Overlanding Day 3: Deadvlei, Big Daddy Dune and Bushman’s Desert Camp

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Namibia, Overlanding Short Link

Today the plan was for a very early morning to see sunrise over Deadvlei, before climbing up the tallest dune in Namibia at 325m and then making the drive to our next stop, at Bushman’s Desert Camp to break up the journey to Walvis Bay. The stats below exclude the driving in Sossusvlei. The drive to Deadvlei Parking We set our alarms at 4:15 so that we could be packed up and in a good position in the queue for the inner gate. The drive through the park to the campsite along the tar road was, well fast, maybe not the best idea in the dark with animals around, but at least I wasn’t at the front of the convoy so it was somewhat safer. When we arrived at the main parking, I elected not to let the tyres down to the recommended 1.5 bar, and just continued with the pressure we had been using on the dirt roads in order to save time. Thankfully this did not result in us getting stuck, but after one unnerving section near the start I engaged low ratio and diff lock for the. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 2: Lake Oanob Resort to Sesriem & Sossusvlei

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today was a day where we packed an awful lot into a single day, and had a fantastic, if not slightly tiring, time while doing it. It also happened to be Christmas Day, not that it really felt like it due to the heat and the activity packed day. We drove from Lake Oanob Resort to Sesriem via the Spreetshoogte Pass. Once we were at Sesriem we first explored the canyon, before returning to the campsite for an early dinner and then heading out to the dunes for some photography and then to climb Dune 45 for sunset Lake Oanob We woke up fairly early knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us, while also wanting to make the most of the day when we arrived. Our day stated off wonderfully watching two Southern Masked Weavers building a nest, while sat eating our breakfast overlooking Lake Oanob. Breakfast and packing up the truck was not the quickest affair, given that it was the first time we were getting used to everything, but we were on the road by 7:30. The journey to Sesriem via the Spreetshoogte Pass The. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 1: Windhoek to Lake Oanob Resort

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today our plan was simple, collect the 4×4, do some shopping and take a short drive down to Lake Oanob Resort to start our trip. Summary: Our plan largely went as expected, the pickup from Bushlore took longer than expected, we had assumed two hours and it took closer to three, but in fairness there was a lot of information for them to share about their very well thought out vehicles, lets just hope we don’t need to use the high lift jack! On our way out of Windhoek we stopped in a supermarket to pick up some food for the next week and some other general missing items we had already left behind or decided were not good enough (power adapters and a hat). Again this took quite a while but eventually we were ready to set off down to our destination, to sort out the van and enjoy dinner. While were were driving down south on one of the few tar rods in Namibia, we quickly saw plenty of wildlife, including boks&baboons, along with plenty of stunning scenery. As were were arriving I remembered that there was an. Read the full article…

Boulders Beach Penguins

Alastair BegleySouth Africa, Wildlife Short Link

With a short window until we had to be at Cape Town airport to head to Namibia, we had time to visit the classic Boulders Beach to see a colony of African Penguins which are unfortunately an endangered species, in 1910 there was an estimated 1.5 million African Penguins, but only around 10% remained at the end of the 20th century. The uncontrolled harvesting of penguin eggs (as a source of food) and guano scraping nearly drove the species to extinction. We arrived later in the morning as we had a slower start to the day after the previous day’s wine tasking, stopping en route in Stellenbosch for some brunch and excellent coffee. This unfortunately meant that we didn’t have time to head down to swim in boulders beach, just having enough time to go and see the Penguins from the boardwalks over Foxy Beach. It really was quite remarkable seeing penguins in their natural habitat, especially as this area is so surrounded by a residential area. The species of the bird is Spheniscus demersus, and this colony has grown from two breading pairs in 1982 to around 2200 penguins. Read the full article…

Vineyards near Cape Town

Alastair BegleySouth Africa Short Link

One of the things which I definitely wanted todo while near Cape Town was to do some wine tasting, due to a few days of non-flyable weather, I ended up having more days tasting wine than expected, no bad thing! So in the end I had two days of wine tasting near Porterville, one day with Becky when I picked her up and then we had two days staying in Franschhoek. Nederburg, Paarl My first experience was at the beautiful Nederburg wine estate near Paarl. It was really very special driving in down the drive with the views over the vineyards and the mountains. To start with I enjoyed a tasting of 4 wines, along with cheeses. This was exceptionally good value and it was a great way to start the day. After the wine tasting, I headed to the restaurant where I enjoyed a fantastic lunch of mussels followed by ostrich steak, all of which was very well cooked. Unfortunately there was no more wine with lunch as I had to driver after. After lunch I headed to the Drachenstein Lion Park. Saronsberg, Talburg On another non-flying day we. Read the full article…

Porterville Open Paragliding Competition

Alastair BegleyParagliding, South Africa Short Link

After my first paragliding competition in North Macedonia in August, I signed up to the South Africa Pre-PWC/Porterville Open, at Porterville in South Africa. This was to form the first part of my extended holiday between jobs. I arrived on the Wednesday before the competition, with the aim of having a few days of flying before the competition to familiarise myself with the area. However unfortunately the conditions were not that good, as I arrived too late to fly on the Wednesday, and was too tired anyway. On the Thursday I did a short flight back to the lodge, however I was still feeling the effects of the travel and was quite airsick, hence the short flight. The Friday was a non-flying day, see wine and lions, so all that was left was the flight on Saturday. Saturday was a strange day, as it was the practice day for the competition, but there was no official task and no retrieve, and until the morning we did not even know there was an official lift up to launch. As the XC conditions looked good, a friend and I decided to hire. Read the full article…

Drachenstein Lion Park

Alastair BegleySouth Africa, Wildlife Short Link

On a non-flying day I decided to head to the Drachenstein Lion Park, which is a sanctuary for lions who have been rescued from persecution by humans, but which are unable to be released into the wild due to having been bred in captivity. Prior to going I did some research, and it does appear that this lion park is regarded as actually being a sanctuary for the lions, who are well looked after and now have the minimum of direct human contact. It was wonderful to see the lions, who all had lots of space, but I was sad at the same time reading the stories of what humans had done to these lions (and one tiger).

Ochsenkopf and Stanser Joch Hike&Fly

Alastair BegleyAustria, Paragliding Short Link

Originally I had other plans for today, but the forecast was just too great in the alps for those plans, so I ended up heading to the Stanser Joch near the Achensee for a hike and fly. I had the expectation of wonderful views to the south and the main alpine ridge and to the north over the Achensee. I decided to walk to up the Weißenbachtal to get to the summit, as I thought this might provide more varied routes than the other option which follows the eastern ridge. I am very glad I chose this as it meant that I made a detour to the Ochsenkopf, which was the highlight of the walk. The walk up the Weißenbachtal was up easy forest track to the Weißenbachsattel, which was also surprisingly windy at times given the forecast for almost nil wind up to quite a high altitude. From the Weißenbachsattel the forest track turned into single track, which was partly covered by snow at times depending on the aspect. From here the ascent became steeper and my lack of fitness was really showing, especially where the snow became deeper,. Read the full article…