Death Vlei

Once we'd seen the sunrise from somewhere near the top of Dune 45, we made our descent and were greeted by our guide who had set up breakfast in the parking area. It was a welcome sight after getting up at 4.30am.

We didn't hang around too long though as the next activity on the agenda was to do a 5km walk through the dune field to Death Vlei and we needed to set off before it got too hot. We were also lucky that there was a bit of cloud cover to shield us from the blistering heat of the desert sun. Our route took us over three dunes, which was hard work on the way up but great fun on the way down - just like bouncing down through deep powdered snow. We had to stop a few times to tip all the sand out of our boots.

At the top of the last dune, we sat there like birds on a wire as we gathered our breath after the steep climb up and took a moment to contemplate the surreal scenery below us. Death Vlei certainly lives up to its name in terms of its isolation and barren landscape that is devoid of any living thing.

They say that Namibia is a photographer's dream. To be honest, you'd have to be a bit of an idiot with a camera to come away from this country without at least a few good shots.