May 2025

High red dunes, dead trees and a windy Sesriem

Warning: This is going to be a long post, but please stay with us. There are many photos we want to share with you and also a challenging camp story towards the end.

You may remember our amazing late afternoon at NamibRand Family Hideout where we saw a large herd of oryx and springboks while it was raining in the desert (read here).

In today’s post, we visit red sand dunes that rise up to 300m into the sky and are rank among the biggest in the world – yes, it’s the famous Sossusvlei. And we’re going to show you Deadvlei with dead trees that are probably more than 1,000 years old. Oh, and we try to camp in a gale force wind!

We left NamibRand Family Hideout before sunrise because we wanted to arrive early at Sossusvlei to walk among the dunes.

Early morning at the farmhouse

Leaving NamibRand Family Hideout

Beautiful sunrise

We only had to drive 128km/79 miles to get to Sesriem, where we booked a camp site for one night. From Sesriem, it’s still 60km/37 miles to Sossusvlei. The road to Sesriem is a dirt road, while the road between Sesriem and Sossusvlei is tarred. So, we hoped to cover the distance relatively quickly.

However, it soon became clear that we were on the worst road since we entered Namibia. It was very corrugated – so much so that the alarm on our tire pressure monitor went off and we had to stop to inspect the tires. Fortunately, there were no problems, but we drove this stretch quite slowly to prevent any damage to our ‘bakkie’s’ tires.

A very corrugated dirt road

The road stretched into infinity

We could see the distinctive red sand dunes many kilometers before we even reached Sossusvlei. We were also lucky to see another herd of springboks. These views made up for the bad road we had to drive.

We start seeing the red sand dunes of Sossusvlei

After good rainfall, the grass was growing on the dunes

Grass covered sand dunes

Herd of springboks

We reached Sesriem just after 09:00 and first stopped at the garage to refuel our ‘bakkie’. There is also a small café where we could buy water and sandwiches. The owner of the garage mentioned that they were expecting a very strong wind later in the afternoon. He just smiled when he heard we were going camping – it seemed that we were in for a rough night of camping.

During our visit to Namibia, we noticed how many rented 4×4 ‘bakkies’ there were on the roads. It seems that many of the younger tourists from other countries (especially Europe) prefer to drive and camp rather than stay in lodges or make use of tour agencies. We wondered if it was because they can see more of the country this way or because accommodation (especially lodges) is so expensive. In any case, it was just interesting to see.

Tourists in rented 4×4 vehicles, equipped with camping gear

Sossusvlei & Deadvlei:

As I have mentioned before, the Namib Desert is the oldest in the world and its sand dunes are also among the biggest. The name ‘Sossusvlei’ roughly means ‘dead-end-marsh’. Vlei is the Afrikaans word for ‘marsh’, while ‘sossus’ is Nama for ‘no return’ or ‘dead end’. Sossusvlei is in the Namib-Naukluft National Park and the gate opens at sunrise and closes at sunset.

At the end of the tarred road, is a large parking area. If you do not have a 4×4 vehicle or are not comfortable driving in thick sand, you can leave your vehicle here and use the shuttle services to drive the last 5km/3 miles to Sossusvlei. At the time of our visit, the shuttle costs were R150/USD8.46 per person for a return trip. After switching our ‘bakkie’ to 4WD, we had a lot of fun driving this last stretch.

Sandy road

After parking our ‘bakkie’ at Sossusvlei, it’s about 2km/1.2 miles of walking through thick sand to Deadvlei and the highest dune. Here it truly feels like one is walking in a desert.

Sossusvlei

Walking through thick sand to Deadvlei

There were quite a lot of tourists here, as expected, but after we had been walking around Deadvlei for quite a while, most of the people turned back (I think the heat was perhaps too much for most of them). This meant that we almost had the pan at Deadvlei to ourselves.

Almost at Deadvlei

Deadvlei (‘Dooievlei’ in Afrikaans) is a claypan. This is where the iconic skeletons of the camel thorn trees are that survived for a few hundred years after the dunes blocked the Tsauchab River.

Deadvlei surrounded by high dunes

View of the camel thorn trees

The trees died as there was no longer enough water to survive – it became too dry in Deadvlei for the trees to even decompose. It is believed that some of these trees are over 1,000 years old and it forms a barren forest, now black and scorched by the intense heat.

