The full moon is just bedding down for the day, sinking behind a rocky ridge to the west, as our small group rouses itself over coffee and rusks. Late summer in the Namib Desert is not for the faint-hearted – especially if you’re going to lace up your walking shoes – and an early start is worth the scratchy eyes.

With a caffeine jolt to help us along, we set off on the trail leading away from &Beyond’s Sossusvlei Desert Lodge. The 172 000 hectare expanse of the NamibRand Nature Reserve stretches away to the south; the land stirring to life with the arrival of dawn.

Our path skirts the edge of the valley, dipping into dry riverbeds and crunching across the gravelly plains. Streaks of green hint at recent rains, and old kraals – long since abandoned – mark old shepherd outposts.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the 14 farms that make up the NamibRand were dotted with sheep and cattle. Until a visionary, Albi Brückner, realised that the sparse lands could not sustain them. So the fences were torn down, the sheep trucked away, farmhouses locked for the last time and the land returned to wilderness. Today, the massive NamibRand is home to free-roaming cheetah, leopard in the rocky koppies, plains dotted with antelope… and just a handful of luxury eco-lodges.

Our path starts to climb and a short, sharp uphill brings us to our destination; Bushman Cave. Indigenous San people once lived in these hills, and walls of the cave are decorated with the faded record of their lives here.

It’s easy to see why the San chose this spot to mark the passage of their lives in paintings of blood and clay. A river – or rather, the subtle stripe of greener brown that passes for a river in this dry land – runs through the valley below, and from this overhang they could watch the herds of game moving to fresh pastures. From here they could also no doubt watch the approach of the Nama herders who came and took their land, chasing the San away and into the arms of extinction.

On the walls, the paintings of oryx, giraffe and hunting parties are pale and barely visible now; perhaps not unlike the San themselves. It’s a mere echo of the people once found here, but there’s still a touch of magic to remembering their presence with these faded images.

Almost without warning, the sun clambers above the distant mountains and fills the valley in a river of warmth. We scramble down the hills of black limestone and wander back to the lodge, where breakfast passes in a haze of fresh coffee and crispy bacon before I retreat to my suite.

Just 10 freestanding suites stretch away around the main lodge, and all have recently been refurbished. Dowdy wood has been updated with a touch of soft modernity; muted tones of grey stone and gravel reflecting the landscape that flows in through the open patio doors.

And the rock-clad suites are each cleverly designed to ensure absolute privacy… so there’s no reason at all not to make use of the outdoor shower with its valley views! Indoors, a fireplace is laid for chilly winter nights and a skylight above the bed offers stargazing for the lazy.

If you’ve got more late-night energy though, the lodge boasts its own small observatory complete with powerful telescope and resident astronomer. It’s a rare night that isn’t dark and clear in the NamibRand, so fantastic views of the Milky Way are all but assured.

The morning passes gently as I lounge on the patio and scan the grasslands for the ‘star birds’ of the reserve. A family of ostrich are easy to spot, but it’s a while until the Rüppell’s Korhaan – one of the world’s heaviest flying birds, and near-endemic to Namibia – shows its face. Despite the arid landscape, over 100 species of bird have been recorded in and around the lodge, making it a worthwhile spot for twitchers.

Morning strolls into lunchtime, so I wander up to the lodge. The refurbishment is evident here too, with bowls of bleached white ‘driftwood’ washed in on the Namib sand sea while spacious couches creep out onto the terrace that curls around the lodge. A sparkling rim-flow pool seems to gush out over the desert plains, eliciting squeals of happiness from a gaggle of (admittedly well-behaved) kids.

Lunch and G&Ts flow like the water below, as the heat of the afternoon settles in. In the grasslands below my terrace table, two male oryx battle for dominance, looking for all the world like two jousting knights.

After lunch it’s back to the shade of my suite to soak up the deep silence of a hot desert afternoon. The silence where you can hear the blood pumping away inside your ears, as the heat shimmers across the sun-baked plains below.

By now, even the battling oryx have retreated into the shade of an evergreen Shepherd’s Tree, although a lone springbok ignores the sun pouring down on its haunches. Perhaps the crispy green shoots that arrived with the recent rains prove too irresistible. In the middle distance, the red dunes of the Namib sand sea grind to a halt in the rocky plains of the pro-Namib; the NamibRand is unique in conserving this transition zone between Namibia’s rocky hinterland and the Namib dunes.

Incredibly, those dunes began life in the hinterland of South Africa, nearly a thousand kilometres away. Washed downstream by the Orange River, the sediment was deposited at the river mouth and pushed south of Luderitz by ocean currents. From there, the prevailing winds blow the countless grains of powder-fine red sand to the north-east, building some of the highest dunes on the planet.

This is one of the oldest deserts on earth, and geologists estimate there have been dunes here for well over a million years. The most impressive of those are to be found at Sossusvlei, an hour or two from the lodge, where the likes of Dune 45 tower above the single road running to a cul-de-sac at the enigmatic Dead Vlei. It’s a popular day-trip for first-time visitors, and well worth the early start required to enjoy the morning light on the sands.

The heat loosens its grip

But as the heat of the day dips, guests at the lodge emerge from the deep shade.

Scenic drives into the far reaches of the NamibRand are a popular afternoon activity, offering the chance to admire both the landscapes and the sparse fauna of the reserve.

In Draaihoek and the rocky valleys to the south, the landscape is punctuated by lonely quiver trees and candelabra-shaped euphorbias. Herds of shy zebra hide out amongst the thickets here, where old farmhouses now lie shuttered and deserted.  Leopard prowl these hills too and are, incredibly, sighted fairly often.

Our Land Rover is heading west though, away from the rocky hills and towards the powder-soft dunes. Of the activities on offer, quad-bike excursions into the creeping tendrils of the sand sea offer perhaps the best way to get up close and personal with this lonely landscape.

I’m always a bit sceptical of quad bikes and their effect on the environment, but here it seems that impact is kept to a minimum. Apart from the unavoidable noise pollution, riders stick to the established dirt roads or a single narrow track through the fringe of the dunes. We pass within metres of a large male Oryx who barely raises his heavy-horned head to acknowledge us.

The warm desert air rushes past as we cruise towards the dunes; wonderfully open and exposed in the arms of the valley. Up on the sands, Dune Larks – found only in the Namib Desert – skitter past in search of seeds from the lanky Bushman’s Grass. Nestor searches for a root and unearths the three-, perhaps four-, metre long fibrous network that scours the arid sands for every last scrap of moisture.

On a rise, we pull up for a break to soak up the valley views. The famous fairy circles of the Namib pockmark the landscape below us; barren craters on a moonscape of tawny grass. Are they caused by fungus, termites or radioactivity? Nobody really knows, and the fairy circles are a mystery as confounding as the desert itself.

As we’re admiring the scenery, the full moon shows its face over the Nubib Mountains that frame the eastern edge of the reserve. It strikes me that the moon has seen the far side of the earth in a day, but we’ve spent time in a landscape that is as otherworldly as they come.

&Beyond Sossusvlei Desert Lodge

+27 11 809 4300

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www.andbeyond.com

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