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We were up early. After a quick cup of coffee, the
trikes were packed and we were ready to go just as the sun rose. Andre was to drive the Land Rover while Martine flew their trike. There is often mist that comes in from the cold Atlantic and moves inland for about
50km along the coast in this area.
Olivier and I talked about the mist and tried to
decide what to do. With Martine with us the situation was a little different. When it is just Olivier and I we know the limits of out experience and abilities and can plan accordingly, but having Martine with us
meant we had to be more cautious.
After pondering about what to do we decided to take
off and fly southwards. We stayed below the mist and headed inland where we hoped the mist would end. As we headed inland the space between the mist and the ground got less and less. After flying low level for half
an hour, Olivier reported that he was going to climb through the mist. Just then Martine reported that she was already in the mist and at full power was actually descending. I left it up to Olivier to talk her
through while I got well away from the area and headed through the mist. Without an artificial horizon instrument, the only way to keep straight in the mist is to watch the compass and the GPS. Well, I was so intent
on listening to Olivier trying to get Martine through that I didn't concentrate on flying my trike straight and the next minute, I saw the compass and GPS spinning wildly. I could feel the G's, so I knew we were in
a very tight turn. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest when I thought about the possibility of a mid-air collision in the mist. I reduced throttle and straightened the trike just as we came out of the mist at
about 200 ft above the ground. OK, good lesson! Next time concentrate on flying your own aircraft.
Martine was through the mist and with Olivier before
we went through. It was a lot thicker than I expected, because it took us about 2 minutes to get through. It was incredibly beautiful above the white puffy clouds. It took us about 10 minutes to find each other,
because somehow, Olivier and Martine had landed up about 10 km behind us.
After 30 minutes of flying we started to see bits of
desert below us. Ahead of us lay the incredible orange dunes that run all the way down the coast to Oranjemund, some 800 km further south.
We landed on the road, just outside the fence of the
National Park at Sossusvlei. The sand dunes at Sossusvlei are the highest in the world. Certainly they are the most spectacular I have ever seen.
We had been down for only 30 minutes, when a Cessna
roared just over the top of us at high speed. It was Charl and friends who had flown up from Cape Town to join us for a few days. They landed at the airstrip in the park, where they were collected by a Land Rover
from the Sossusvlei Lodge.
It was great to see our old friends: Charl, the
beautiful Cecil and Anton. It is always a pleasure to have Cecil with us as he has the natural ability to scare all manner of dangerous human and animal away!
Later in the afternoon the team from the TV programme
"Carte Blanche" arrived to join us for a few days of filming.
In the evening we were invited to eat at the lodge by
Peter, the producer of the TV programme. It was a great evening. We drank and ate and smoked and laughed and talked rubbish.
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