On of our customers Sebastian Aller sent us a report from his honeymoon
Dear Hilltrek
As a thank you for the quick service on upgrading the hoods of our (my brother Erik and me) Braemar smocks, so that I could take it on my honeymoon to Namibia and Botswana, I hereby send you some nice pics of the jacket in action.
The pics on the red sand dune are taken in Sossusvlei, Namibia, a magnificent area in the middle of the Namib desert.
It is a nature reserve with beautiful red sand dunes that are aligned parallel to each other in a north to south direction.
As a result there is a beautiful play of light on sunrise and sundown.
We got up at 4:15 in the morning (we usually don’t do that during a holiday), before sunrise to drive the 45km into the reserve to see the sun come up at the dunes. One is only allowed in approx one hour before sunrise.
The drive takes quite long as there is a 60km/h speed limit, because 1: it is a nature reserve, 2: there is all kind of wildlife that runs around freely, such as springbok, wartogs, ostrich, oryx etc. You don’t want those animals on the hood of your car in the dark…
The nights in the desert are quite chilly, especially as winter is approaching on the southern hemisphere. The ventile jacket was a very much welcome protection against the cold desert wind.
Of course I also had to test the new hood, so we drove all the way to Livingstone, Zambia to stand in the spray of the Victoria Falls. As there had been heavy rainfall upstream of the Zambezi river, the falls were enormous: Almost 1,7km wide, resulting in milions of liters of water per second plummeting down a mere 100m into the narrow gorge. The waves of spray that were thrown back up, were blown over us as we were standing on the opposite side of the gorge watching the falls. We were litterally soaked to the bone in seconds. The hood fits brilliantly, but the poor smock couldn’t cope with this enormous amount of water (I doubt there is any jacket that can do so). And this was just the spray, not even the waterfall itself. Luckily the local climate was dry and hot, so it took less than an hour to dry everything while wearing it.
These are just a few examples of how your great products suit my/our needs.
In 2 days I have to go to work again.
The Braemar smock will be my companion once again when commuting by bike on chilly mornings or rainy days. Great piece of kit!
Sebastian
