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Upper Brandberg and Mikberg 12th - 27thJune, 2024 Site references based on numbering system of Harald Pager (Upper Brandberg) and Ernst-Rudolf Scherz False colour images processed with dStretch, a freely available software developed by Jon Harman

Day 0. - Windhoek

Day 1. - Windhoek - Uis

There was one slight hiccup, Uwe's bag did not arrive with the flight the day earlier, fortunately by the morning he got the message that it will arrive with the early afternoon flight. As we had nothing to do but shopping, we could afford a lazy morning, buying our supplies and waiting in the hotel till early afternoon before heading to the airport for the bag, which did arrive as announced. From the airport it was an uneventful 3.5 hour drive to Uis via Omaruru, we arrived at the Brandberg Rest Camp before sunset (sadly Analene & the lovely White Lady B&B in Uis is no more, Analene sold the property to the mining company and moved to Swakopmund).

Day 2. - Tsisab Gorge

After a quick breakfast before sunrise we headed to the Tsisab Gorge entrance, meeting our NHC guide Justus (with whom we already made a trip in 2019. Our target was the Upper Tsisab valley plain, about 6 kilometres upstream of the end of Tsisab island, and around 600m higher, where Albert Viereck fund a cluster of sites in 1957, then H. Jipsen several more in 1961. On face value this did not sound that much, but knowing the Brandberg we were prepared for a rather tough climb. From June 2013 we knew about half of the way, as we came down to the middle Tsisab from the Scherz Basin, but the upper parts were completely unknown, also for Justus. As there was no meaningful rain on the Brandberg, all known waterholes were dry, we needed to prepare to carry water for the entire three day trek. Fortunately Justus had the good idea to bring along Otja, an enthusiastic young new guide who recently joined the Tsisab team. Otja proved invaluable in helping us carry extra water, without which it would have been very difficult to complete our planned endeavor.

With the time needed to distribute the loads and pack our backpacks, it was well into the morning by the time we set out on the path towards the White Lady site and Tsisab Island. After an hour we passed end of the island and continued in the sandy and rocky riverbed for another two hours till the first serious rapids where house-sized boulders blocked any further way upstream in the riverbed.

From 2013 we knew that the riverbed was passable downstream by sliding down some steep smooth rocks, but there was no way up the same way, one needs to climb the slope adjoining the riverbank to make it above the rapids where it becomes possible to follow the watercourse once again. Since it was already past noon with the hottest part of the day approaching, we decided to make a couple of hours' rest before tackling the steep slope with our heavy backpacks. We set out again mid afternoon, and in about two hours we completed the detour and were back again in the now shaded riverbed, a good 150m higher than where we started off.

While the riverbed offered the most feasible way, it was by no means easy among the large boulders, in the hour remaining till sunset we managed to cover a distance of about half a kilometre. We spotted a small terrace adjacent to the main watercourse which looked suitable for a bivouac, and on the bordering large boulder we soon found some undocumented paintings, apparently the ancient inhabitants had the same idea thousands of years ago.

Day 3. - Tsisab Gorge

We were up at first light, and continued upstream in the valley making use of the shade while it lasted. In about an hour, just as the sun caught up with us, we reached the next series of rapids, where the main valley was firmly blocked in any direction by huge unsurmountable stone steps. We were well past the known parts of the valley, but from Jipsen's 1961 report we knew that here we needed to climb the side of the valley to a terrace above, from where there was an easy way into the Upper Tsisab valley plain. The waterhole "Large Tsisab Water I" mentioned by Jipsen was supposed to be somewhere just above the first rock step, without backpack I could barely scramble up and was very surprised to find the large basin among the rocks full of water. Unfortunately most of our bottles were still full, so we could not make much use of this unexpected find as our planned route down was a to be a different way.

After the short pause to search for water we turned towards the steep southern slope, trying to follow the marked mountaineer's trail, but we soon lost it, making our way among the boulders and smooth steep granite plates the best we could. We did not expect an easy way, but it turned out to be rather slow and difficult even by Brandberg standards, it took us 2.5 hours to make it to the terrace on the top, a horizontal distance of only 500 metres but with a good 250 metre altitude gain along the way.

From here the way was indeed easy, and despite being midday there was a light breeze and the temperature at this altitude was quite bearable. After a little rest on the terrace edge we continued, and after about a kilometre along the roughly level plain we descended into the riverbed again. Jipsen reported a total of seven sites from the Upper Tsisab Valley Plain, three of them in a cluster near a temporary waterhole at the north-eastern outlet of the plain, about where we reached the watercourse. The spot was perfect for a bivouac, we left our packs and some elected to take a midday rest while the rest of us set out to look for the sites.

