Exploring the Deadvlei

The deadvlei is an area that used to be a lush forest with a river running through a millenia ago, but as the dunes moved in closer and closer, the river was cut off. The resulting freak of nature is quite spectacular, as the area is now too dry to allow the remaining trees to decompose. So, for the past 900 years, the trees in this plain have not changed, petrified in a freak occurence.

Getting there was quite a challenge, and we had to use our truck's four wheel drive for the first time. Side note: I had misunderstood the pick-up briefing and used the "wrong" type of 4WD, and we were quite unsure about what to do with all the beeping that was happening. Note that 4HI is for general offroading, and 4LO is only for when you are about to get stuck. This was explained to us by a helpful local driver we met along the way.

Regardless, we managed to get across the deep sand tracks, and from a parking lot set up by the park authority we just had to walk another kilometer to reach teh actual deadvlei. Being there, surrounded by sand, salt deposits, clay, and dehydrated tree skeletons, was pretty cool. We were also surrounded by very large dunes that were around 400m tall.

Of course, that intrigued Anne sufficiently that she couldn't stop herself from wanting to climb up another dune. I had had enough of dune climbing for the day, passed her a bottle of water, and told her we'd meet at the parking lot.

I used the time I had and chatted up some of the guides that were in the area (hired by other people), and managed to find out more interesting information about the area from them. They also explained more to me about the different animals that were living in this "dead" area without any water - a surprising amount! Czytaj więcej