My wish for my child

One moment she's trying to convince her teenage daughter to put her phone down, the next Nellie Brand-Jonker is reliving the seaside camping holidays of her Namibian childhood.

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This past Christmas we were visiting family in Namibia. We drove from our farm near Outjo, in the north of the country, to Palmwag, where we would spend a few days at a lodge with luxury tents.

It's a four-to-five-hour drive from the farm, running almost directly west. “We're going to see the desert elephants," I tried to drum up some excitement in my teenage daughter for the long road ahead.

She's at that age where the goings-on of whoever happens to be on her phone screen at any given moment are a lot more interesting than anything I have to say. We later stopped at Kamanjab to refuel and I tried bribing her with ice cream to put the phone down and look at the scenery.

The road between Kamanjab and Palmwag takes you over the Grootberg and when we pulled over at the top of the pass for padkos and coffee, I took in the stark beauty of the landscape, shimmering in the dry heat. I was reminded again how deeply I love this part of the world. I also realised that this stretch of road feels a lot less terrifying today than it did when I was little.

“Look how far we've come,” I said, pointing back in the direction of Kamanjab, where the road disappears into the distance. On the other side of the mountain, it hugs the steep slope with a sharp drop-off on the left. “Emma! Look how high up we are,” I called again, trying to lure her attention from her phone. She showed a bit of interest, but what really perked her up is when I pointed out that you could also see our destination far off in the distance.

As we drove on, I told her about our childhood holidays at the sea, how we used to camp in army tents at Jakkalsputz and made do with long-drop toilets. Just the thought of a “long drop” gave her the creeps.

At Palmwag, the elegant tents and the lodge's swimming pool awakened her sense of adventure enough that I started to feel like I could stop complaining about her screen time.