Photo Album: Twyfelfontein Photo Album
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After three days of wandering in the white dirt tracks of Etosha National Park, my car had turned literally white in colour......dust covered through and through. The dash board was practically fogged with white powder....
Fortunately, the caretaker allowed me to use the hose in an area behind the bathroom block to give the car a quick hosing.
The task of the day, was to get to Twyfelfontein for overnight, and visit the UNESCO listed Petrogylph ( "Rock Engravings") site, one of the biggest of its kind in Africa. It is only about 320 Km away, going via major highways, so it was an easy late morning departure just before 1100.
Just to get an idea how quickly the geology can change, only about 30Km from the white salt pan of Etosha down the road, suddenly, the landscape is dominated by red soil surrounded by green vegetation, as evidenced by these ant-hills along the roadside, very similar to those in the northern parts of Australia.
About 75 Km down the road, is the township of Oujo, it was a good place to get some lunch and fruits from the local supermarket OK Foods.
There is a local tourist center supposedly to showcase some of their local history and cultures, but it was either a white-elephant or was still being developed, not much was ready at all....
Some exposed trunks can be as long as 45m with parts still buried.
A tree trunk is fully mineralised over millions of years under certain environmental conditions, none of the original organic materials are left. What's left, before protection was installed, were free-for-all to gem prospectors.
With a bit of polishing, this cross section can be full of colours and shines like any gem stone would.
Before going to the UNESCO listed petroglyph site, I first drove pass some minor local attractions, alongside the nearby Burnt Mountain. These sites are manned by a some local rangers. Tips were very much expected and appreciated after they took me around, though not really necessary, however, this seems to be the local custom.
The most interesting one, is what they named the Organ Pipes, a geological feature formed by molten lava cooled slowly over a period of time, allowing formation of well aligned crystalline structures.
Pictographs of a giraffe surrounded by a couple of human feet.
Full of pictographs of different ages, news one covering old ones.
Some of the engravings were found amongst buried stones, due to earth quake movements over the millenniums.
A more modern one, with a bicycle ??
A Rhino with a hump.....
The famous and iconic Lion Man, a lion with man's toes and a pugmark at its tail tip.
I had also decided to take a dirt road towards Mt Brandberg, instead of bitumen, which was supposedly, quite scenic, where my next destination was, the White Lady Rock Painting site, another UNESCO listed heritage site.
As I was rounding a curve on the road after a local village, I saw a lone lady holding a body, waving at me frantically with an empty bottle. So I stopped further down, and she ran towards me, asking for some water. Without thinking, I gave her a big 2 Litre bottle, and then she asked for some foods, so I gave her a bag of bread and my bag of fruits leaving a small apple for myself, then I thought, the next town Uis is only about 40 Km away, so I gave her all the left over water as well !!
But when she started to ask for money as well, that's when I decided to leave.....my regret was to come later !
Another 15 Km or so down the narrow road, whilst descending into a steep and narrow gap through some bushes, I suddenly saw an expanse of soft sand at the bottom, my first instinct was to brake, but I was already 10m into the sands by the time I stopped. The car was well and truly stuck, with the front wheel deep in the sands.
What to do ! Doing nothing was not an option.
I hunted round for something to put underneath the spinning wheels to get traction, and was able to pick up a large piece of rusted steel sheet, it also worked as a spade for taking sands out of the underbelly of the car.
Drawing on my 4x4 experiences, the least to do was to lower the tire pressure. Fortunately, I brought a press gauge with me, and promptly lowered the pressures to 18 psi. No, it did not help enough !
It was a hot afternoon with the sun beaming down mercilessly ! Now, I am on a dry river bed with soft sands, with neither water nor food except a small apple. I ate the apple and calmed down.
With absolutely no other tools, I had limited options. Except to keep trying and hope that the daily bus running the route would turn up at some stage, perhaps tomorrow?! Camping there for a night should be OK, but no food !