I did spend some time beforehand trying to match Google Earth features to the Jipsen sketch map and descriptions, but initially we found nothing. After continuing down-river I did come upon Viereck's "Sex boulder", a good 400 metres further than where I expected it to be. From here the "Bogenfels" and "Hunter's rock" rocks were clearly visible. After some searching, working backwards among the hillside boulders with Uwe using Jipsen's description, we did find Jpsen's "Magician's Shelter", the most important site of this cluster. We left photography of all these sites for the afternoon when the valley enters the shade, and with the others we set out to look for the remaining three sites further upstream. The first, "Rock pillar" was straight forward to find, but with only a few meager paintings on the shady side.

Continuing upstream along the plain, we came to the widest part where the ravine leading up to the Baswaldrinne plain and pass (which we visited in 2014). Some way up the slope Jipsen found a fine site with a fine human figure ("Oupa shelter"), it was at a fairly obvious location in a tunnel formed between two adjacent large boulders. Jipsen only saw the human figure, but dStretch reveals several more faint animals and humans.

While the rest of us were busy photographing, Justus and Otja searched the rocks below and found a nice human figure on the side of one of them, a site which apparently was left unnoticed by both Viereck and Jipsen.

There was one remaining known site on the upper part of the plain, "Twin boulders", a prominent pair of huge rocks along the southern edge of the plain. It was straight forward to find them, with both rocks have paintings, but unfortunately mostly faint and damaged ones. There is a strange motif that on first look appears to represent a bird or a bat, but possibly it is something else with other parts in a different colour having been erased.

We returned towards our campsite along the now shaded northern edge of the plain where there were a couple of promising boulders, and we did find two undocumented sites with some painting on par or even better than the ones we have seen so far.

Passing camp we continued downstream, to another undocumented boulder Justus and Otja found in the early afternoon while we were searching for the sites.

"Sex boulder" was a few hundred metres further, the name given on account of the prominent sex of the visible male figures. However here too there is much more, most of it only revealed by dStretch.

"Bogenfels" (arched rock) is just a few dozen metres downstream, a low natural arch along the watercourse with a few faint paintings, including a nice group of women.

"Hunter's Rock" is clearly the principal site of the area, a huge boulder with numerous scenes on all sides. Interestingly a part of the boulder split off sometime after the paintings were made, and now lies on the ground with the figures clearly visible (in fact better preserved than on the rock itself).

By this time it was past sunset, we decided to leave the "Magician's shelter" for the following morning when, being on the south eastern slope, it will still be comfortably in the shade.

Day 4. - Tsisab Gorge

By this time it was clear that our original plan was not tenable. We were hoping to make it over to the "Big Bertha" site high up on the slopes above the northern bank of the Tsisab, east of the Scherz Basin. However with the experience gained of the terrain, it was very clear that the remaining day plus the morning after would be insufficient, and also our water reserves were getting uncomfortably low. We had only one choice, return the way we came, passing by the waterhole to replenish water, and leave the northern sites for some other time. This change of plan provided us ample time to go and visit the "Magician's shelter" in the morning, which despite being a small site at a rather inconvenient location high up the slope, contained the most interesting paintings of the area.

Mid-morning we set out to re-trace our way up, first ascending to the terrace above the valley, then making the long and difficult descent down the slope towards the waterhole.

Knowing the route (which we marked on the way up) made life a bit easier, but it still took two hours to reach the huge boulders surrounding the waterhole. This was a perfect place for a midday rest in the shade, with the added bonus of being able to drink as one pleased.

Mid-afternoon we continued on our way down, first re-stocking on water to last until we reach the car park. Passing our onward bivouac, Justus found a barely visible but very nice giraffe on a huge boulder. A short distance away there was another boulder with a panel of paintings depicting a strange group of contorted human figures. Both sites appear to be unpublished, though we don't have any information whether Pager may have seen them on the way up/down from other gorges, both are in a rather prominent position.

We continued for some distance downstream, camping for the night just above the difficult rapids which we needed to bypass on the way up.

Day 5. - Tsisab Gorge - Uis

We were up at dawn, and after a warm coffee and a group photo in the light of the rising sun we continued down the ravine. It was difficult in places, but we had the benefit of knowing that we did make it down in 2013, so there must be a passable way, which we invariably found after some searching. By mid-morning we reached the easier lower section of the valley, and soon reached the Island and the built trail below leading to the White Lady site. We met a large school group making their way up, looking a bit bewildered at the scruffy party with backpacks coming down from the mountain.

