I’m surprised and excited when Mr Fritz announces we’re going to the moon in the morning. “The moon?” I ask with a somewhat curious tone. “Yep. The moon!” He answers as though he’s known about this spot and how to get there his whole life.
We were on the west coast of Namibia, staying in a historic hotel in the desert town of Swakopmund when Mr Fritz discovered an area nearby that he wanted to see and photograph. I hadn’t seen a single photo and didn’t know anything about this place. So, the next morning off we went to buy a permit from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism because this area is in the Namib-Naukluft Park.
Moon Landscape in all its desolate glory
We climbed the beautiful old wooden staircase after a very relaxed, half asleep man sitting on a rickety chair pointed upwards where we found an equally relaxed Namibian woman sitting at her desk catching up on Facebook. She barely glanced at us when she announced, “Forty dollars per person, ten dollars per car!” This was in Namibian dollars. She did accept card payments, but if we wanted to pay in cash, we would have had to cough up the exact amount because she simply had no change.
I asked if there was a toilet I could use, and she pointed in the direction of the hallway. As I left her office she yelled, “Here, take this!” She had a roll of toilet paper stashed in her drawer. “Thanks!” I replied and was very grateful for the offer.
This sweet little bird is a Tractrac Chat. It suddenly appeared out of nowhere and came surprisingly close to us. They mate for life and are often seen in pairs. Mrs Tractrac was just a few meters behind.
We were thrilled to have the chance to move through this ancient land and search for these unique plants that are firmly embedded in their natural environment. And so, with a dodgy map in hand, off we went! We first had to find the B2 road to exit Swakopmund (This was quite tricky! There was a lot of new road construction going on, none of which was visible on google maps and further supplemented by plenty of bad signage). Next, we had to turn onto the C28 and finally the D1991. These directions will come in handy when you decide to rush to go and see the welwitschia yourselves.
The first time we’d come across welwitschia was in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital. There was one specimen in the rockery near the entrance of the National Botanic Garden. It’s hardly a show stopper. In fact, looking at this low growing, dead-looking coniferous dwarf tree you’d hardly be impressed. It certainly wouldn’t make anyone’s Insta-worthy photo list! But when you learn a little about this plant, it suddenly morphs into quite a spectacular specimen.
A ‘beautiful’ welwitschia sitting quietly in the desert
Welwitschia mirabilis is its botanical name. The larger plants are estimated to be at least a thousand years old which makes these plants one of the oldest on earth.
They’re quite unique because they share both primitive plant characteristics, gymnosperms, which are conifers and angiosperms which are flowering plants – “the evolutionary link between ancient and modern plant forms.”
They’re endemic to the Namib desert and that’s exactly where we were. So off we went in search of the welwitschia along the Welwitschia Self-Drive Trail that snakes through the Moon Landscape, a vast area of barren hills and rocky mountains in every shade of grey and brown with great examples of hard, black, dolerite ridges that are visible only once the surrounding softer rock starts to weather away. The Swakop River cut through this landscape about 460 million years ago and now, in the middle of winter the river bed was completely dry as we drove through it.
Driving through the Swakop river bed
With child-like enthusiasm we drove through this fabulously bleached and muted landscape bathed in a soft, dusty light. We briefly spoke about Mad Max: Fury Road, which was filmed in these parts and thought it was the most perfect setting for that wild, post-apocalyptic movie. For a brief moment we imagined running into Tom Hardy (well, I did) and Charlize Theron but of course they were long gone.
So back to searching for the welwitschia!
Our map included some information about the area and various points of interest along the way. We stopped many times because we felt a need to get out of the car and immerse ourselves in this incredible landscape. It was deafeningly silent, and we could see far and wide and it did feel like we were on the moon, except we weren’t floating off into outer space.
I read that there were a variety of lichen around, not that you could see them. In fact, it appears as though nothing lives in these parts. But these are ecologically significant lichen fields because they stabilize the soil and these fields are quite extensive compared to other parts of the world. Some of the lichen look like soil, some are orange or grey-green and some are black and look like dead plant material. It was a little black one I saw and took a moment to acknowledge how special it was, particularly knowing that they grow less than 1mm per year! The lichen only survive on the mist that comes from the sea at night.
Here's a closeup of the centre of the plant. The green leaves are really hard and tough even though they look like flowing ribbons.
We also saw the Dollar Bush, shrubs have coin-like leaves and quite a beautiful form and camel thorns which grow near the campsite, but not a single welwitschia in sight.
“Oh God! Are we lost?” I exclaimed. “Did we somehow miss a turnoff?” I was in charge of navigating and I was relying on this mud map which showed that we should be reaching a T-intersection. But there was no intersection or welwitschias in sight. We pushed on for another twenty minutes when finally we reached what we thought was the the intersection we needed.
We turned left, eventually crossed the dry river bed and continued up a barren hill, but we weren't feeling secure in our location and had no idea where this road would lead. By now it was getting late and it was time to turn back even though we hadn't seen a single welwitschia.
As we turned around and started making our way down the hill I suddenly I yelled, “There’s a welwitschia! Bloody hell! And another one and another one! How did we miss them on the way in?” We simply couldn’t believe it. There they were, these ‘living fossils’ spread out all around us, laying low with their thick and hard ribbon-like leaves. ‘Was it the light and the direction we were travelling in that kept them hidden’ we wondered? Or were we simply blinded by the beauty of the moonscape?
A stunning example of an ancient plant thriving in a seemingly desolate landscape.