And what is that two specks coming along on the river bed......two men on horses ! Then they galloped towards me, two local cowboys, hurrah !
We tried first reversing the car with them pushing from the front.
But that did not yield much ! More discussions...
More digging and shuffling things underneath the wheels as traction aids....
And I decided to take the risk by pushing the car forward, see if we can get enough momentum to run the width of the nearly 100 m of the bed of sands.
After getting everything ready, with some heavy pushing, we got some tractions and pressed on with more....wow, I suddenly found myself speeding across the soft sand after gaining enough momentums. By then, I had wasted a whole hour there.
After furiously thanking the two good men, and gave them a small sum as a measure of appreciations of their helps, I was on my way, another 10 Km or so later, I found the main road with bitumen, going towards Uis.
It was late in the afternoon, and White Lady Rock Painting site would be closing soon, so I thought I should go direct to Uis, then backtrack in the morning.
However, at the turnoff to White Lady, there was a sign advertising for accommodation just next to the site, by the distance it indicated. So instead of going to Uis and come back in the morning, a whole 40 Km worth, I decided to turn towards Brandberg Mountain where White Lady is.
The sun was low, and the mountain majestic.
However, as I reached White Lady, there was no sign of any White Lady Lodge as advertised. Baffled, and I asked the caretaker, he said, I had to go back to a turn off a few kilometers back and find the sign there. He said that White Lady Lodge is very well appointed.
Sure there is a turn off, but no sign post. I turned into the side track ( it really is not a road ), but after 10 Km down, I still could not find any sign of anything, and the sun had set.
I decided to cut my losses, and reverted out, arriving Uis just before complete darkness.
The night was cold and crisp, and the Milky Way was there to calm the long and eventful day.
And here I am, at Uis, Namibia, 6,248 Km from Johannesburg, after 26 days.
The task of the day, was to get to Twyfelfontein for overnight, and visit the UNESCO listed Petrogylph ( "Rock Engravings") site, one of the biggest of its kind in Africa. It is only about 320 Km away, going via major highways, so it was an easy late morning departure just before 1100.
Just to get an idea how quickly the geology can change, only about 30Km from the white salt pan of Etosha down the road, suddenly, the landscape is dominated by red soil surrounded by green vegetation, as evidenced by these ant-hills along the roadside, very similar to those in the northern parts of Australia.
About 75 Km down the road, is the township of Oujo, it was a good place to get some lunch and fruits from the local supermarket OK Foods.
There is a local tourist center supposedly to showcase some of their local history and cultures, but it was either a white-elephant or was still being developed, not much was ready at all....
After leaving Oujo, while on my way to Khorixas, I was trying to find the Mooihoek Caves indicated on the map, however, after a couple of tries with having to drive off the road into a couple of properties, 10 or 15 Km from their gates, to inquire, I gave up.
After fueling up at Khorixas, it was "hello gravel", good bye "asphalt" again, but by my calculations, I was only about 100 Km from Twyfelfontein, and it was just mid afternoon, with 3 more hours of day night, there was still plenty of time to swing into the Petrified Forest attraction, about 50Km down the road.
Petrified Forest is protected by conservation laws and is a National Monument of Namibia since the 1950s. It is an area full of tree trunks that had turned to stones ( "mineralisation" ) by a process called diagenesis. The end result is a tree trunk made of gems. The same phenomenon can be found in many countries, for example in Arizona of USA, central western Argentina, both of which are much bigger than this particular site.
However, it is estimated that the exposed area is only a tiny portion of the entire forest. Excavation must be done with extreme care lest they break into pieces.
But nevertheless, here are the beautiful "trees" that are half exposed.
Some exposed trunks can be as long as 45m with parts still buried.
A tree trunk is fully mineralised over millions of years under certain environmental conditions, none of the original organic materials are left. What's left, before protection was installed, were free-for-all to gem prospectors.
