At long last, a full night’s sleep at the luxurious Leyland Drift camp, with en-suite toilets and hot bucket showers, perched on a hill overlooking a glistening riverbed. Following a hearty breakfast, Andre provided few details on our daily activities, other than sunscreen, sandals, home for dinner, and something about an abandoned diamond mine and not having dune this trip for almost a decade. With some trepidation, the four intrepid Evanstonians piled into two Land Rovers for our 4-wheel adventure to the Atlantic, some 40 kilometers away, as the red-eyed bulbul flies. Anne, Dan, and Nancy joined Andre, while Rick hopped in with Leon and Jacques.
Our bumpy ride began through the plains, until we reached the edge of the desert, across expansive salt flats, until small sand hills and the occasional springbok and oryx dotted the landscape. Our first pit stop was at an impressive formation of marble, glistening white in the khaki-colored sand.
At this point, the dunes (and NO roads or paths) appeared on the horizon, and our roller-coaster ride was about to begin, with no railings to keep us on track.
High Dune:
For the three hours, the two Rovers headed in the general direction of the seashore, traversing increasingly higher dunes, searching for manageable routes. Fortunately for Rick, Andre and his 3 Live Crew were the trail blazers, with Leon, Jacques and I following in their wheel tracks. Impressively, we successfully scaled 2/3 of the dunes attempted on the first try, sliding down the rest before ascending a new tack. And, if the climb wasn’t hair-raising enough, at each apex, we had no way of knowing what awaited the Rover on the other side of the dune crest—a vehicle-friendly ridge or a death-defying 60-degree plunge down a steep dune face.
Of course, reaching the seashore only required 40 or 50 of such climbs, putting Anne and Nancy’s anti-nausea wrist bands to the test.J We did stop a few times to enjoy the breathtaking views and visit the last known Bushman’s campsites atop one of the dunes.
At long last, we cleared the dunes and reached the foggy shoreline and spied what appeared to be remnants of shipwrecks in the distance. Andre quickly corrected us, for we were viewing the leftovers of a sinkhole—his father’s long-abandoned money-pit of a fantasy; a diamond mine with a dreamy prospector and nightmarish prospects. We explored the bulldozer and tractor, remarkably in tact after 30 years of exposure
—faring far better than the whale whose bone framed the dozer or the Alas-Poor-Oryx, whose last remaining trace, a horn, transformed Nancy into the unicorn Dan always knew she was.
Returning to the vehicles, Jacques, who will begin culinary school in the fall, had prepared a seaside picnic amid the hovering and hungry gulls at every tern. Dan, still anxious for a meet and greet with sea lions, settled for a face-to-skull with a carcass.
As Leon and Jacques loaded up the Rovers for the long haul back to Leyland Drift, Andre handed us a small magnifying glass and bid us to lie face down for an up-close-and-personal with the sand, revealing a sparkling-colored treasure trove of KG (garnet), agate, quartz, and hematite.
We loaded up and prayed that the winds had not wiped out our tracks, and began the long and winding road that hopefully leads back to camp. At the crest of one of the largest dunes, Andre asked everyone to exit the vehicle and sit in a row across the top of the ridge, and await his instructions. Upon the count of three, we began our harmonious slide, trumpeting a symphonic blend of booming butt music, worthy of a Carnegie Hall Br(ASS) Band (perhaps after a Carnegie Deli dinner). AHA…that’s why they are called the Roaring Dunes!!!
With the music still ringing in our ears and the sand swimming in our skivvies, we enjoyed the roller coaster ride home, arriving back at Leyland Drift just after dusk, with great ideas for a new ride at 6 Flags!
No comments:
Post a Comment