Illofa camping for the Christmas
The photos for this camp was all shared on Facebook from mobile phones, which we still need to download to the computer to properly share.
As COVID-19 really did a number on the people of Namibia, and kept a large portion of the tourists out of the country, the campsites were much more deserted than usual. Arriving on Monday, 21 December it took a few hours to pitch the camp.
The days were spent in the sun, on the beach and lazing around the camp, doing as little as possible. It’s crazy that in a year where not much has happened, you still don’t feel like doing anything.
Popping away from Illofa, the town of Henties bay was bustling, but strangely enough the businesses were only opening at 11 in the morning. Almost like they were forcing you to stay in bed late. It has been noticed many times that there is a definite demoralized feel to many businesses after the long hard lockdowns.
Just before this Illofa camp started, we got some new equipment to play with. Firstly, the awesome Sony A7S II with a wide range lens. Of the many things that it does do, is it allows you to focus on stars on the back display.
With a modest 400mm lens, the picture below is of the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. It’s a 1:1 crop of the sensor. What is amazing is that you can see some of Jupiter’s moons. I was always under the impression that resolving other planet’s moons was in the realms of telescopes only.
The other nice thing of the camera is that it makes night time photography almost ridiculously easy. The picture below is just a snapshot of some clouds & stars. There was almost no noise on this picture, and whatever there was got cleaned in a doddle.
The other toy that we got our filthy mittens on is a DJI Mavic Pro, with some extra batteries. It’s miles ahead of the DJI Phantom 2 and GoPro Hero 4 that we were flying around with earlier. The venerable Phantom 2 still produces great images, and it’s heavier airframe makes for some nice fluid shots.
The Mavic Pro, on the other hand sends images and video directly to your mobile device, and allows for in-flight tuning of all the parameters of the image or video that you might want to capture. It also allows for starting and stopping of video recording in the air.
With the Phantom 2, video was recorded all through the flight. Sometimes this allows one to capture unexpected events, but it has the drawback of incurring a much heavier editing overhead. The really nice thing, though, is the in-air picture taking of the Mavic. It’s only 9megapixels, but that is already much more than extracting a frame from video with the Phantom 2.
So, having both the new and the old together, we decided to make a little video, with a summery vibe. Without further ado, down below is what you can expect from a camp at Illofa:
There were a couple of areas where the experience could be improved at Illofa.
By far the most annoying thing was the noise. One comes here to hear the ocean roar as the waves crash against the beach. Unfortunately, quad bikes and other motorcycles were making quite a bit of noise and messing up the surrounding nature of the camp.
Generators were also running all day on some campsites at Illofa. Giving some campsites a power connection could help with this noise pollution, and rules regarding motorcycles needs to be enforced. Basically, they need to be on a trailer when in camp, and transported to areas where their operation is allowed.
What we also missed sorely this year that we had in previous years was a shop where you could buy some essentials, like wood and fire starters.
All in all, the ablution and warm water system works, but does get a little getting used to.
Verdict: If quads don’t bother you, and you like a basic camp experience, you will love this place.
