With the unlimited elbow room, vast deserts and an annual quota of 300 days of sunshine, you can see why we were drawn to one of Africa's most intriguing destinations. Wedged between the Kalahari and the chilly South Atlantic, Namibia's charms are well known in neighbouring South Africa, but outsiders have only recently discovered its deserts, seascapes, bush walking and boundlessness. Namibia we were told, is a beautiful country of vast potential.

Highlights of our trip included:-

The Etosha National Park is one of the world's greatest wildlife-viewing venues. It is the  Namibian destination for many travellers. The western part of the park is characterised by scrubby savannah, but further east, the scrub gives way to mixed woodland. The lifeblood of Etosha is the Etosha Pan - an immense, flat, saline desert that only occasionally holds water. During winter months, perennial springs around its edges draw large concentrations of birds, elephants, giraffes, lions, zebras and a few cheetahs and leopards. The animals of Etosha also include such protected species as the black-faced impala and black rhino.

The Skeleton Coast is, properly, the coastline between where the Kunene and Ugab rivers open into the Atlantic, but the name is often used for the entire desert coastline.  The Skeleton Coast parks take in nearly two million hectares (4,940,000 acres) of sand dunes and gravel plains and are among the world's most inhospitable waterless areas.  A misty fog hangs in the air for much of the year giving the barren coast an eerie feeling.

Waterberg Plateau Park is a 150m high plateau of vividly coloured sandstone rising out of the surrounding plains like a towering oasis. Up to 16km wide, the top of the plateau is covered with lush vegetation and offers habitat to many rare and endangered species such as sable and roan antelope, tsessebe and white rhino. Leopards are also found, as are buffalo and over 200 bird species!

Sesrieum in the Namib Desert presents one of the most spectactular images of Namibia.  Sesriem means 'six thongs' and refers to the Sesriem canyon, the water at the bottom on which could be reached by lowering a bucket on a length of six leather oxon thongs.

There is an exciting discovery to be found in Grootfontein: The largest meteorite ever found lies on the grounds of the "Hoba" farm near the town. It weighs more than 50 tons, has a volume of 9 cubic metres and hit the ground about 80,000 years ago.

Khaudom is situated next to Botswana and immediately north of Bushmanland, Khaudom is a wild, seldom visited area of dry woodland savannah growing on old stablised Kalahari sand dunes.  It is here we carried out the project phase of our trip.

For more detailed information on the places we visited, please see the link provided for Nomad African Travel, the company who helped us organise the trip.