With a bit of polishing, this cross section can be full of colours and shines like any gem stone would.
I was introduced to an unique plant that is endemic in the Namibian deserts, the Welwitschia Mirabilis, (note : in one the photos above, one can be seen next to a petrified tree trunk ).
This plant is a living fossil, it can live in a zombie state and grows extremely slowly over a very long period, some has been found to be over 1000 years old, and can survive only just by absorbing fog moisture, it has long roots reaching watercourse deep underground.
The landscape after leaving the Petrified Forest became very Australian like, semi arid deserts with interesting hills everywhere,
As I drove along, I was mesmerized by the scenery, and total forgot to check my maps, nor the odometer. My mind was somehow led to believe that Twyfelfontein was just straight ahead. Then darkness slowly creeped in, I was at a lost, trying to look for any signs, but was too lazy to look at the map as I only had an electronic map in the computer. I was somewhat lost.
Finally, I stopped a 4x4 which came in the opposite direction, and .........what, I missed a turn off by 30 km, what turn off ?!!! And from there, another 30 Km to Twyfelfontein.
It wasn't fun following another car in the dark on a dirt road, the trail of dusts clouding visibility was over a 1 Km..........
Only if I cared to look at the map carefully, I would have noticed that there is a turn off to the south, just 30 Km before Twyfelfontein, saving a 60 Km wasted time in the darkness !!
However, the scenery was partly to blame, and a good compensation too.
To rub salt over the wound was, by the time I got to Twyfelfontein, it was well after 18:30 and in complete darkness, the lodge which I had in mind, the Twyfelfontein Country Lodge, could not even find a room for me, and they do not have campsites. Fortunately, with their helpful directions, I found a campsite in a nearby camping ground, where there was a group of orphan kids on a round-the-country excursions with their teachers and some Peace Corp volunteers. These kids were very noisy and merry as one would understand, as they were doing a trip of their life time...so I could not have a peaceful evening, what better to do than to go sitting out in the wilderness, to see falling stars and and be in one with the Milky Way.
Fortunately, the kids's minder quietened them down after 2100, and I was able to have a peaceful night.
It'd been a long day....
The morning light revealed the desert like surrounding, and the camping lodge's interesting thatched roof structure.
These orphan kids were doing a round-the-country trip.
The most interesting one, is what they named the Organ Pipes, a geological feature formed by molten lava cooled slowly over a period of time, allowing formation of well aligned crystalline structures.
A 15 minutes drive from Burnt Mountain, is the the main attraction of Twyfelfontein, the UNESCO listed Heritage Site of UI-IIAes. It is a site that is filled with Petroglyphs ( rock engravings ) that can be dated back to 6000 years ago.
The site is spread over a wide area called IUi-IIAes ( Jumping Waterhole ), an ancient settlement of hunter-gatherer dated back 6000 years ago. Here is the link to Wikipedia : Twyfelfontein Petroglyph Heritage site for a more detailed descriptions of the history of the site.
A small group of 4 of us were led by a ranger, who gave us a detailed tour and explained to us the interpretations of the site's historical and cultural values.
Of the 5000 or so stone age rock engravings, some of them can be dated back to 6000 years ago, left by stone age settlement of hunter gatherers of the Wilton Culture Groups, some others are left by the Kholkhoi people from 2000-2500 years ago.
The are mainly pictographs of animals, geometric shapes etc that they saw, and some conceived through their believes, e.g. the Lion Man.
Pictographs of a giraffe surrounded by a couple of human feet.
Full of pictographs of different ages, news one covering old ones.
Some of the engravings were found amongst buried stones, due to earth quake movements over the millenniums.
A more modern one, with a bicycle ??
A Rhino with a hump.....
The famous and iconic Lion Man, a lion with man's toes and a pugmark at its tail tip.
My general direction at this stage, was going towards the Namibian coast, the Atlantic coast to the west. I left Twyfelfontein just before lunch, and headed into the unknown dirt road ahead...
