From one desert to the next.

Yesterday we drove from the Namib Desert to the western edge of the Kalahari Desert. And we had to drive through the Naukluft Mountains to do it. A really pretty area, and we totally enjoyed that part of the drive.

And, we picked up another hitchhiker along the way!

We said goodbye to the friendly folks at Namib Desert Lodge and hit the road. We knew it was a 357 km (221 mile) drive and again, quite a bit of it was on a dirt road. But most of it was in quite good condition.

357 kms (221 miles) from the Namib Desert Lodge to the Kalahari Farmhouse.

The Naukluft Mountains

There's not really a mountain pass to drive through at this location. However, the road does actually pass through the mountains! It just kind of winds it's way around them, so there are no steep areas.

It's quite pretty though!

But that section was only for the first hour or so. And then we were into the wide open stretches of nothingness. As we've said before, Namibia has some absolutely beautiful scenery. But sometimes you have to drive through miles and miles of pretty dull landscape to get to the good stuff!

It's a good thing there can be some interesting things along the way though.

We went into the town of Mariental (pop 10,000). It's not a bad spot, and it has everything to offer, including a large SPAR grocery store. We picked up a couple of snack items and a small jug of milk for our tea and coffee in the mornings. 

And then we saw a computer store. Didn't really expect that because it's not that big of a place. However we're glad it was there. The power supply for Ruth's laptop had gone on the fritz when we were up in Rundu and we had bought a cheap (very cheap!) replacement. It was cheap in price at N$250 ($26.75) but it turned out that it was also cheap in quality and it stopped working a couple of days ago!

Anyhow, this guy had another one that seems a little better quality and we picked it up for N$300 ($32.10).

We headed to the turnoff towards the Kalahari Farmhouse. There was a very pregnant girl standing hitchhiking, so we stopped and picked her. Coincidentally, she works at the Kalahari Anib Lodge (we'll be going there next week) and we had to drive right by it so we took her right there. Her name was Doreen and she works in the laundry at the lodge. She's due in January with her first baby!

Made it to the Kalahari Farmhouse around 2:15pm

It's a pretty neat place because it's a working farm where a lot of the food is produced that is served at the Gondwana lodges. And the eight chalets are done up in an "old farmhouse" style. Really well done and we're looking forward to telling you about it.

Relaxing at the Kalahari Farmhouse.

Some of our regular readers may notice that we've changed the format a little so that we can have the pictures display a little larger in the blog post itself. You can still click on them if you'd like them to show full screen, but this should enable you to see them a little better without doing so. Please let us know if the format works okay though. Sometimes what looks good on my laptop and with my browser may not look good with yours and I'd like some feedback if that's the case...thanks!