Wilkinson's World

Archive for November, 2009

It is not a simple matter, reaching Sandwich Harbour, just 50-odd kilometers south of Walvis Bay on the Atlantic Ocean coast of Namibia. Lying within the Namib Naukluft National Park, it is jealously guarded by towering sand dunes that plunge straight down into the cold waters of the Atlantic, leaving very little flat and firm sand at the water’s edge, even at low tide. There is no easy access.

Dunes en route to Sandwich Harbour

However, for keen birders, it is worth putting in the effort required to reach this important RAMSAR site where, at times, there may be upwards of 200,000 birds present. The area between Sandwich Harbour and Walvis Bay is also home to around 90% of the world population of Chestnut-banded plover.

Chestnut-banded plover

We decided not to drive ourselves on this challenging trip, but to rely on the experience of a local tour operator who, as we understood it, ran regular trips to the isolated spot. Hmmm. We left Walvis Bay at about nine in the morning and were very soon deep in the “Sand Sea” that makes up the Namib Desert between Walvis Bay and Luderitz Bay. No roads. No Tracks. Just dunes, one after the other without end.

En route to Sandwich Harbour - No place to drive!

The Land Rover Defender coped quite well with the soft sand, although it was defeated by many of the steeper dunes of soft sand that had us sliding backwards or, perhaps worse, semi-sideways, when forward momentum was lost. It was not possible to reach any of the firmer sand at the edge of the sea because the tide was too high and access blocked, and eventually our guide advised us that we would have to walk the last stretch.

Fair enough. Off we went.

Tricky even to walk!

At about eleven o’clock, still making our way down the coast, knee deep in ice-cold water most of the time, our intrepid guide said that he would return to the Land Rover and see whether he could find a way to Sandwich Harbour as the tide would be retreating by now. We should carry on just a little further and we would reach Sandwich Harbour, where he would join us shortly. I never saw him again until after 5 o’clock! That is, after I had visited Sandwich Harbour on my own (Jane was really ill and, finding a wonderful spot with lots of bird activity, sat out the last stretch to Sandwich Harbour), and after I had walked back to where we had left the Land Rover. Thank goodness not all guides are as irresponsible as this thoughtless soul!

Flamingo in the wonderful setting of the dunes at Sandwich Harbour

The bird life is astonishing along this stretch of coast, though, and that was the main reason for the trip. Gulls, terns and plovers of all varieties. Flamingoes. Avocets. Herons. Ducks. Cormorants. All in numbers that would be difficult to find elsewhere.

A Cape teal in the brackish water that seeps through the dunes

Pied avocet

Incidentally, in spite of its name, Sandwich Harbour has never been a harbour at all, although it served as a refuge for whaling ships and the like in years gone by. A misnomer, really. Like calling the fellow who drove us on this trip a “guide”.

We were up very early last week hoping to see the Leonid meteorite shower, but unfortunately we have a huge hill behind our property that obscured our view.  The Leonid shower occurs every year in November, but this year it was more visible than usual due to the phase of the moon being new,  making the night sky much darker than in previous years.

I have mentioned in earlier blogs that the Namibian sky is spectacular for astronomy – one can almost always be guaranteed a cloud-free view of the milky way, millions upon millions of beautiful stars, meteorites and occasional comets.

On the subject of meteorites, though, did you know that the largest meteorite in the world is found in Namibia?  I’m referring to the Hoba meteorite near Grootfontein.  This magnificent object landed some 80 000 years ago – hopefully there were no humans or animals directly in its path!

The Hoba meteorite found on the farm 'Hoba West'

It didn’t break up on its journey to the earth, however, and to quote Wikipedia “it is inferred that the earth’s atmosphere slowed the object down to the point that it fell to the surface at terminal velocity, thereby remaining intact and causing little excavation.  The meteorite is unusual in that it is flat on both the major surfaces, possibly causing it to have skipped across the top of the atmosphere in the way a flat stone skips on water.”

Weighing in at over 50 tons - this is one big meteorite

The meteorite has been declared a National Monument and a tourist centre has been opened at the site.   Every year thousands of visitors come to Namibia to see it or include it in their travels.  This board gives a little bit more information about its composition.

Information board at the Visitors Centre

In Windhoek’s Post Office Mall one can see fragments of the Gibeon meteorite shower, which was one of the most extensive showers ever experienced on earth.  They have been beautifully mounted and tagged so that visitors can read all about how they fell and what they are composed of.   Other fragments can be seen at the museum of the Geological Survey of Namibia and in museums around the world.

Far more visible than being in a museum

They were discovered in 1838 by James Alexander and get their name from the area around Gibeon where they were found.  Long before their discovery the native folks of the Gibeon area had been using the meteorite pieces to make spear points and other implements.

