THE  NAMIB-NAUKLUFT  NATIONAL PARK

People have different reactions when they encounter a desert for the first time. A few find it threatening, too arid and empty, so they rush from city to city, through the desert, to avoid spending any time there at all. Some try hard to like it for those same reasons, but ultimately find little which holds their attention. Finally there are those who stop and give the place their time, delighting in the stillness, strange beauty, and sheer uniqueness of the environment. The desert's changing patterns and subtly adapted life forms fascinate them, drawing them back time after time.

Covering almost 50,000km², the Namib-Naukluft National Park is one of the largest national parks in Africa, protecting one of the oldest deserts on earth, South America’s Atacama Desert being the other contender for this title. The Namib’s scenery is stunning, and its wildlife fascinating; you just need to make the time to stop and observe it.

The sections in this chapter run roughly south-to-north. Note that the NamibRand, Sesriem, the Naukluft and Solitaire are very close together.

History

The park has grown gradually to its present size. In 1907 the area between the Kuiseb and Swakop Rivers was proclaimed as ‘Game Reserve No 3’. Later it was augmented by the addition of the Sandwich Harbour in 1941.

In 1956 the Kuiseb Canyon and Swakop River Valley were added, along with the Welwitschia Plains, and in 1968 the park was renamed The Namib Desert Park. In 1979 a large area of what was the protected ‘Diamond Area No 2’ was added, including Sesriem and Sossusvlei, and the park was officially joined to the Naukluft Park, creating the Namib-Naukluft National Park.

Most recently, in 1986, the rest of ‘Diamond Area No 2’ was added, taking its southern boundary as far south as the main road to Lüderitz, and increasing its area to its present size of 49,768km² – larger than Switzerland, or about the same as Maryland and New Jersey combined.

Flora and fauna

Though the Naukluft’s wildlife is discussed separately, the flora and fauna elsewhere in the Namib-Naukluft are similar, dependent more on the landscape than on precise location. (Dr Mary Seely’s book, The Namib, is a superb and simple guide to this area, widely available in Windhoek and Swakopmund. See Further Reading.) The four basic types of environment found here, and some of their highlights, are:

Sand-dunes
Dunes are everybody’s idea of a desert, and generally thought of as being bare and lifeless. Whilst this is not inaccurate for many deserts, the Namib is sufficiently old for endemic species to have evolved.

Various grasses grow on some of the more stable dunes, but most of the vegetable matter comes from wind-blown detritus. This collects at the bottom of the dunes, to be eaten by fish-moths (silver-fish), crickets and the many tenebrionid beetles – or tok tokkies, as they are known – near the base of the food chain. Particular tenebrionid species occur in specific environments, with those in the coastal fog belt adapting ingeniously to harness the available moisture.

These then provide food for spiders, geckos, lizards, and chameleons which, in turn, fall prey to sidewinder snakes. Rare Grant’s golden moles eat any small beetles or larvae that they can catch, and birds are mobile enough to move in and out of the dunes in search of the smaller animals. The dune lark is endemic to this region, and is seldom found outside the dune areas.

River valleys and pans
The river valleys that run through the Namib are linear oases. Though dry on the surface, their permanent underground water sustains trees and bushes, like the camel thorn (Acacia erioloba) and nara melon (Acanthosicyos horrida), found in the middle of the great dune-sea at Sossusvlei.

Other common river-valley trees include the anaboom (Acacia albida), shepherd’s tree (Boscia albitrunca, easily identified by its white trunk), the wild green-hair tree (Parkinsonia africana), and the marvellously weeping false ebony, Euclea pseudebenus.

The lush vegetation found in these valleys makes them a favourite for numerous insects and birds, as well as larger mammals like gemsbok, kudu and springbok. These are the most likely areas to find nocturnal cats from leopard to caracal, especially where the rivers cut through mountains rather than dunes.

Gravel plains
Throughout the desert, and especially north of the Kuiseb River, the Namib has many expansive, flat plains of rock and stone. These come alive during the rains, when they will quickly be covered with tall thin grass and creeping yellow flowers, attracting herds of gemsbok, springbok and even Hartmann’s mountain zebra. During drier times there are fewer large mammals around, but still at night black-backed jackal, aardwolf and the occasional aardvark forage for termites, while bat-eared and Cape foxes scavenge for insects, reptiles, and anything else edible.

