Some shortcut

Dieter and I really should save our adventures for Saturday mornings rather than Sundays. This morning we decided to climb up the koppe to the cell tower. We left at 6am by the light of the moon, when the first lights of morning were just awakening over the horizon. At first it wasn’t bad walking because the cattle had eaten away most of the grass. But once we’d climbed above where the cattle graze, the grass was tall, often chest height. We wound our way along the fence up the steep precipice thick with yellow flowers. As we reached the top the sun had poured out over the valley below revealing astounding views. We could see Monkey Mountain, the lake, the whole of Okahandja and the road to Swakopmund stretching out beyond. We had a great view of Dieter’s plot, all his neighbors and the road to Gross Barmen following the Swakop River as it disappeared past the horizon heading out across the desert. Next time I’ll have to plan to spend some time there, but today I had to get back for church.

The way we came up would have been tricky going down with the tall grass making the steep rocks quite slippery, so while Dieter went that way with the dogs, I opted to jump the fence and walk down the access road through the nature reserve. With all the grass it was difficult to see the access road so I ended up following the water runoff which was easy enough because it was a mostly rocky path and not as much grass. Once I hit the river bed it was easy going and reminded me of hiking through the Grand Canyon with steep hills climbing quickly to my left and right. All the land around Von Bach Dam is a nature reserve which made for quite an eventful walk. Across the valley I saw four zebra looking oddly at me before they traipsed away to the other side of the koppe. I startled some kudu from their resting place and followed them down the river bed for a while, but the only view of them I saw was a little white tail some 50 yards away as it bounded into the bush. Since water takes the path of least resistance, the walk was easy enough, but it wound its way around every hill and koppe from here to Timbuktu! By the time I made it back, Dieter had beaten me by almost an hour, I was quite exhausted, lost my long sleeve Patriots shirt, and needless to say, I didn’t make it to church.