From Sossusvlei to Deadvlei: soaring above Namib Naukluft National Park's spectacular desert dunes

Namib Naukluft National Park is the largest game park in Africa, the 4th largest in the world and also the most unusual. The park, an ecological preserve in the vast Namib Desert, stretches nearly 20,000 square miles along Namibia’s southern coast, boasting a variety of spectacular desert environments.

Rains are infrequent, but ocean mists can travel up to 60 miles inland, nourishing the desert’s flora and fauna that have adapted to the harsh environment. The park is home to up to 200 bird species as well as mammals such as steenbok, springbok, oryx, kudu, mountain zebra, jackals and klipspringer.

The Sossusvlei region of the park is particularly stunning, blanketed in massive orange sand dunes, some reaching over 900 feet into the sky (the tallest in the world!). Austin-Lehman’s hot air balloon flight over the Sossusvlei is one of the most beautiful and memorable experiences you can have in Namibia – drifting silently 100 feet over a sea of wind-swept dunes, watching as they change color and texture before your eyes, is nothing short of magical. Your visit to DeadVlei – a white, dried up, salt-encrusted lake named for its eerie dead camel thorn trees – is sure to leave a lasting impression as well.

Explore the vast sand dune desert of Namib Naukluft National Park, an ecological preserve thought to be the earth’s oldest desert. Relax your mind, energize your body and ignite the adventurer within on an Austin-Lehman African safari.

Did You Know…

In the Nama language, Namib means vast – and this is an understatement!
Geologists suspect that the Sossusvlei desert that covers most of the Namib Naukluft National Park is the oldest desert known to man.
The older the dune in Sossusvlei, the brighter the color (caused by slow iron oxidisation and a zillion tiny fragments of garnets). The dunes refract spectacular colors with the changing light, turning from burnt orange to red to deep mauve.
Sossusvlei’s head-standing beetle has come up with a unique adaptation to make use of the life-giving mist that rolls in from the sea – as the mist descends, the beetle tilts forward into a head stand and droplets of moisture run down grooves in its body to its mouth.
The Anchieta's dune lizard has an interesting way of adapting to the desert’s dry, scorching sand as well – it does a kind of thermoregulatory dance putting only two feet down at a time and hopping from one pair of legs to the other, using its tail as a stabilizer.Lower Zambezi National Park was declared a National Park just 25 years ago in 1983.

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