Flying Adventure: Southern Angola – Day 1 (FAWB – FAAugrabies):
His passenger arrived in South Africa a day earlier than originally planned. We therefore decide to depart from Pretoria a day earlier, and use the extra day to visit the Augrabies National Park in the Northern Cape province.
In these southern winter months the weather over the South African interior is dominated by a stable high pressure system. And during these days also a cold front system that is passing from the cape over the country. It is cool and very stable air, making for a very smooth and calm flight to the Augrabies National Park.
We fly straight and non-stop from Pretoria to Dundi Lodge, a very trusted place on route to either the cape or to Namibia. After settling in, we enjoy some delicious biltong and dry worse and a couple cold Castle Lagers around the pool whilst the temperature are still mild. Once the sun sets, it’s getting fairly cool out here in this season.
Augrabies National Park
Dundi Lodge is just a short distance from the entrance to the Augrabies National Park. We can thus take Dundi’s bakkie and are off to spend day 2 of our tour in the park.
The Orange river had near record water levels recently and some parts of the park are still inaccessible due to flooding. Also some walkways around the Augrabies Falls are still closed due to flooding damages. The water throughput is still very high and makes for impressive views as the water falls 60 meters down into the gorge.
From the falls we take a drive through the park to the Moon Rock and to catch some views of the stunning river gorge. It has an average depth of 240 meters and stretches around 18 kilometers towards the Atlantic ocean.
From the park we then head to Kakamas for a few cold beers on a cold afternoon at the Kakamas Hotel bar, before heading back to Dundi for dinner.
Off plan
Remember that cold front he mentioned earlier? It has brought some very cloudy and rainy weather all the way up here. Very unusual for this time of the year. We were hoping that this weather would pass and clear up over night. But it shall not be so.
The morning of day 3 is still rainy and mist covers the area. We therefore have to delay our departure, checking the weather radar images in the hope clouds would clear up quickly so the sun can burn off the mist. It does so where we are, but unfortunately not at Upington, our first stop to exit South Africa. The airport in Upington stubbornly remains in IMC (Instrument meteorological conditions), and thus a no go place for us.
We have a long journey ahead of us, all the way up to the Sossusvlei, and two stops for immigration and customs clearance on route. There is therefore a limit to how long we can delay our departure. We cannot risk getting to our destination after sunset. There are no runway lights where we are going. By mid day we therefore have to make the final call and delay our departure to day 4. We will lose a day to explore the Sossus and Dead vleis, which is very unfortunate, in particular as the weather does nicely clear up. But safety comes first.
Google maps does not come up with many pubs in the area. So we decide to take a drive to Keimos and visit the Pavillion Pub & Grill. As we walk in, it’s second time bad luck today. The police has confiscated all their booze over the weekend. He can only assume why. Life in South Africa’s country side. It can get a bit rough. A little bit rough. Sometimes.
But we then find De Werf around the corner and have lunch there whilst we are re-planning the next days to get back on track.