Along the way, there were a few well dressed, looked like secondary school kids wandering on the road out of nowhere, for I could not see any townships or villages marked on the map. They were not in bad shape, but wanted to have some water, as they did not bring any water with them...so I gave them one of the 1 litre bottles, thinking how silly for them to walk on such a road without any water !!!
As I was rounding a curve on the road after a local village, I saw a lone lady holding a body, waving at me frantically with an empty bottle. So I stopped further down, and she ran towards me, asking for some water. Without thinking, I gave her a big 2 Litre bottle, and then she asked for some foods, so I gave her a bag of bread and my bag of fruits leaving a small apple for myself, then I thought, the next town Uis is only about 40 Km away, so I gave her all the left over water as well !!
But when she started to ask for money as well, that's when I decided to leave.....my regret was to come later !
Another 15 Km or so down the narrow road, whilst descending into a steep and narrow gap through some bushes, I suddenly saw an expanse of soft sand at the bottom, my first instinct was to brake, but I was already 10m into the sands by the time I stopped. The car was well and truly stuck, with the front wheel deep in the sands.
I did not take notice of the river crossing on the map, a most fundamental mistake one could make in such a terrain, and the thick bushes before the crossing masking it from distance view did not help.
What to do ! Doing nothing was not an option.
I hunted round for something to put underneath the spinning wheels to get traction, and was able to pick up a large piece of rusted steel sheet, it also worked as a spade for taking sands out of the underbelly of the car.
Drawing on my 4x4 experiences, the least to do was to lower the tire pressure. Fortunately, I brought a press gauge with me, and promptly lowered the pressures to 18 psi. No, it did not help enough !
It was a hot afternoon with the sun beaming down mercilessly ! Now, I am on a dry river bed with soft sands, with neither water nor food except a small apple. I ate the apple and calmed down.
With absolutely no other tools, I had limited options. Except to keep trying and hope that the daily bus running the route would turn up at some stage, perhaps tomorrow?! Camping there for a night should be OK, but no food !
And what is that two specks coming along on the river bed......two men on horses ! Then they galloped towards me, two local cowboys, hurrah !
We tried first reversing the car with them pushing from the front.
But that did not yield much ! More discussions...
More digging and shuffling things underneath the wheels as traction aids....
And I decided to take the risk by pushing the car forward, see if we can get enough momentum to run the width of the nearly 100 m of the bed of sands.
After getting everything ready, with some heavy pushing, we got some tractions and pressed on with more....wow, I suddenly found myself speeding across the soft sand after gaining enough momentums. By then, I had wasted a whole hour there.
After furiously thanking the two good men, and gave them a small sum as a measure of appreciations of their helps, I was on my way, another 10 Km or so later, I found the main road with bitumen, going towards Uis.
It was late in the afternoon, and White Lady Rock Painting site would be closing soon, so I thought I should go direct to Uis, then backtrack in the morning.
However, at the turnoff to White Lady, there was a sign advertising for accommodation just next to the site, by the distance it indicated. So instead of going to Uis and come back in the morning, a whole 40 Km worth, I decided to turn towards Brandberg Mountain where White Lady is.
The sun was low, and the mountain majestic.
However, as I reached White Lady, there was no sign of any White Lady Lodge as advertised. Baffled, and I asked the caretaker, he said, I had to go back to a turn off a few kilometers back and find the sign there. He said that White Lady Lodge is very well appointed.
Sure there is a turn off, but no sign post. I turned into the side track ( it really is not a road ), but after 10 Km down, I still could not find any sign of anything, and the sun had set.
I decided to cut my losses, and reverted out, arriving Uis just before complete darkness.
The night was cold and crisp, and the Milky Way was there to calm the long and eventful day.
And here I am, at Uis, Namibia, 6,248 Km from Johannesburg, after 26 days.
Next Post : My first non-sunset on the Altantic Coast
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