Mortymoose's Backyard!

[Mortymoose]

There are a number of odd looking rock features out this end of the world.....



and the dusty road seem's to stretch on forever, often heading away from the thirst quenching Orange.....



The road twists past some bushmen paintings and heads back to follow the winding river, we pass the now abandoned "pomphuis"

There are two reason's why this building is called the "pomphuis" and one has to do with the water pumps it once housed.... the other.... well that's a tale for another day....

 

[Mortymoose]

The Saturday Morning Assembly:
-----------------------------------

Well they gathered outside the single quarters just as the eastern rising sun broke through the departing early morning mist.

A drunken rable if there ever was...... A few members of the group had not yet bedded down for the night and had continued to raise hell throughout the dark hours in some poor sod's sigle quarter room.

Still armed with glasses of brandy and coke, they were giggling away with their blankets wrapped around them on the street corner...... awaiting the arrival of their promised ride.

By some miracle, the mob had managed to assemble a wide variety of camping neccesities.Looking more like a church jumble sale that had gone south, the pile of equipment continued to grow as more of the group arrived......

The cheers went up, when one of the Nederlanders, I think it might have been Andre Lankhaar, came around the corner dragging the entire fridge from his room and promptly dumped it on the pile.

"Hahahaha! Where the feck are you gonna plug that fridge into ? , you dumb Dutchman.....", exclaimed the Irish fellow...... only to be silenced when a 2nd Dutchmen, Jimmy rounded the corner pushing a 5KW 4 cylinder generator.....

Doing a quick head count, I realised that Paulie, The Indian fellow from Durban had yet to make an early morning appearance..... his sidekick, Arthur was also nowhere to be seen.

Paulie and Arthur held somewhat of a legendary status in the mining community, one being a divorcee, the other a prolific womaniser. The two of them were IT Guru's back in the day before we had Windows and IBM ruled the roost. The two of them had managed to secure a 3 bedroom mine house and their premises were a favourite hangout for the hip, pot smoking crowd over the weekends...... 48 hour parties were not uncommon at this street address.

At the last count , the Moose had managed to count 9 cases of beer, 6 bottles of whisky, 8 bottles of brandy, 2 bottles of jagermeister,2 bottles of peppies, 2 Sambuca's and a strange looking bottle of tequila .....

The mixes of coke and soda did not add up to compliment the total bottles of spirits. 1 case of coke and a solitary case of soda was not a party going to make..... or was it......?

The group huddled together laughing, smoking and ..... well er ....having early morning drinks.....

As I looked at the time, A roar of laughter erupted from the group, glancing up I could see that somebody had pulled down one of the Afrikaaners pants and he did'nt risk spilling his drink, so just stood there half naked, shivering in the cold ..... I guess I somehow knew that this was going to be one of those day's that would stay with me forever......

A second round of applause could be heard as C the Jew came thundering around the corner in Spiro's The Greek's 8 ton truck.

Let the Games begin.....

 

[Budza]

Subscribed. This and the Burnt Offerings to HO thread

Born story teller- keep it up!

 

[Seriously]

There goes my cap

 

[Mortymoose]

One has to bear in mind that this is no ordinary part of the Orange River, with the last 160km of the Northern Bank in restricted area with no human settlements..... the South African side differs, with a sprinkling of mines and the odd small habitation..... a farm or two.....



The Story of Beauvallon is a sad one...... A once stunning farm and campsite, handed over to the local squabbling community who promptly ran it into the ground.....



For the last 10km of the ride, we drop in elevation as we descend down a steep sand dune that heads down to the cooler coastal strip....

 

[Mortymoose]

Not too sure if I posted the below newspaper article concerning the once prize farm of Beauvallon......

 

[JagterNW]

Good day Mr Moose.

I send you an email (hope it's still the same ?)

 

[Mortymoose]

Cannot remember if I posted similar snaps, but for those of you that have ever wondered what it looks like down at the mouth of the Orange River, well I was down there last Friday morning and took the following early morning winter snaps.....



I usually park my chariot on a small hill on the North bank of the river and proceed to walk along the above curve of the sandbar.... the mighty Atlantic is crashing onto the sandy shores on the other side of the bar.




The Above photo is taken from the same spot, but instead of looking down to the mouth , this view is back up the river towards the Golf Course on the Namibian bank of the river.....



