Friday, 1 July 2016

The Dunes


The Sossusvlei area is characterised and is well known for its sand dunes. It varies in colour from vivid pink to dark orange depending on the concentration of iron in the sand. The older the dunes, the more intense the reddish colour.


These dunes are the highest in the world, many of them above 200 metres. The highest in this area is Big Daddy at 380 metres high.

Dune 45, the star dune, is so called as it lies 45km from Sesriem on the road to Sossusvlei. The 170-metre dune is composed of 5 million-year-old sand.


We arrived the night before so that we could have an early climb to the top of Dune 45 before sunrise.

The best approach is bare feet and it was a bit of an exercise to get to the top.  


Slowly the sun appeared and filled the sky and the sand with soft colours.


After watching the dunes in the early morning light, we made our way back down as breakfast was waiting.


This was one of the highlights of my journey

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