THE RED DRUM.
Hi Ian, thanks for sharing that link, it certainly brought back a lot of long-lost memories for me.
I really enjoyed seeing Darrin’s photographs and his amazing clear film of the area. Unfortunately for us, photography was classed more of an extravagance and not a necessity as we deemed that spare springs, head gaskets, a top of the range sleeping bag and a cassette player etc were more important.
Nearly fifty years ago vehicles, as we all know, were not as reliable as they are today and black and white film was much cheaper than coloured film back then. That’s why we opted to use a lot of monochrome and with hindsight, I wish that I would have taken more photos with my point and click Kodak.
Most of our film was kept in a plastic Tupperware food container. It kept the dust out, but it was over six months before we could get some of it developed.
On my first trip for the engineering company who I was driving for in Windhoek, South West Africa back in 1976. They sent me with an eight-ton Nissan Diesel UG 780 to a placed called Ruacana, which I.I.R.C. is about 150 miles north west of The Red Drum.
The South West African Department of Water Affairs were building a dam at Ruacana Falls on the Kunene River, along the South West African / Angolan border. They had already started to build a hydroelectric power station. Our company had the plumbing contract for building a number of houses for the Department of Water Affairs. I was loaded at the time with galvanized pipes, gutters, toilet suites and even the kitchen sinks.
It was about this time that I first met an English guy called Robin Nicholls, who was a geologist working out in the bush.
I asked Robin where exactly in The Kaokoveld he was working and he told me that he was prospecting around The Red Drum area. I didn’t think much more about it at the time as it sounded like a place that everybody knew, except me. It was the following day when I looked at my maps and found out that there was no mention of The Red Drum on any of them.
I met Robin again in Windhoek through a friend of mine, a few months later and we were invited back to Robin’s house for a ‘Sundowner’. I asked Robin where abouts that place was called The Red Drum and he said “hang on, I will go and get my maps”.
He came back with a folder containing about two dozen black and white ariel photographs. This is the point of this post as I had never seen any ‘maps’ like these before. Each map was numbered and they were all about twelve inches by ten inches.
Robin put a couple of them together and pointed out where The Red Drum was, he even showed me a photograph of his Landrover next to The Red Drum which to me, just looked like any old red, forty five gallon oil drum.
I never thought that I would ever see a photo of that old red drum again in my life time until I saw Darrin’s second video at about 2 minutes and 10 seconds in.
youtube.com/watch?v=aPD6SpcuNrE
I can’t remember Robin’s photo having that yellow, Grid Reference number painted on the side of it and there certainly appears to be a lot more bullet holes in it.
And I bet that Robin (R.I.P.) would never believe that in such a remote place, that one day, that red drum would become a tourist attraction.
earth.google.com/web/search/Red … z3aJp5qK0A
Somebody might enjoy seeing this video, which was taken sixteen years before we set off. Not much had changed on the journey by the time that we got there, and I wish that Mobil had paid for our fuel.
youtube.com/watch?v=PtG6niRiRXk&t=6s
SAHARA DESERT.1975.
POINT NOIRE, CONGO.
HOBA METEORITE, GROOTFONTEIN, S.W.A. 1975.
KANO NIGERIA. 1975.
TROPIC OF CANCER, ALGERIA. 1975.
KAVANGO RIVER. S.W.A. 1976.
AGADEZ MUD MOSQUE, 1975.
AGADEZ. THE SAHARA DESERT, 1975.
