25th Aug Usakos

25th Aug. Usakos
Here lies Martin Luther. A short journey into history. Five kms out of Swakopmund this 14,000kg steam behemoth now stands. It was imported from Germany some 114 yrs ago to transport supplies inland. The inaugural trip was delayed by a local war, the engineer went back to Germany taking with him the secrets how to operate it. A US prospector managed to work out how to get it going. It then managed a few journeys between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund before grinding to a halt west of Swakopmund. The people realized that the amount of water required to run the beast was out of all proportion to its viability that this thirst ravished country could permit. It lay there all those years, rusting. Some pieces were removed. Until in 2005, the students from the Namibian Institute of Mining resurrected it. Once again it shows of its Teutonic glory housed under protective cover.
We returned to the Namib/Naukluft Park again today on a day excursion to look at the lichen that covers much of this desert. It lives off the mists that come in from the Atlantic and is important in holding the soil together. Easily damaged and slow to recover, its growth rate is 1mm per year. The other plant that was intriguing was the welwitschia. Endemic to Namibia it is a ground hugging plant with amazing longevity, one plant is reputed to be 1500 years old. A photo below. Other places of interest were the remains of a German camp from World War 1. Rusted tins and the tracks of a tracked vehicle were still visible. The Swakop River flows through this area, at the moment a dry riverbed, it has eroded the surrounding land into a grotesque lunar landscape.