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The air disaster at Ondekaremba April 20th 1968 was a moonless, starlit evening with no wind. Flight SA 228 was ready for take-off from JG Strijdom airport (now Hosea Kutako) 45 kilometres east of Windhoek. Relatives and friends of the 46 passengers who had recently boarded the plane were standing on the terrace of the airport building. They saw the Pretoria speed away on the runway, take off and start to climb. Then, unspeakable horror: the plane levelled off, rapidly lost height and hit the ground. A fiery glow lit up the night. Fifty seconds had passed since take-off. 

How does the Dancing White Lady spider find its way back to its den in an almost straight line after hours of zigzagging about? What can we do to prevent deserts from spreading? And above all, where do we get answers to such interesting and vital questions? The last question can easily be answered: some 100 kilometres southeast of the coastal town of Walvis Bay, at the Gobabeb Desert Research Station on the northern bank of the Kuiseb River. Established in 1962, it is visited by more than a hundred scientists each year.

Alongside the Kupferbergpad that takes you from Windhoek over the Gamsberg Pass to Walvis Bay one comes upon a commemorative plaque in honour of 32-year-old police sergeant Hermann Strunck who was killed during an armed robbery in April 1912. The crime not only kept the inhabitants of Windhoek in suspense, but also made headlines in several newspapers 'back home' in Germany. 

Southern Namibia in 1760: "Which animal, even though not quite as big as an elephant, is of a rather tall body and also because of the long neck, humped back and high legs is a type of camel, albeit not the proper one"? With these words, written in 1760, a European describes the first giraffe he ever saw and obviously couldn't quite place among the animals he knew. The Afrikaans word for giraffe (kameelperd - which literally means camel horse) is probably based on this description.