D72….Beware Meteorites

My goodness a leisurely start. Breakfast at 8!! Gregg is going soft.

A gentle 60k on tar, to Grootfontein, kick started the day. Refuelling stop at a very nice Total filling station. All jerry cans refuelled also. Namibian roads are unbelievable. Swiss quality.

A mixed tar and dirt trek took us to a very interesting little site. The sort of place you would visit on a bus tour. A meteorite.

Except it just happens to be the largest known meteorite on the planet and it is in the middle of nowhere in Namibia. It weighs in at 50 tonnes. It is 80 percent iron. The rest is mainly nickel with a hint of copper and cobalt.

We walked past a sign that said ‘Beware of Meteorites!’ and there it was. It is an enormous lump of iron. It is square. Maybe 3 metres square and a metre deep. It fell about 80,000 years ago. And the most curious thing is that it has no crater. They suspect it came in at a very low trajectory and bounced along for quite some distance….a little like Wallace’s bouncing bomb that destroyed the dam in World War 2.

From there we travelled another 200k mainly on lovely dirt roads finished to perfection. My only gripe was the colour. The roads were glaringly white, particularly in full sun. A little picky I know.

And now here we are, after another 360 kilometers, at the Etosha National Park. It is as large as the Kruger and one of Afric’s iconic parks. We will check it out tomorrow. J