The Kuiseb is a river that mostly isn't. For most of the year its bed is a broad strip of dry sand, lined with ana trees and camelthorn, running west from the Namibian highlands toward Walvis Bay, and only after heavy rain in the interior does water come down it, sometimes in a brown flood that reaches the sea. Along its course, the river has cut a deep canyon through the edge of the plateau, and the road, the C26, drops through it at Kuiseb Pass, at about 905 metres, in a series of bends with views over rocky ridges and dry valleys.
The canyon has a story attached. During the Second World War, two German geologists, Henno Martin and Hermann Korn, evaded internment by retreating into the desert, and for more than two years lived in a rock shelter near the Kuiseb, hunting game and drinking from springs. Martin later wrote a book about it, The Sheltering Desert, which is a classic of survival and of the desert's strange beauty. Not far away, the Gobabeb research station has studied the Namib since the 1960s, and its work on fog, beetles and dune life is known around the world.
The landscape is stark and lovely. To the north lie gravel plains and low hills, to the south the great sand sea of the Namib, with dunes that run on for hundreds of kilometres. The colours change through the day, from pale gold at dawn to deep orange at sunset. Wildlife is thin but present, with oryx, springbok and the occasional zebra on the plains, and the dry riverbed is a corridor for animals and birds.
The road surface is gravel, hard-packed in places and loose in others, with corrugations and sandy patches, and speed should be kept moderate. In the dry bed of the river, there may be soft sand at crossings. Fuel is the key problem. Walvis Bay, on the coast, has full services, and Solitaire, a tiny settlement to the east, has a petrol station, a bakery known for its apple pie and a few wrecked cars as decoration, but nothing in between, so fill up and carry extra. Carry plenty of water, since the climate is dry and the sun intense. Nights are cold, and mornings can be misty near the coast.