It was the very first holiday that I can ever recall. The whole tribe was going camping in Namibia, the full quota of uncles, aunts and cousins. We set off from Kimberley in convoy, a long crocodile of cars on the road to Schmidtsdrift. No one had 4x4s in those days – you took your Valiant or Chrysler on to the dirt roads and did the best you could.  We first stopped for a wander over the glaciated rocks, dinosaur footprints and prehistoric rock engravings next to the road, had lunch at the confluence of the Vaal and Orange rivers at Douglas, then explored the Mary Moffat Museum at Griquatown, and then over some impossibly dusty roads through the Asbesberge to Witsand. 

What I remember most of that drive was the bright red sand that glowed in the afternoon sun, as if lit from within, huge weaver nests hanging from electricity poles and the sharp smell of dust.  Winter is the best time to brave the daytime heat of the Northern Cape, although the cold at night tended to nip the extremities somewhat.  It is also the best time to visit Witsand as the cold dry air makes the dunes behave like no other sand dune has behaved before or since. We arrived in late afternoon – no daylight left for exploring, just time to make the fire and pitch the tents in the sand.  Being new to the art of camping, we did not know that when camping on sand it is a good idea to weight down the sides of your tent with stones.  We also did not know that every night the sand dunes experience a thin but efficient breeze. We awoke the following morning to find tents filled with rows of mummies, covered comprehensively with a layer of fine sand. It was our first lesson in the tenacity of the white sand at Witsand – it regards its day as incomplete if it has not infiltrated everything that has a diameter larger than a sandgrain. So, instead of our going to the dunes, they came to us. Witsand is unique. If it were anywhere else in the world, it would probably be surrounded by parking lots, amusement parks, souvenir shops and casinos. But because it is in the unfussy Northern Cape, it is, even today, just a small resort where people go who are in the know.  Anyway, so there we were, ears deep in sand, ready to find out what makes Witsand so special.  For starters, it is an island of white sand dunes among all that red sand. Nothing appears capable of making these two colours mix. Legend has it that, if you took a bucket of the white sand and poured it out over a red sand dune a distance away, by morning all the white sand would have slithered back to the white area. In fact, says further legend, if you took the two sands and mixed them in a bottle, by morning each layer would have neatly separated.  Nobody knows why these dunes exist, although one theory has it that the white sand is over a source of water, and the water vapour rising though the sand takes out the red oxide and leaves the sand crystalline. The sand grains are also of a uniform size, which sets up considerable friction if the sand is disturbed.  So – if you walk on these dunes, you start a low rumble that sounds like a plane going overhead.  Run your finger through the sand and you will hear a tiny grumble – similar to the sound a small dog makes when you try to take its bone away. Sliding down the dunes on a tea-tray – as we did until Mom discovered her tea tray was missing – creates a roar that is almost deafening.  We had tremendous fun standing on different dunes and trying to get a tune out of them by jumping up and down in different rhythms and tempos.  Amazing how easy it was to keep a group of pre-television and Internet children busy for hours. Exploring the dunes will also uncover curious little glass-like tubes called fulgurites.  These are created when lightning hits the white sand (more frequently than the red – another of the dune’s mysteries) and melts the white sand into strands of mirror-like crystals.  Of course, nowadays the Witsand has a nature reserve and a four-star resort. You no longer have to worry about weighting down the tent with stones – you can sleep in luxury air-conditioned chalets and dip in a beautiful blue swimming pool. There’s even a conference facility for something REALLY way-out. Careful conservation has allowed the nature reserve to bloom with a number of different species and Africa’s smallest raptor, the Pygmy falcon. What hasn’t changed is the red earth, the white dunes, the upright meerkats watching you approach, the huge weaver nests and, of course, that wonderful smell of the ancient dust of Africa. Have a look online at www.witsandkalahari.co.za