Namib 1, Naukluft, Namibia by Jan Smith

Naukluft  is  in Namiba, and part of the Namib, the world’s oldest desert.  The park is a combination of the Namib Desert Park and the Naukluft Mountain Zebra Park as well as sections of the Diamond Area.

The combined area of the park is just under 50,000km2 but the desert itself extends over most of Namibia, reaching north into Angola and south, well into South Africa.

The north is known as the Skeleton Coast; named for the bleached whale and seal bones which covered the shore when the whaling industry was still active.  Hundreds if not thousands of shipwrecks litter the coast and lend a further nuance to this name.

In the south, winds race through deep valleys. The force the surface of the earth to become uncharacteristically dry. The Sperrgebiet, or forbidden zone,  experiences the highest wind speeds ever recorded on earth.

Namibian Coastal Marsh, Namibia, by Jan Smith

The central part of the park, where these aerial photographs were taken, is confined by the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Naukluft escarpment to the east.  Rain is preciously scarce but moisture is fed to the land by reliable banks of fog that roll inward from the Atlantic Ocean for many miles.

The winds that bring in the fog are also responsible for building towering sand dunes, whose burnt orange color is a sign of their age. The orange color develops over time as iron in the sand is oxidized, like rusty metal.  The older the dune, the brighter the color.

These dunes are the tallest in the world, in places rising more than 300 meters above the desert floor. The dunes taper off near the coast, becoming lagoons, wetlands, and mudflats.

To Download a Low Resolution PDF Presentation:Catalog_Naukluft_LRL