckite which is a nice blue ball xl. There also was a lot of Chrysocolla and Plancheite. We stayed here one more night.

The temperature during the nights is low. Two mornings we had ice on the car windows and one morning there was ice on the water bucket. When the sun raises at 6 o’clock in the morning it rapidly was nice and warm and we could take off our winter clothes. The temperature during daytime was between 20 - 30 degrees Celsius depending on the altitude. At 6 o’clock in the evening it was the opposite. As fast as possible we put up our tents, found a flashlight and put the winter clothes on again.

PREVIUS PAGE