The Brukkaros Crater

Near Berseba, a very impressive crater stands out of the plain. We learned that it is not a volcano, but caused by an explosion. We went to explore it on a hike.

The Brukkaros is over 650 metres taller than the surrounding area, and the crater floor lies 350 m below the rim. The mountain is a large caldera, in the form of a ring mountain with a diameter of about 4 km and has been formed by an explosion when rising magma met groundwater and superheated it.

Impressive Brukkaros Mountain

When we arrived, a helicopter was recharging and taking some technicians up the mountain to service an antenna.

Wild camping in front of the mountain
Hiking up the Brukkaros Mountain
Abandoned campsite

We were actually told by a local that we should drive up to this place. As we have a 4×4, that wouldn’t be a problem at all, he said. So we tried the road and at the third difficult section finally decided to reverse back down. It turned out, if we would have continued, it would have gotten worth. As long as you don’t drive a better off-road vehicle and like a challenge, stay at the bottom. When hiking this road up the next morning, we were happy we had not tried to go further.

Desert varnish (Wüstenlack)
Inside the crater
Hiking up to the ridge
Abandoned German Observatory, used to measure daily solar radiation
View over the plain

It took us 4 hours to get from our base camp into the crater, up its ridge and back again. We camped here for 2 days and were the only people around.

Gecko
he was fairly patient with us

From the Brukkaros Mountain, we will make our way to Aus and later to Lüderitz – more on our next post!

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