Dead trees at Deadvlei

Dead trees at Deadvlei

I’m standing next to one of the dead trees

We walked through the forest of dead trees to the highest dune in Sossusvlei. People are allowed to climb to the top of Big Daddy (325m) and then slide or run down the steep side into Deadvlei.

Big Daddy in the middle

The salt pan of Deadvlei

Getting closer and closer to Big Daddy

We chose not to climb the dune, but rather to stand at its foot and admire its grandeur.

I’m sitting at the foot of Big Daddy

It may not look that steep, but it is for sure

Looking back towards Deadvlei

After about half an hour, we slowly made our way through the dead trees of Deadvlei back to Sossusvlei. We have always wanted to see these and can now check it off our list. When you’re in Namibia, you must come to Sossusvlei – even though the likelihood is great that you will encounter many tourists here.

Dead trees and high sand dunes

Dead trees

Goodbye to the dead trees of Deadvlei

Leaving Deadvlei behind

Walking back through the thick sand to Sossusvlei

Sossusvlei

Goodbye to the sand dunes of Sossusvlei

On the way back to Sesriem, we decided to stop at Dune 45. This is the most popular dune to climb (90m high) and about 45km/28 miles from the Sesriem gate. When we got out of our ‘bakkie’, we felt for the first time that the wind had started to blow. As we looked at the dune through narrow eyes (almost closed due to the fine desert sand), we could understand why it is said that when the wind blows from multiple directions, it’s sculpting a star shaped dune with multiple “arms”.

Dune 45

The wind blows over Dune 45

Back at Sesriem, we checked in at the Sesriem Camp’s reception to get our designated campsite. However, the wind was blowing so strongly that we decided to have lunch in their restaurant first and afterwards see if it was possible to set up our rooftop tent.

Look at those flags in the wind

Lunch at Sesriem Camp

After lunch, we returned to our campsite, where we sat in the ‘bakkie’ for almost an hour. The wind was blowing fiercely (even though it may not look like that in the photos).

Our campsite at Sesriem Camp

We decided to drink a few more beers at the bar – let’s just call it getting enough courage to set up our rooftop tent. After 5:00pm, we realised that the wind was not going to calm down and that we needed to set up the rooftop tent before dark.

Our rooftop tent is up

Those houses looked more inviting than our rooftop tent

The plan was that we would have a ‘braai’, but there was definitely no way we could make a fire in this wind. So, instead we went to have dinner at the restaurant. All the campers were there and everyone looked somewhat bewildered about the night ahead.

Dinner at the restaurant

Camp story:

From here on there are no photos. But the rest of the evening and night went more or less like this:

We returned from the restaurant around 9:00pm and climbed into our rooftop tent. Besides the fact that the tent’s sails made a deafening noise in the wind, it also swayed back and forth. One could almost have become seasick inside!

Around 10:00pm we decided it would be better to sleep inside the ‘bakkie’. But first we had to take down the rooftop tent so that it wouldn’t be destroyed by the wind or even blown away. This action definitely did not happen without (a lot of) swearing – it was an almost impossible task to take down the tent in the dark, as well as a gale force wind (which had, by now, turned into a full sandstorm).

It was already well past midnight when we finally managed to get into the ‘bakkie’. There was no space in the back, so we lowered our seats and tried to lie down – me in the passenger seat and Berto in the driver’s seat.

I think it’s unnecessary to say that we hardly slept at all. For the next 5 hours, this was the conversation between the two of us:

Berto: “Are you asleep?”

Me: “No”

15 minutes later

Berto: “What is the time?”

Me: “One o’clock”

15 minutes later

Berto: “What is the time?”

Me: “1:15”

And so it continued until sunrise …

With fine desert sand everywhere – in my hair, eyes, and nose – I wondered for the first time if camping is as much fun as they claim it to be.

Oh, and what about injuries? We actually came away with it very lightly (compared to other campers). Berto had a bloody finger, and I had a broken fingernail and a bruised toenail. We noticed that one of the other campers had a black eye and a bump on his forehead the next morning, while almost everyone had plasters on their fingers/arms/legs. Camping is not for the faint hearted!

Stay tuned for our next post if you want to know if we dared to camp again the next day. To read more, click here.