It was around noon by the time we reached the office and the car park. After a good cold drink and saying good bye to Justus and Otja we headed back to Uis, to spend a quiet afternoon by the poolside at the Brandberg Rest Camp (alas it was not to be, the same school party we saw arrived an hour after us, and it was anything but quiet around the pool...).

Day 6. - Uis - Mikberg area

At the Brandberg supermarket we topped up our supplies, then we drove out of town along the B2342 towards the north west, skirting the Brandberg along its southern and western sides. As we stopped to take a few photos, Gábor spotted a small snake of a kind which we never saw before, soon joined by another of the same species. On the spot I could only see that they were colubrids, it took some reading to figure out that they were Dwarf Beaked Snakes (Dipsina multimaculata), a species fairly common in the arid areas of southern Africa, apparently our observation was very close to the northern limit of their range.

Leaving the road, we continued along the track towards the Brandberg West Mine and the Ugab River, passing the contorted geological formations along the way. As we passed the Ugab River, we were on the lookout for any presence of lions, but the land was very dry, there were only some very old traces. We also passed a number of the mysterious polished boulders for which there is still no ready explanation.

By midday we approached the Mikberg from the south, and spent the rest of the afternoon looking for a number of engravings and shelters with paintings in the southern and central areas which we missed last year despite having passed less than 100 metres from all.

Day 7. - Mikberg area

In the morning after sunrise we set out towards what Peter Breunig called Rhino Spring (Mikberg Spring in our 2022 trip account), the richest rock art concentration of the Mikberg area. With Uwe we left Magdi & Gábor to frolic among the most spectacular panels, while we systematically searched the northern slope for the dozens of sites we have missed on the previous visits.

With no time pressure, we could afford to visit the scattered lesser engravings about a kilometre to the east, following the well worn animal trail leading to the spring. We were not the only ones to have recently taken that trail, we found the footprints of a leopard and a cheetah next to each other, both of which passed no more than a few days earlier. The engravings themselves were not very exciting, we soon moved on towards some paintings to the south which looked more promising.

The paintings were indeed nice, at the first site Magdi spotted a large faint white snake which was apparently not noticed before. The second one contains a splendid pair of elephants, one of the nicest in the Mikberg area.

By the time we completed our round of all the Rhino Spring sites, it was well into the afternoon. We had rime for one more area, a small spring to the west of the Mikberg (Breunig's Flyfontein, which now we found completely dry), where our friend Richard Engberts reported some paintings. It was not difficult to find the site, but the paintings themselves were not very exciting, mostly just barely perceptible traces on the vertical volcanic rock walls of a small canyon leading from the spring.

We spent the rest of the afternoon looking for two more sites near the track along the western side of the Mikberg, both of which were reported by our friend Richard, but without any details. With just a dot on the map and no description, it was not surprising that we failed to find any, after a while we gave up and drove up a nice sandstone valley open towards the setting sun to make camp for the night.

Day 8. - Mikberg area

Our campsite was chosen to allow easy access to the mouth of the Mikberg Canyon, which we explored along its full length with Uwe in 2022, but failed to find any of the sites mentioned by Richard in the lower section. It was a long and difficult climb down to the mouth from the upper end, now we were just a kilometre away with mostly flat access after climbing the ridge behind our camp. We set out after sunrise in pleasantly cool weather, once on the top we could see that there was thick fog in the Huab valley in the distance. In about half an hour we reached the mouth of the Canyon, where we immediately found a faint panel of paintings.

We continued along the south bank of the narrowing canyon, and found another painting and several more engravings, but nothing spectacular, even with the right information they were difficult to find, I can well understand why we just walked past them two years ago.

We walked all the way into the canyon, till the barely passable stone step that caused us so much trouble the last time. There were engravings practically everywhere, two years ago we just walked past them without noticing.

Leaving the canyon, we went to find the few scattered sites to the east of the valley along the edge of the sandstone cliff, mostly small panels of weathered engravings.

Another kilometre further east there is a small valley, at its head near a small intermittent spring Breunig and team found a very rich cluster of engravings (site 136). It was a rather arduous climb up the ravine in the midday heat, but at the end we found the highlight of the day, some very nice panels of engravings in a very compact cluster of rocks.

On the way back we passed a few more minor sites, it was mid-afternoon by the time we reached our car and campsite.

