Namibia, Up Early,

to catch the sunrise,

at the Quiver Tree Forest and Giants Playground, 

they are both iconic natural attractions located in southern Namibia, the Quiver Tree Forest (Kokerboomwoud), is near the city of Keetmanshoop on the Gariganus Farm,

there is a dense concentration of about 250 native quiver trees (Aloidendron dichotomum), 

declared a national monument in 1955, some of the largest trees reach up to 9 meters in height and are up to 300 years old, on the same farm there is the Giant’s Playground, 

it features stacked boulders of massive dark dolerite rocks that look as though they were haphazardly stacked like giant building blocks or Jenga pieces by a mythical giant, hence the name, the area was formed by a magma intrusion, around 180 million years ago, during the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea, molten magma pushed upward through cracks in the Earth's crust and cooled underground to form a dense layer of dolerite, following that over millions of years, the softer surrounding sedimentary rocks eroded away, leaving the hard dolerite exposed and cracked into blocks, wind, water, and desert heat then polished and weathered the rocks into their current shapes,

time to head back to the main buildings on the farm, 

where we were greeted by a sun halo, I have only ever seen one of these before, it is a bright, circular ring of light that appears around the Sun when sunlight interacts with tiny ice crystals suspended in the upper atmosphere, it is caused by high-altitude clouds, they typically form when thin, wispy cirrus or cirrostratus clouds drift high up (around 20,000 feet or more), and contain hexagonal ice crystals, literally millions of microscopic ice crystals shaped like six-sided hexagonal prisms, which produces a prism effect, as sunlight passes through these crystals, the ice acts like a prism—bending (refracting) and reflecting the light, normally at an angle of 22° which is the most common, amazing!

also common here wild love birds, 

who are attracted by the bird feeders the owner puts out for them,

but what is not so common is that the owner has taken an abandoned meerkat and nursed it back to good health,

next back in the cruiser, 

the countryside speed past, 

we were soon at a hide, overlooking a water hole in the distance, 

visited by a flock of ostriches, 

also horses and game arrived, but I took the photographs of them on my bigger camera, so that will be a treat for me when we return from Thailand mid December,

we past a few abandoned houses,

from a abandoned mining town we will visit tomorrow, 

but first, 

to the coast, 

driving towards our hotel for the night,

the sea front houses looking very impressive, 

and here is our hotel, 

grand views of the ocean,

and here we all are, from left to right Andrew, Seyhan, Helen, Helen (Andrews wife), Sal and Wilk, it was bitterly cold that evening, 

this house has an amazing front garden, 

as we made our way down into town, 

passing the Ministry of Fisheries, 

looking across, 

and back, 

we made it into town, I was so cold I went straight to the restaurant, 

Will kindly took my pocket camera and photographed the towns church, 

I was inside getting warm,

I was soon joined by Hosia,

along with everyone else, 

on to our starters and main courses,

all of which were huge,

as were the desserts, 

my crème brûlée almost the size of a dinner plate! after which we went back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.