Skeleton Coast – Kunene

The first of many shipwrecks is the South West Seal, beached in 1976, followed by the rusting Toscanini oil rig, abandoned the same year — diamonds were never found here in any quantity, and the rig is now a cormorant breeding site whose corroded patterns are a photographer's playground. Lunch at Terrace Bay, and the last fuel for about a thousand kilometres: roughly 220 litres of diesel or 290 of petrol per vehicle. Möwe Bay is the unofficial border between Damaraland and the Kaokoveld and the last contact with other people; beyond it the convoy enters a park you may only travel with a permit. Camp is a spot between the dunes north of Möwe Bay.

Mornings here are unhurried — coffee first, then breakfast, then everyone makes up their own packed lunch. The country shifts from barren plain to mountain to riverbed, the colour running from yellow sand to black rock to the deep red of garnet. There is another wreck, its timbers worked smooth by the elements; a forlorn bulldozer and tractor left by the brothers who tried to mine diamonds here; and scattered pieces of the Ventura bomber that came down during the 1942 Dunedin Star rescue, whose crew of three all got out alive. Ghost crabs come up out of the beach at the vibration of the cars and race for the sea. Then the dry bed of the Hoarusib with its curls of cracked mud, dunes that roar back at you, rock formations nestled between them, and water pools to splash through. Camp against a dune, fire on for the shower.

The scenery opens out into plains of astonishing colour — dark brown, yellow sand, and orange where the lichen takes hold. The Namib carries some 120 species; splash water on a dry black crust and watch it turn green. Along the beach to Cape Fria and hundreds of seals. Camp that night is where the survivors of the Dunedin Star sheltered for almost a fortnight in 1942 with next to nothing to eat or drink. John Marsh's book The Skeleton Coast tells that story, and it makes for a quiet evening around the fire.

Over dunes, with a stop for the view across Borsluisbaai, and on to the mouth of the Kunene. You are warned to keep well back from the water because of the crocodiles, and to watch for turtles. Angola is on the far bank. From there the route runs over the dunes again — pale sand against dark mountain, and worth looking back at every so often — to a camp chosen along the way.

Over the dunes to a spot with the Angolan mountains on one side, the Namibian dunes on the other and the river far below. A cave to explore, unusual and worth the stop. Then down through the dunes to camp near the river, a walk to the water, and a braai.

A last walk to the river before leaving, to see the rapids and climb over the house-sized boulders — carefully, since the crocodiles walk here too. Then dune driving, until the dunes give way to lonely trees, plains and riverbeds: the Hartmann Valley, wide open, with a good many oryx in it. There is a stop at the green drum, where somebody has left an old laptop so you can send a mock email — which is when it dawns on you that you have been a week without contact with the outside world.

Welwitschias on the route today, and then the Clay Castles: whitish-grey sedimentary walls standing high above the Hoarusib riverbed, left by forces that worked this country millions of years ago. You walk beneath them and feel very small. Camp goes up not far off, so there is time to wander back among them the next morning.

A river day — descending the Hoarusib itself, driving through running streams with mountains close on both sides, as far as the poort at the entrance to the Puros Canyon. Whether the night is spent at Puros or the convoy pushes on towards Sesfontein depends on the time, and on whether the desert elephants that live in the riverbed have shown themselves. If they haven't, Armand will go further up the river to look.