Our plan was to move to the next valley to the north, make camp and visit the nearby painting and engravings the following morning. However we still had nearly two hours of daylight left as we arrived at our campsite, so we set out to the sites located some distance away on a terrace at the foot of a prominent escarpment (somewhat echoing the setting of the "Amphitheatre" sites). The climb proved to be more difficult than expected, but eventually we reached the site, but spent a long time trying to find the actual paintings of a giraffe and ostrich which were very faint, and hidden in an unexpected corner of the shelter.

Day 9. - Mikberg area

The previous evening we ticked off the last of the sites we planned to see in the west, so in the morning after packing camp we drove north then east, into the Moringa valley, where with Uwe in 2022 we searched for a supposedly rich cluster of engravings, but only found very few. Looking at the map, we noted that we had to drive 20 kilometres along a circuitous route to end up a mere two kilometres from our morning camp.

This time being better prepared (and with hindsight) we could easily find the panels of engravings which we missed the last time, all within 50 metres of where we have already been...

A few kilometres to the east, Breunig's site 202 is unique. It is a solitary inconspicuous small boulder in a broad valley where there are no other rock art sites, one would not expect to find anything on it. Yet the base of the rock is covered with paintings, all very weathered but recognisable if one looks closely.

Another of Breunig's sites, 177 lies in the middle of a rocky, mountainous area to the north of the Mikberg. We did not plan to visit, but as we drove along the track leading north, we found a well beaten track that turned off in that direction. We soon figured out that it was a direct track to De Riet over the plateau, for us it was very convenient as it passed a few hundred metres from the site.

We continued north, where in a small valley termed "Grey Canyon" Breunig and team found the third richest concentration of engravings after Twyfelfontein and the Rhino Spring locality. We drove as close as we could, selecting a suitable camping spot in the shade of some shrubs as it became a very hot day. We waited a bit for the midday heat to pass before with Uwe we made the foray into the canyon a few hundred metres away. Here the geology is completely different, instead of the soft red sandstone there is an outcrop of hard grey dolomite (?), the figures are pecked into the surface patina rather than being deeply engraved. There are hundreds of panels and thousands of figures, but the quality is far inferior to the other sites.

Day 10. - Mikberg area - Twyfelfontein Country Lodge

Peter Breunig and team reported another larger cluster of engravings (sites 179-192) on the top of the sandstone plateau to the east of the "Amphitheatre", technically no longer the Mikberg area but Twyfelfontein West. We drove as far as we could in the broad valley, then ascended the gully leading to the top of the plateau. It proved to be a rather arduous climb (and this too turned out to be a hot day), but once on the top we were rewarded with a spectacular landscape, and a scatter of nice engravings.

Next to the engravings we found a prominent shelter (Breunig site 182-12) with some soot damaged but very interesting paintings.

There were several more engravings in the area, going through all the sites took up the whole morning, it was mid-afternoon by the time we reached the car.

After the five days out in the Mikberg without any facilities it was nice to roll into the Twyfelfontein Country Lodge for an afternoon of luxury, it was a rather unanimous decision that rather than going anywhere, we will remain in the lodge to lick wounds, lounge by the pool, catch up on emails and just enjoy doing nothing for an afternoon.

Day 11. - Twyfelfontein - Grosse Blockberg - Blaauwpoort - Morewag

We had a lazy morning in the lodge with a late breakfast, before setting out to find a number of paintings reported by Scherz in the broader Twyfelfontein area. The first one was 41/MN, supposedly on a small boulder at the foot of the hill not far from the last road junction to the main Twyfelfontein engravings. Breunig also reported site 167 here, I was convinced that the two were the same, however on reaching the rock we did find the paintings of Breunig, but they did not match those of Scherz which is one of the rare ones that has a published photo. Some time we'll need to go back to find the Scherz site.

Our next target was Grosse Blockberg (Fundstelle 47), not far to the north of the D2612 near the Twyfelfontein junction. Scherz listed a number of sites in the area, from the description it was possible to roughly pinpoint two on Google Earth. Site F was supposedly on a large boulder, while the likely Google Earth location proved false, it did not take long to find the site with some interesting eared serpents nearby.

Site E was supposedly at the south east corner of the hill, on searching the likely boulder we found a large cave, by accident we came upon site B which was presumed to be much farther north based on Scherz's sketch and description.

With the position of F and B known, we started searching in the direction of F and it did not take long to find E on a smaller rock.

