On the Far Side

It’s not every day that a journey to the moon is in the offing, except in Namibia, where the extraordinary is commonplace. And where, an easy 30 kilometres from Swakopmund, on tar, salt and gravel roads extending from the Dorob National Park to the sprawling Namib-Naukluft National Park, I find myself stumbling onto the moon. Rather, should I say, stumbling onto the astonishing Moon Landscape of the Eronga region, reached on a road that gives no sign of being a runway into such desolate magnificence.

“In geology, the area is referred to as badlands,” Bawden Khafula, guide at Charly’s Desert Tours, tells me when I join the afternoon trip, and we set off into remote areas where a 4x4 is needed. “It’s like Death Valley in California, and the Jordanian Desert.” There’s nothing negative about the name badlands, it’s just a geological term referring to a landscape of gullies and ridges, crafted by