Further north and inland we go through Damaraland. Very arid semi desert with enormous rock formations turning to blood red in the sunset. These formations also had  the early Bushman,s paintings and engravings. They date from 6000 to 2000 years old and are all most fascinating.

 Its also getting very hot now, well into the 30's and we camped for 4 nights through this area, the first site only had a toilet but in the next 3 we had our own basin, toilet and shower, the hot water  morning and evening being provided by a donkey boiler. All individual sites too, luxury camping!

Now in northern Damaraland and staying in an elegant tented lodge, all meals and drinks provided. The drive into the mountain camp itself took an hour but it was superb. Not only were we rewarded with immediate sightings of giraffe, mountain zebra,oryx, springbok and kudu but the 17 km track was a fantastic off-road route through fabulous scenery and at times quite challenging, off-roading doesn't get better than crawling down a rocky route into a drying river bed to discover a herd of zebra grazing at the bottom.

They are lucky here that they have some springs in the area so it attracts the wild animals and they remain. A game drive in the evening resulted in us seeing lots of the animals already mentioned plus 3 rare desert elephants (one being a young one), a pride of lions and 3 cheetahs, It was amazing.

This morning a dozen or more kudu clattered next to the tent and we heard lions during the night, it has become a real safari. We also took a long walk through the local mountains, seeing fascinating rock formations and mineral deposits everywhere.