A look inside a meteorite

The Gibeon meteorites are classified as octahedrites and consist of taenite and kamacite – crystalline varieties of an iron-nickel alloy.  As can be seen from the scratches on the metal above, vandalism is always a problem – or is it just curiosity?

Our love of birding gives us a wonderful excuse to travel from one end of the country to another in search of new birds.  Earlier this year we had the privilege of visiting the little west coast town of Lamberts Bay, 250kms north of Cape Town, where their resident Cape gannet colony is a major attraction for birders and tourists alike.  We took a chance going there without first establishing that the birds were actually there, but, fortunately for us, the feathered inhabitants of Bird Island were home in all their glory.

Cape gannet colony

For birdwatchers, the colony at Lamberts Bay is the most accessible of the six gannet colonies in South Africa and Namibia. They are a spectacular sight in their tightly packed community and it’s an awesome experience to observe their behaviour as they wheel, land and settle into their designated positions.

So graceful in flight

There have been some unfortunate incidents in recent years of Cape fur seals attacking and eating the gannets on their nests, causing the remaining birds to leave the area.  This was a bitter blow to the residents of Lamberts Bay who assumed that they would always have their gannets to pull in the visitors.  In 2006 after the birds had been gone for six months, drastic and ingenious measures had to be taken to entice them back.  Although some birds were circling overhead, they were afraid to return to their nests.

Working on the premise that hunters successfully attract ducks with decoys, it was decided to try the same approach on Bird Island.  A local artist made a mould of a gannet out of plaster of Paris and produced fifty life-size decoy birds which were placed on the deserted nests.  The ploy worked and gannets immediately started returning to their nests. Two months later ten thousand gannets had been lured back.

A tightly packed community

There are approximately twenty thousand pairs of breeding gannets on Bird Island, which actually isn’t an island at all, but an area joined to the mainland by a short causeway.  It’s a very smelly place so it’s a relief to go into the bird hide to get away from the stench of the guano.  From the hide one has a magnificent close up view of the birds as they gather in their thousands, performing their little rituals of bowing, stretching, neck twisting and beak tapping.  Their various movements all have significance within the colony and even their cries identify them as they come in to land.

Their plumage is magnificent

Their well-defined landing strip on the outer edge of the colony is made out of crushed sea shells.  We watched amused as they made ungainly landings, using not only their feet but their chests to halt them.  Take-off also looked laborious, but once in the air, with a wingspan of up to 1.8m, they assumed a grace and beauty of their own.

Take off!

Breeding pairs remain together for a number of seasons and lay one egg a year in August or September.  Incubation takes between forty-two to forty-six days and is carried out by both parents using their foot webs to wrap around the eggs.  The juveniles are easy to distinguish amongst the adults as they are black.  They gain weight rapidly and become fledglings when they are between 95-105 days old.

An enormous wingspan

The seal attacks highlighted the tenuous thread that binds the gannet colony to the Island and the residents of Lamberts Bay have to remain vigilant to ensure that these beautiful birds are kept safe from predators, gulls and tourists alike.   Cape gannets (Morus capensis) are on the list of vulnerable birds due to the diminishing supplies of fish.

Sossusvlei is generally regarded as one of the most spectacular landscapes in Namibia. The ‘vlei’ itself is situated at the point where the Tsauchab River dams up at the foot of a spectacular series of sand dunes, its route to the sea blocked.  The sand that makes up these massive dunes, amongst the biggest in the world, was carried here by the east winds from central Namibia and owe their distinctive overall colour to the presence of iron oxide, with streaks of black contributed by magnetite and red by traces of garnet.

En route to Sossusvlei

We have been to Sossusvlei several times, the most recent trips being with Jane’s son Mick (who set up this website for us – see lookatbowen.com), and we also included a visit to Sossusvlei in a short round trip from Windhoek with some friends, Duncan and Beryl, taking in the Kuiseb Canyon and Sesriem Canyon.

It is a leisurely drive on the gravel C26 from Windhoek to the Gamsberg Pass. From the top of the pass there are quite spectacular views of the Kuiseb River in the valley below and after a short stop we moved on to the Kuiseb Canyon.

The Kuiseb Canyon is carved by the Kuiseb River, and is well known as the area in which two German geologists, Henno Martin and Hermann Korn, lived for more than two years in order to avoid internment during World War II. Henno Martin’s book “The Sheltering Desert” gives a vivid account of this experience and is well worth reading.

The Kuiseb River seldom flows on the surface and even more seldom does it reach the sea, but it plays a very important role in preventing the northward march of the sand dunes.