Spotted hyena and even the rare brown hyena are sometimes recorded here. Both leave distinctive white droppings, but only the sociable spotted hyenas make such eerie, mournful calls.

Resident larger birds include ostrich, secretary birds, Rüppell’s korhaan and Ludwig’s bustard, while enthusiastic ‘twitchers’ will seek the pale, apparently insignificant Gray’s lark (amongst other larks), which is endemic to the gravel plains of the Namib.

Inselbergs and mountain outcrops
Throughout the Namib there are mountains, often of granite or limestone. Some, like many between Sesriem and Sossusvlei, become submerged beneath the great dune-sea. Others, especially north of the Kuiseb River, jut up through the flat desert floor like giant worm casts on a well-kept lawn. These isolated mountains surrounded by gravel plains are inselbergs (from the German for island-mountain) – and they have their own flora and fauna. Euphorbia, Acacia, Commiphora, Zygophyllum and Aloe species are common, whilst the succulent Lithops (often called living rocks, for their pebble-like shape) occur here, but not so frequently.

Many inselbergs are high enough to collect moisture from morning fogs, which sustain succulents and aloes, and with them whole communities of invertebrates. Temporary pools in crevices can be particularly interesting, and there’s a whole microcosm of small water creatures that lay drought-resistant eggs. These survive years of desiccation, to hatch when the pools do finally fill.

Being open land these make perfect perches for raptors – and lappet-faced vultures, greater kestrels, and red-necked falcons are typical of this environment. Also watch for sandgrouse, which congregate at water around dusk and dawn, and other well-camouflaged foraging birds.

NAUKLUFT MOUNTAINS

An hour's drive northeast of Sesriem, the main escarpment juts out into the desert forming a range known as the Naukluft Mountains. In 1968 these were protected within the Naukluft Mountain Zebra Park – to conserve a rare breeding population of Hartmann's mountain zebra. Shortly afterwards, land was bought to the west of the mountains and added to the park, forming a corridor linking these mountains into the Namib National Park. This allowed gemsbok, zebra and other game to migrate between the two, and in 1979 the parks were formally combined into the Namib-Naukluft National Park.

SESRIEM AREA AND SOSSUSVLEI

When people speak of visiting the Namib Desert, this is often where they mean. The classic desert scenery around Sesriem and Sossusvlei is the stuff that postcards are made of – enormous apricot dunes with gracefully curving ridges, invariably pictured in the sharp light of dawn with a photogenic gemsbok or feathery acacia adjacent.

Sesriem and Sossusvlei lie on the Tsauchab River, one of two large rivers (the other being the Tsondab, further north) which flow westward into the great dune-field of the central Namib, but never reach the ocean. Both end by forming flat white pans dotted with green trees, surrounded by spectacular dunes – islands of life within a sea of sand.

SOLITAIRE AREA

North of the Sesriem area, the C36 leads into the equally beautiful C13 road, often with dunes on one side and mountains on the other. These are the main routes from Sesriem to Swakopmund, and so are relatively busy (typically a few cars per hour).

Solitaire is a large dot on the MET’s map, but a small place. It is just a few buildings, run by the helpful, if idiosyncratic, Pete; but is so atmospheric, typifying a middle-of-nowhere stop in the desert, that it’s been the location for several film and advert scenes.

THE PARK’S NORTHERN SECTION

Between the normally dry beds of the Swakop and Kuiseb Rivers, the desert is largely rock and stone. Though the area has few classic desert scenes of shifting dunes, the landscapes are still striking and certainly no less memorable. They range from the deeply incised canyons of the Swakop river valley to the open plains around Ganab, flat and featureless but for the occasional isolated inselberg.

In the northern corner of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, the Welwitschia Drive is perhaps best treated as a short excursion from Swakopmund. Don’t forget to get a permit first.

This is a route through the desert along which are thirteen numbered stone beacons at points of particular interest. It takes about four hours to drive, stopping at each place to get out and explore, and culminates at one of the country's largest, and hence oldest, Welwitschia plants.