Namibia – talsit.org

Neverending

This is one of the roads we took from the airport to swakopmund. There is sand everywhere. I mean, you can see it on google maps, and you read about it and imagine it. But until you are actually there, seeing how many kilometers of the stuff there actually is, it doesn’t hit you. And then I think: “What the hell did I sign up for??!!”

Just sand, sand everywhere!

Sometimes, being in the office is just plain fun.

If this little guy could be any character in history, he would be a 1920s ganster, with his seedy eyes, oiled hair, stuck up nose. But the problem is that he’s so cute you just want to hug him!

Not very elegant birds, nor are they terribly pretty. But something about their size and effortlessness makes them beautiful to watch

The train tracks lead to Swakopmund, if you look far enough.

On Rossing Mountain, things don’t quite look right, as if the world is skewed off-axis.

Amazing things, these creatures!

Circle

Washed up boat, abandoned. The birds have claimed it as their home.

Roadside Market

Spirited Away

Starlit Dinner

Stretching out

Worlds Away

To the west they had a massive grass fire that just blanketed the whole area with this thick smoke. It moved incredibly fast, but by the next day it was perfectly clear.

Neverending

Skeleton Coast

Monster Truck

100 years of solitude

Desert Craft!

The Road that leads apparently to nowhere…

It could just be a smudge on the horizon…

Floating Rock

Never ending clouds

At the “location” of Usakos – the poorer township just outside of the main town.

Toast on Set

Wlotzkasbaken, Namibia

Yes… this goes on like this with little variation for 100km.

Tracks

Somewhere down hidden valley…

Just some rocks

Spitzkoppe

On the way to Spitzkoppe, just as we drove past the clouds, we stopped to admire the clouds dissapate.

Road to the Clouds

If you follow that road, it will lead you into a thick cloud, white & fluffy.

Spitzkoppe

Some Death Valley

Lichen I think this is lichen – it’s kinda soft and fuzzy, and there was lots and lots of it on the top of this little hill, probably undisturbed for centuries. I stepped through as carefully as I could.

AT-AT In the corner, waiting to make its move.

Nowhere This little sign was protecting hundreds of square kilometres of not much. The tyre tracks were not that fresh – out here that can mean days or decades.

Alien Landscape

Driving Back on Wrap

Lichen Old, very old. And delicate too.

Petrified Is htis petrified wood, or just microscopic layers of rock

Thousands And millions and billions of little rocks make up much of this landscape.

Another African Sunset Just another African Sunset, with fluffy clouds. That’s my office on the right.

Creature I bet the creature’s coming back!

Forgotten Communication This pole is in the middle of a dried up river bed. There’s no sign on either side of the river where the wires one day would have gone … there’s just nothing.

Tracks to Nowhere These tracks lead directly into the Atlantic Ocean. The other way they lead directly into really really tall sand dunes. I don’t know why this even existed at some point in history.

A few steps

Dusk Well into darkness

Mini Dune

Textures I love the textures in this shot.

Hiromu Jimbo We ran into this guy on our way to Sossousvlei. He started out in Istanbul in March 2009. He’s been riding his bike around since. It’s taken him 3.5 years to get to Namibia, and he said that he’ll probably continue another 3.5 years. We gave him some food, which he was incredibly appreciative for, and wished him luck!

Power to Nowhere

Sky High This is high above sand dunes near Swakopmund. I’m in charge of equipment that get to see these things all the time – my toys make me jealous!

Florida – my office

Swakop River

Broken Skin The earth around Swakopmund has been torn up, dug, excavated, broken, without prejudice, just left there for the winds and slow erosion to return it to its natural state, something that probably won’t happen for millenia. That’s DRC in the top left corner – a township of shacks that fall apart in the wind, with no saniation or running water. It houses the poorest of Swakopmund.

Catching Up Both our pilots were playing a silly game of “how close can we get while flying at 300km/h and not crashing”. You could see the pilot with his silly grin, confident in his skill, yet somehow slightly reckless…

Diamonds Are Forever These are the remains of a huge abandoned diamond mine that resides in the still-De-Beers-controlled area that is The Prohibited Area, the sand having covered half the buildings and buring countless things, possibly forever.

Kuiseb River It has probably taken an aeon to form this landscape, this collection of perfecly flat grounds and through it, carved by the slow drip of scarse water, the river bed. I love how the rocks protrude the landscape, like the horns of some impossibly large and exinct dinosaur.

Nowhere This is nowhere, a nothing that stretches as far as you can possibly see. Deep down, I know for a fact that no human has ever stepped on this ground, and probably never will. This, for me, makes it as remote as the moon or mars…

Sand Seeing sand just go endlessly by makes you realise how insignificantly small something like Bondi Beach is. On a clear day, you still can’t see the end of this!

Sandwich Bay A huge and shallow bay – a haven for flocks of flamingos and other birds.

Sossousvlei – Deadvlei & Big Daddy That’s deadvlei on the left – made famous for its impossibly abstract view of dead trees on cracked ground and ageless sand. And standing tall in the middle, the apex that is Big Daddy – one of the biggest dunes in the world – a grueling 2-3 hour climb to the top (and 1min slide to the bottom!)

Swakopmund We called this little town home for 7 months. There’s not much more than what you can see here, a few things to the north, but pretty much contained within this photo…