Sesriem Canyon, on the Tsauchab River, gets its name from the days when the early travelers needed to draw water from the river in the canyon and, because of its depth, tied six leather thongs together, fastened a bucket to the end and lowered it to the pools below. In Afrikaans “ses” is six and “riem” is the name for the leather thongs; hence Sesriem.

Sesriem is the “gateway” to Sossusvlei in the Namib Naukluft National Park and there is a plethora of accommodation available in the area. We stayed at Betesda Lodge, which was very comfortable, albeit a little further from Sossusvlei than some of the alternatives. The following morning we left Betesda quite early for the short drive to Sossusvlei.

Located about 50km inland from the Atlantic Ocean, Sossusvlei and the neighbouring Deadvlei and Hidden Vlei lie at an altitude of between 550 and 560 metres above sea level, with the dunes around the vlei rising 80 to 110 metres above this. The highest dune in the area is thought to be Dune 7 (apparently the seventh dune after crossing the Tsauchab River, and not to be confused with the famous Dune 7 near Walvis Bay) at approximately 380 metres.

These dunes are called “Star Dunes” and are given their characteristic shapes by the winds that blow from different directions as the seasons change. The dunes are therefore fairly stable and are not moving in a particular direction under the influence of the wind.

Of particular delight to photographers  is the vlei close to Sossusvlei itself  known as Deadvlei, named after the eerie skeletal remains of ancient-looking Camelthorn trees found in the pan. Extremely photogenic, depictions of this moody spot can be found in almost every guide book or coffee table book on Namibia!

From Sossusvlei we returned to Windhoek via the spectacular Spreetshoogte Pass, reportedly the steepest pass in Namibia.

If, when you see the term “Spanish Moss”, you immediately think of the 1976 song by Gordon Lightfoot, you should probably get out more.

In the pristine river swamps of Honey Island, just outside New Orleans, Spanish Moss is the name given to the bromeliad that can be seen hanging from the gnarled cypress trees rising from the shallow water of the swamp and contributing to the somewhat gothic appearance to the landscape. The Honey Island area is reputedly one of the wildest habitats left in the USA.

Spanish Moss adorning the trees at Honey Island Swamp

There are several companies that offer boat trips to the swamps in the vicinity of New Orleans, and during a very short visit to the city in October 2009 I chose “Cajun Encounters” for a morning swamp tour. I had no particular reason for choosing this company, save for the advertising pamphlets at the hotel, but it turned out to be a most enjoyable and informative outing.

At the start of the swamp tour

Time stands still in this 70,000 acre Nature Preserve and save for a few notices fixed to the trees and the small boatload of tourists up ahead, there is, superficially, little obvious evidence of human impact once in the swamp proper.

Honey Island Swamp

There have been reported sighting s of the Louisiana version of Bigfoot in these swamps and it is quite easy to imagine that the shadowy movement at the edge of your peripheral vision – gone the very instant you turned your head – could have been him. Locally this version of Bigfoot ia called “Wookie” and is  supposedly the result of interbreeding between a chimpanzee that escaped from a circus and the local alligator population.

The water is often covered with a living blanket of green that looks solid enough to walk on and which closes quickly behind the boat to leave no trace of our passing. The eerie shadows and the trees draped with moss, weave a fantasy into which myths of gremlins and goblins and trolls and Bigfoot would fit quite comfortably.

The floating carpet between the trees

In reality, we are told, there are numerous alligators and other animals in the swamp – wild boar, deer, wolves and an endless variety of snakes. In truth on our short two-hour trip we saw naught with four legs but one small alligator and a few turtles.

Turtles in Honey Island Swamp

Young alligator

Birds are fairly numerous but we found animals to be conspicuous by their absence; the less obvious impact of our destructive species. Hunting drove the alligators to the edge of extinction in the area, although they are now staging a comeback thanks to local conservation efforts; and no doubt the absence of other animals has the same cause. And the trees, as magnificent as they are, are mostly fairly young as the older and bigger trees were harvested for their timber in times gone by.

Honey Island Swamp

Honey Island gets its name, not surprisingly, from the erstwhile presence of bees in the area, and it lies between the East Pearl and the West Pearl Rivers. Many of the houses along the river are built on stilts to keep them above the soggy ground, but in spite of this some seem to be slowly sinking into the soft ground below.

House on the West Pearl River

House on the West Pearl River

A greater threat to the houses than sinking is that of being blown away, and in 2005 Hurricane Katrina saw several of the houses blown from their supports and into the swamp.

There was a house here before Hurricane Katrina

But back to Spanish Moss. This was at one time an important export from Louisiana, with a value of over $2.5 million per year in its heyday of the late 1920s. It is the source of the “horsehair” that was used to stuff mattresses and upholstered furniture and was also used to strengthen the cement mix used in construction. Strange.