This morning at 9am we left for a 2-week road trip to Namibia. It was a pretty uneventful first drive today covering just over 500 km as we headed north out of Cape Town on the Cape Namibia route. Once we had cleared the city limits the traffic was very light and the drive was really easy.

We stopped at the Engen One-Stop on the N7 for two reasons – to refuel and to do some birding. It is the 75th anniversary of the Cape Bird Club (https://www.capebirdclub.org.za/) and they are running a challenge this year to see how many birds you can see in the Cape Town metropole. The Engen is almost at the border and some people had seen some birds there previously which we haven’t seen yet as part of the challenge so we took the opportunity and did manage to add 1 more to our tally for the challenge.

Our next stop was for biltong & droewors at Trawal. If you have followed any of our previous trips to Namibia then you would know that we always stop at this store. They really do have good biltong and droewors. A quick lunch stop further north and then straight through to where we are staying tonight just outside Springbok. We are staying at Sperrgebiet Lodge (https://sperrgebietlodge.co.za/). It really does feel like in the middle of nowhere. Biggest problem being it is currently 32 degrees (4pm) and while the chalet does have air-conditioning – it isn’t very powerful and now has just gone off because of loadshedding. The lady on check in told us they are in the middle of a heatwave. H wanted to say “you live in Springbok, isn’t 30+ degrees in summer fairly standard?!” but she held back. You can hear the wind it is so quiet here.

24 birds so far including 1 lifer this afternoon which we saw at the place we are staying. The majority we just spotted while driving. Aiming for at least 200 in the next two weeks and hoping we get more.

Until tomorrow …

P & H