Namibia - Day Ten, Eleven & Twelve

Sossusvlei- The Dunes
We awoke at 4.30 to head to the famous red sand dunes of Namibia. After an hour of travelling we had entered the national park which the dunes are in and we saw a wide variety of animals including oryx and jackels! We had to drive another 45 minutes to reach the Sossasvlei where only 4x4s could drive to and we then decided to walk one of the biggest climbable dunes in the world called Big Daddy that stands at just under 300m tall. The walk destroyed my calves due to having to push your legs into the sand and trying to walk on your toes not balls of the feet and some bits were so steep that you had to scramble on all fours. It took just under an hour to reach the top but only 5 minutes or so to reach the bottom due to the fact that you run down at a very fast speed. The views from the top were just truely breathtaking. You could see for so miles and the fact that there was no houses, cars or roads in the view just made me realise how special our landscape really is and that without all the things we have filled it with its more beautiful than you could imagine!

After running down the dunes we entered Namibia's dead trees which was very eary. The trees are set in natural clay which has dried out and so the trees have died but still remain perfectly in tact in the ground. The trees are a national treasure of Namibia and are definitely beautiful. You are not aloud to climb on the trees but no one said you couldn't handstand against them. After the dunes we went and ate at an all you can eat buffet which I definitely ate to much of as on the way home I didn't feel to good. The dunes are a truly remarkable experience that i will remember forever, even if the sand was giving my face an exfoliation when we were at the top it was a once in a life time experience. Not many people can say that they have climbed one of the biggest sand dunes in the world now can they?

Eco Challange
The eco challange is a 12 km walk through the Honey Canyon where you have to find and identify different feaces, footprints, trees and animals. My group didnt have any luck when it came to spotting animals as we only saw 4 female kudu, a lizard and 2 birds which was horrifically poor but we did get to see lots of poo and prints from animals such as spotted hyena, cheetahs, leopards, springbok, zebra, jackel, kudu, steembok and clipspringer. We practically followed an entire route of a hyena which had HUGE front legs. By the end my legs were certainly achy and we had been out for over 5 hours! Before we left we visited the grave of a bushman who had fallen to his death from the wall of the canyon as many bushmen risk their lives to collect honey from the crevices in the walls. We each placed a rock to show respect.
I managed to finish my second book of the trip called 'Hush Hush' which is the sequel to Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick and then we started on the cheetah enrichment that we took to Solitaire for the cheetahs to play with and find the meat in them.

Bushmans Grave

Hyena Footprint

Camera Traps
First thing we went through lots of photos from 7th June and recorded all the different animal sightings that had taken place in the 4 days that the camera had been up for. After we had finished that we headed out with Matt to change all the memory cards in the cameras. We visited 5 sites, 3 were dry sites that we had to walk about 1km to each. The first sight was really interesting as it had a leopard marking site on a strangling Fig Tree. After the 6km walk (I never knew I would do so much of this walking lark) we visited the 2 watering holes where the other 2 camera sites were. On the way back we stopped at the site where they had put a cage in the hope of capturing and collaring a leopard. We then finished of creating our elephant for the cheetah enrichment which was great fun!

Here is a video of me running down Big Daddy the Sand dune. IT WAS SO FUN!!!!!!