Little Miss 6000 has left the country. I know this because we have one of those apps which tells us where she is, and where she is is not in this country. I’m not too perturbed about this: we have known that she would leaving the country today for quite some time, and I’m hopeful that before she comes back to this country – sort of medium-term permanently (see below) at the end of the week – that she’ll have a great time.

Crossing country borders is equal parts exciting and annoying. And in these days of air travel, we often forget that there are two parts to it: leaving one and entering the other. But when crossing land borders, this is brought home to you in no uncertain terms. Especially quieter border posts, where each official seems personally offended by actually having to do something in processing a traveler.

LM 6000 signed out of South Africa with the maximum of fuss, effort, admin and paperwork in Vioolsdrif, crossed a bridge over the Orange River and took this photo out of the bus window…

[you can see why they called it the Orange River/s]

…in no-man’s land (are we still allowed to say that?), before entering Namibia about 750m later at the Noordoewer border post with the maximum of fuss, effort, admin and paperwork.
Two separate countries, two separate buildings, 54000 different documents required by each.

The weird thing is that in paddling down the Orange River – the “middle” of which marks the boundary between SA and Namibia here – her whole group will be repeatedly crossing from one country to the other without any form of fuss, effort, admin or paperwork at all. When we did this trip 8 years [weeps] ago, we even camped in alternate countries each night.

Human imposed borders are sometimes bizarre things.

Ag, just looking at that screenshot is making me jealous. The landscape there is beyond lunar. It’s stark, angular and unforgiving, with that incongruous green strip right through the middle of it.

But it’s also absolutely breathtaking:

It’s been a long day. Meet-up was 4:30am this morning, for a 5am departure, and no-one sleeps properly when they are excited about a week away in another country or they have a 3:45am alarm set.

A good night’s sleep tonight will do no-one any harm. Some of us will get up tomorrow morning and live our daily lives, with jobs to do, tasks to complete and all that other mundane stuff. Some of us will get up tomorrow and set off on an adventure down (some of) Africa’s 6th biggest river.

I know where I’d rather be.