Story Hunter Desert Expeditions Namibia

The essence of adventure is to be up against the total unknown of what lies ahead.

The Namibian Desert is silent and hauntingly beautiful. In a word, it is empty. And, as a lion tracker, it is one of the most daunting places I have ever been.

Still following the call of the wild, this podcast series is a journey into the vast and untamed Namibian desert on an expedition to track Africa’s most elusive and rare animals. Tracking is an art that lives in all of us and I hope that, in these stories, you might find the tracks for your own adventure and begin to awaken your inner wild one.

Story Hunter Desert Expeditions: Namibia

New Adventure Coming Soon

If you stare hard and long enough into the wild, eventually you see your reflection in everything.

These Desert Tracking Expeditions have become an annual rite of passage for my friends, Alex and James, and I – our Wild Man week. Alex van den Heever is a world-renowned wildlife tracker and co-founder of the Tracker Academy and James Tyrrell is a photographic filmmaker – a master storyteller – and wildlife guide.

We ventured into this wild place, harbouring the same desire – to find a group of lions that have adapted to live along Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, one of the wildest and harshest ecosystems for lions to survive in. This coast gets its name for its wild rough seas, and the numerous shipwrecks that have left skeleton hulls along its coastline. These desert-adapted lions normally operate inland in a stretch of the Namibian Desert known as Damaraland, will sometimes make their way to this coastline to hunt seals.

Images courtesy of Desert Lion Conservation

Namibia is the only country in the world where lions have adapted to desert conditions.

Namibia is 825 square kilometers – about half the size of the state of Alaska. With only 3 million people, 80% of whom live in the south of the capital city, the country feels like it is only haunted with people. The Skeleton Coast makes up the north western strip of coastland, covering a 17 000 km stretch of land that is largely uninhabitable. We arrive in Swakopmund, travel six hours inland to a town called Palmvag and slowly our expedition will take us toward the coast. We are solely reliant on the information that exists only between the local people, flowing beneath the formal tourist structure. Known as the ‘Bush Telegraph’, this information is only accessible with the right energy and relationality. Only when we tap into the bush telegraph, do we find our first tracks.