The mighty Orange river tends to widen on her last few kilometers to the great Southern Ocean. The above photo is looking across the muddy expanse towards Alexander bay. The bird life here is incredible, the area , a RAMSAR site.



I like taking Shadow the Ferocious here on a Friday morning, there is never a single soul in sight, the township of Oranjemund being 10km away...... we hop stones, chase birds and throw sticks..... what a life this beast has......

 

[Mortymoose]

The actual river mouth........ seals sometime swim into the Orange river from this point and actually swim about 2km upstream....

 

[Mortymoose]

Been on the road with my Scottish Uncle......

Just arrived back at the Moose Mansion on Stage three of the tour.

Completed 3700km and wanted to share a snap I took yesterday morning on the road to Luderitz.

The famous wild horses of the Namib Congregating around an abandoned Colonial German Railway station about 30km west of Aus in the middle of the desert.

 

[Necropolis]

Awesome photos as always dude!

Thanks for sharing.

I've heard rumours about hectic De Beers security around the Orange river mouth - is this a thing or some rumour?

 

[Indigogirl]

Been on the road with my Scottish Uncle......

Just arrived back at the Moose Mansion on Stage three of the tour.

Completed 3700km and wanted to share a snap I took yesterday morning on the road to Luderitz.

The famous wild horses of the Namib Congregating around an abandoned Colonial German Railway station about 30km west of Aus in the middle of the desert.

The free horses! Beautiful photo!

 

[Mortymoose]

Awesome photos as always dude!

Thanks for sharing.

I've heard rumours about hectic De Beers security around the Orange river mouth - is this a thing or some rumour?

DeBeers on the Nambian side, but if you are a tourist, you can cross over at the Oranjemund border and travel along the north bank road to Sendelingsdrift without a permit.......you just cannot enter Oranjemund without a pre applied security clearance...
For what it's worth, way more fun crossing from SA to Nam on the pont at Sendlingsdrift like I did three days ago...

 

[Mortymoose]

I have lived for 44 years in the Namib and in that time have seen plenty of wild life.....including herds of Gemsboks that roam this town of mine.....but I was blown away to see my first albino gemsboks at a small place called Aus Vista in the foothills of the Namib.

 

[ToxicBunny]

We envy you muchly Morty, but def keep sharing those pictures..

I am DEFINITELY coming up your side of the world for an extended road trip next year.... fek going overseas...

 

[Mortymoose]

The fjord south of Luderitz in the desert along the cold Barren Atlantic coast...

 

[Kornhub]

^

So free accommodation at your place moose ?

 

[Mortymoose]

My mate is the Manager of the Sperrgebiedt National Park in Southern Namibia.

The Park was declared almost a decade ago, yet no tourists are allowed into the park, red tape and stakeholders still arguing the way forward.

This area has been off limits to the general public since 1908 and is largely desolate and devoid of any human activity.

Yesterday afternoon, my mate pops in and asks me if I want to come and help him look for his cellphone....

"Where did you lose it?" , comes the obvious next question,

"Out in the Sperrgebiedt somewhere", he replies......quite casually .....

Turns out he was doing game counting and left his phone out in the middle of nowhere , somewhere..... needle in the haystack and wanted to go look for it...

I thought about this, spending me friday galavanting over virgin land.... and then remembered that my butchery manager had never had the opportunity of visiting any of these areas, even though he was born here....

So he went along..... they must have found signal on a peak as he managed to squeeze through three snaps before the signal went...







I think next time, i will indeed be going along.....

 

[Mortymoose]

I had to post this snap that was sent to me this morning,

As you know I live in the desert, in a remote spot along the Namibian coast, which is frequently covered in cold wet Atlantic mist...

Somebody took this photo recently of our town breaking through the morning mist, with the sun's rays above...

I am assuming one the helicopter crew took the snap on their way out to the DeBeers diamond boats that operate off the Namibian coast.

Stunning pic....

 

[Mortymoose]

The 780 million Rand tar road between my town and neigbouring Rosh Pinah is almost finished, with only 10 km left to be surfaced, so this fine morning we took a drive.....

This road runs along the Southern border of Namibia with the Cape Province and goes through a National Park, traversing dunes, rocks,rivers and mines...



About 14km East of my town, on the Big Dune, at least 100m above sea level....



The road runs through an area that has been off limits for the past 100 years to the public, so in all honesty, it's quite a treat to be able to stop at newly built roadside stops for the view... There are three such stops...