Farm Blaauwpoort (Fundstelle 48) is about seven kilometres to the east along the D2612. There used to be a guest farm, but now we found the old farmhouse abandoned, with a few adjacent Damara huts apparently still occupied. In one of them we found a gentleman who professed to be the proprietor, and even though he knew of no rock art sites, he was happy to allow us to search on the far side of the granite hill next to the farmhouse. Here Scherz's description was precise, finding the boulders with sites B & C took less than 30 minutes (we did not look for A, a small boulder on the top of the hill with just a single partial human figure)

The last target for the day was Farm Morewag (Scherz fundstelle 51), located along the D2628 road about 30 kilometres to the east of Twyfelfontein. We were planning to spend the night at the local community campsite, but we found it closed and deserted. Fortunately we had better luck at the farmhouse, a nice lady greeted us and directed us to the main "snake" site that was published by Peter Breunig, after which we were permitted to camp at the foot of the prominent granite hill near the farmhouse. Driving towards the main site, we stopped at the lesser one also mentioned by Breunig, but the two are not comparable.

Breunig's "snake" site is very impressive, a large boulder dominated by a huge eared serpent along its side, plus numerous human figures and animals. It is strange that Scherz was unaware of this major site that is at a fairly prominent and obvious location. We were lucky as the panel must have entered the shade just a few minutes before we arrived.

After finding a good camping spot, we set out on foot to find the site reported by Scherz, which was somewhere above the dry waterfall (clearly identifiable on Google Earth) on the far side of the hill. There was water at the waterhole at the base of the waterfall, and a good easy way up along the side. It did not take long to find the site on the boulders suspected from Google Earth.

At the Scherz site we were not so lucky, the main panel was half on the sun, we had to wait a good hour till before sunset when we could finally photograph the panels. We reached the camp just as the sun disappeared on the horizon.

Day 12. - Morewag - Palmweg - Sosode - Opuwo

The northern Kunene region of Namibia (to the west of Etosha park) contains a number of fine rock art sites, but they are quite spread out, and the lack of roads mean that large detours need to be made to visit them. On previous trips we never had the time to squeeze them in, now we allocated three days to visit all, with most of the time needed just to drive the long distances. Our first target was Sosode, a fine concentration of engravings along a short section of a gorge south of the town of Wamquelle, after which we were planning to drive to the city of Opuwo to spend the night. The total drive was to be around 400 kilometres, nearly the same as going back to Windhoek in the opposite direction.

We made an early start, passing the granite hills of Morewag in the light of the rising sun, first driving north then west along the C39 in the direction of Palmwag.

We fueled in Palmwag then continued north along the C43 through the rust coloured rocky basalt country. This is where we saw the first wildlife, several giraffe and ostrich by the road, although the vegetation did not appear much greener than around the Brandberg or the Mikberg.

Turning off the main road, we found the track leading towards Sosode to be washed away in places, but there was always a passable detour. In the end it was far easier than anticipated, though attemting to tackle it with a regular car would be a bit ambitious. The track ends a few dozen metres short of the riverbed, and the section with the engravings start another few dozen metres upstream. The panels are located on the vertical walls bordering the canyon, but also further upslope on boulders, along a roughly 150m stretch of the riverbed where it breaks through a rocky ridge. The quality of the engravings is very good, on par with Twifelfontein and the Mikberg.

Even though the Sosode site is compact, it is very rich, it was well into the afternoon by the time we finished taking photos. We re-traced our tracks back to the main road, and continued north past Warmquelle towards Opuwo, still a good 150 kilometres away on a not too well maintained gravel road. As we approached the town, we noticed a huge tree rising from the surrounding bush by the road, then another... We reached baobab country, these were the first we ever encountered in Namibia.

We reached Opuwo in time to replenish our supplies at the local Spar before closing time and fuel up, then we headed to the very pleasant Kaoko Mopane Lodge & Campsite for the night.

Day 13. - Opuwo - Otjorutatoa - Kamanjab

The engravings of Otjorutatoa are only about sixty kilometres to the north east of Sosode, but there are no roads or even tracks through the parallel North-South oriented rocky ridges of the Kunene, reaching them required a nearly 300 km detour via Opuwo. On the bright side, the C41/C35 leading from Opuwo to Kamanjab is completely surfaced, so we made a much faster progress than anticipated. The engravings are in a very similar setting, on the vertical walls of a gorge cutting through a ridge. The track leading to the site is quite bad in places, with soft sandy riverbeds to cross, for once the 4wd was truly necessary. The roughly 15 kilometres from the main road to the site needs a good 45 minutes, to which one needs to add the detours caused by missing a turn at some hardly visible junctions. Here too the track ends about a hundred metres short of where the engravings start. As we approached, we were surprised to find flowing water in the riverbed, on close investigation we found that it emerged from a pipe, it was pumped here to form pools for the cattle from a well. The engravings themselves are perhaps a little less spectacular, they are only scratched into the varnish covering the hard rock, and strange abstract symbols (which do occur elsewhere, but in lesser numbers) dominate.

