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Namaqua 4x4 ECO trail - A cool off-roading experience!

joostremke

Namaqua 4x4 ECO trail - Orange River, South Africa - Sept. 2022


What do you do when you hire the best 4x4 camper available, you look for a serious 4x4 trail to drive, right? This was at least our thinking when we decided to live out of a Toyota Landcruiser for our 3 months overlanding trip through Southern Africa. Endless research online brought us to the “Namaqua 4x4 eco trail", which is a 4x4 off road trail that runs along the Orange river, bordering South Africa and Namibia on the West coast. There are two parts and we opted for part 1, running between Pella and Vioolsdrift.




We booked and received detailed directions for how to behave, drive and navigate on the trail and after reading it, got even more excited. You are basically on your own, total need to be self sufficient as there are no campsites with toilets and showers, you will be camping in the bush! Perfect!


So, after less than 2 weeks on the road and no 4x4 experience, we dropped tyre pressure to the 1.8 bar needed at the turnoff, 9 km away from Poffadder. Girls are fully involved and learning about the car, roads and navigation, which, to me, sounds a lot better than Math class.


Small tracks with plenty of Y forks, river beds, thick sand and very unclear clues on the navigation papers, we arrive in Pella. A town of nothing, misery and despair. Actually not very pleasant to stop and we were confronted with the hopeless situation some of these towns are in. We continue quickly as there is no petrol station, shop or anything else worth stopping for. We get asked to stop often by locals asking for money but if we give anything, we give an apple, that way we know it is not ending up at the liquor store.


Charles pass was very doable but in low gear and slowly. Bessie our Landcruiser, rolls with ease over the biggest rocks and through the deepest holes in the road. The landscape is awesome and we feel that we are truly away from “civilization”. A gorgeous day drive gets us to Klein Pella where we are deciding to stop for the day instead of driving on to the next bush camp. This is a campsite and it even has a very cold swimming pool, which the girls actually used (for swimming or shallI say quickly dipping).


Day two brought us to a stunning campsite on the river. A grassy patch after nothing but long grass, rocky roads and andy tracks, was amazing. Ramansdrift was a place we could have stayed longer but we are followed eat day by a group of 6 cars and so we choose to move and stay ahead of the crowd. Day three is by far the best driving we did as we have to navigate through a gorge and bigger sand patches. We end at Kamgab, which is basically a sandy spit in the middle of the river. For a 3rd night in a row we enjoy the clearest skies and awesome view of the milky way. Campfire keeps us warm and is used to cook our meals. Joost builds a “swimming pool” in the river, by moving a ton of stones, so the family can skinny dip! No toilets here so the only option is to walk away from the camp and bring a shovel. No toilet paper gets left behind so another reason to have a campfire going.

On day 4, we drive out of the trail, away from the vastness (we think) that we have appreciated so much over the last four days. Camping in the wild, with only the sound of the river, wind and birds, and driving over off road tracks and trails that we have never done before was simply a very cool experience.




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