A desert. A national park.
Where hot sand meets highland rocky mountains.
It's name means Land of open spaces. The park has some of the most unusual wildlife and nature reserves in the world. It's an area larger than Switzerland , roughly the size of the US states New Hampshire and Vermont combined. The region is characterised by high, isolated inselbergs and kopjes (the Afrikaans term for rocky outcrops), made up of dramatic blood red granites, rich in feldspars and sandstone.
It is the largest natural park in Africa and the fourth largest in the world. A surprising collection of creatures survives in the hyper-arid region, including snakes, geckos, unusual insects, hyenas, gemsboks and jackals. More moisture comes in as a fog off the Atlantic Ocean than falls as rain, with the average 106 millimeters of rainfall per year concentrated in the months of February and April.
The winds that bring in the fog are also responsible for creating the park’s towering sand dunes, whose burnt orange color is a sign of their age. The orange color develops over time as iron in the sand is oxidized, like rusty metal; the older the dune, the brighter the color.
These dunes are the tallest in the world, in places rising more than 300 meters (almost 1000 feet) above the desert floor. The dunes taper off near the coast, and lagoons, wetlands, and mudflats located along the shore attract hundreds of thousands of birds.
So what is this place called? Share this to Google+ and tag +ARTOUR or at Facebook and name @ARTOUR. We might have some special rewards for best sharer. :)
Image source: "Namib-Naukluft Sand Dunes (2011)" by Yathin S Krishnappa - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Namib-Naukluft_Sand_Dunes_(2011).jpg#/media/File:Namib-Naukluft_Sand_Dunes_(2011).jpg
Where hot sand meets highland rocky mountains.
It's name means Land of open spaces. The park has some of the most unusual wildlife and nature reserves in the world. It's an area larger than Switzerland , roughly the size of the US states New Hampshire and Vermont combined. The region is characterised by high, isolated inselbergs and kopjes (the Afrikaans term for rocky outcrops), made up of dramatic blood red granites, rich in feldspars and sandstone.
It is the largest natural park in Africa and the fourth largest in the world. A surprising collection of creatures survives in the hyper-arid region, including snakes, geckos, unusual insects, hyenas, gemsboks and jackals. More moisture comes in as a fog off the Atlantic Ocean than falls as rain, with the average 106 millimeters of rainfall per year concentrated in the months of February and April.
The winds that bring in the fog are also responsible for creating the park’s towering sand dunes, whose burnt orange color is a sign of their age. The orange color develops over time as iron in the sand is oxidized, like rusty metal; the older the dune, the brighter the color.
These dunes are the tallest in the world, in places rising more than 300 meters (almost 1000 feet) above the desert floor. The dunes taper off near the coast, and lagoons, wetlands, and mudflats located along the shore attract hundreds of thousands of birds.
So what is this place called? Share this to Google+ and tag +ARTOUR or at Facebook and name @ARTOUR. We might have some special rewards for best sharer. :)
Image source: "Namib-Naukluft Sand Dunes (2011)" by Yathin S Krishnappa - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Namib-Naukluft_Sand_Dunes_(2011).jpg#/media/File:Namib-Naukluft_Sand_Dunes_(2011).jpg
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Namibia, desert, Africa, national park