Finishing our visit we returned along the bumpy track to the main road to cover the remaining 100 kilometres to Kamanjab, where we stayed for a lazy afternoon and the night at the Oppi-Koppi Rest Camp.

Day 14. - Kamanjab - Peet Alberts Koppie - Harmonie

Our Kamanjab stay was for a purpose, the rich site of Peet Alberts Koppie is just outside the town, with the magical key to the gates available at the Oppi-Koppi Rest Camp. After breakfast we took the key to visit the site, located along the crest of a fairly large rocky hill, where almost every other rock is covered with engravings. The stone is hard, so here too the themes are mostly pecked and scratched rather than deeply engraved, but there are several very nice panels, we could easily spend most of the morning there.

After returning the key we drove south towards Khorixas, then east towards Outjo to Harmonie farm, one of a series of farms in the Outjo district where Scherz reported rock art sites. The ones at Harmonie looked particularly rich, last year we saw the ones on the neighboring Aspro farm, now we were hoping to try our luck here. The farm now is primarily for charcoal production, we were unable to make any contact, so we just turned up at the old farmhouse. Fortunately the owners were there, and after some discussion they were happy to show us the single rock art site they knew. One of the workers was assigned to us, and he led us to a small koppie where instead of the expected paintings we found some very good quality engravings. Later doing my reading it became clear that these were recorded by Scherz.

The numerous paintings recorded by Scherz were all south of the road and the farmhouse, the owners knew nothing about them. They were very kind and helpful though, we received leave to freely roam about to investigate and camp at any spot we liked. We set out towards a likely group of koppies visible from the road, leaving the car along a track and continuing on foot. We soon found a shelter with paintings, but curiously it did not match any of those described by Scherz. In the course of the afternoon we found another two shelters with paintings (and some engravings), all in the area where we expected Scherz's sites 20/A and 20/D to be, but none matched.

Day 15. - Harmonie - Eremutua

It was a rather cold night (the first such on our trip), we warmed ourselves with a coffee until the sun started to make its presence felt. We re-read Scherz, but the description was straight forward. Site A was supposed to be at the koppie a few hundred metres south of the farmhouse, site D a little further south (pretty much where we searched).

As there was an outcrop closer to the road that we did not check out in the afternoon for lack of time, we started there. Here too we found two sites, but not again matching those of Scherz. For now this remains a mystery, we hope to return next year to clear this up.

Scherz's site B was on a koppie close to the western border fence of the property. The location looked obvious, we drove down the track by the fence and walked to the rocky hill. This time it was more straight forward, after some searching we did find a long shelter with nmerous paintings, here finally one figure did match the one published by Scherz.

Searching about the group of koppies, we found another three sites with paintings which were apparently not seen by Scherz, one of them quite impressive. Clearly this locality has much potential left, hopefully we can continue the search next year.

It was past midday by the time we finished with all the sites. Inken and Jens were expecting us at Eremutua in the afternoon, so we departed for the remaining 80 kilometres. Inken and Jens put in much visible effort, there were many improvements since our last visit, we settled in to the comfortable rooms for a nice relaxed afternoon.

Day 16. - Eremutua - Windhoek

This was our last day, we needed to be in Windhoek by the evening to catch our flights the following morning. We were in no hurry as the drive only needed four hours, in the morning with Uwe we set out to investigate the last remaining koppies in the north eastern part of the property for any rock art sites. We were not disappointed, we did find a rock with fine human figures on the eastern corner of the larger koppie, fitting the pattern seen at the hills investigated earlier.

Early afternoon we said good bye to Inken and Jens, and made the unexciting drive to Windhoek, finishing our trip at Joe's Beerhouse with a fine dinner.

For June 2025 we are planning a 12 day circuit to see a wide selection of the Rock Art sites of Namibia on a more modest budget, staying at campsites and guest farms along the way. Immediately after this trip in early July 2025 we plan to make our first round of the equally splendid Rock Art sites of Zimbabwe. Please visit the News page for any updates (or "follow" the FJ Expeditions FaceBook page).