Skeleton Coast 2025 #8: Down to Purros and Sesfontein

I’ve been struggling to get to writing this post. Why should I struggle? I think it’s recalling the last stretch of our journey, and perhaps I’m not keen for it to end. Or, maybe I’ve just been lazy. Either way, this is the last post in this series, so let’s get to it.

Today is all about the “Lone Men”. As we travel from Hartmannsvallei to the next campsite at Purros, there are quite a few of these weary travellers along the way.

The stretch of road where we find ourselves is treacherous – the little sharp rocks sticking out from the road surface are more and they are sharper. Charl picked one up, puncturing on the tyre surface. We tried for a while to fix it, but simply could not remove the rock – it was in too deep. Eventually we changed the tyre. The ladies … ermm … they kept an eye on things.

Luciano lost two two tyres on his previous trip in the same way. You do your best to avoid the rocks, but this is not a matter of driver skill. Unless you drive forty km/h all the way, it is really difficult to see the rocks in time, and risky to try and avoid them.

Then we get to our first tourist attraction, and it is … somewhat unexpected.

An orange drum!

Because the areas we travel through are vast, the roads are few and the landmarks are only distinctive to the trained eye, people have placed these drums along the way, as reference points.

There are other colours spread throughout the region, but this was the only one we passed.

Soon after, the first of the lone men appear on a small outcrop. After him, another, and so on. Have a look at the gallery below, and, as always, there are more in the big gallery.

As we travel southward, the grass becomes denser and we are starting to see wildlife. In South Africa we are not used to this – there is a lot more game in South Africa, but most of it is fenced in. Here, you are travelling on public roads, and you can see Giraffe and antelope next to the road.

And let’s not forget that the desert lions roam these lands – we do not always know where they are, but they are there – so be sensible and take care.

We finally arrived at the Purros campsite. Here the sand is as fine as baby powder.

The ablutions are luxurious (compared to previous couple of days) – in other words, there are flushable toilets and showers with hot water. What more could anyone ask for?

That evening, we had a special treat, with Luciano and Marius braaiing some of the best fillet I have ever tasted.

I realise now that I have not written that much about the food – but in truth, you could write an entire series of posts just on the dinners we had – the food was always good, and Marius is a braaier of note.

After dinner, we had a good couple of beers and reflected on our journey.

Then, we slept like the weary travellers that we were. Weary, but happy. The distances are far, setting up camp every day takes some time. Personally, I was quite a bit more active than my normal days of sitting behind a desk. So we were weary, but happy. Three months ons, and I would repeat the trip in a heartbeat.

In the morning, we drove to Sesfontein where everyone said their goodbyes. For us, it was off to a lodge and then on to Etosha – but that’s a story for another day.

Thanks for reading along!

Series Navigation

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