About four kilometres east of the town centre on the road toward the Namib, a rusting steam traction engine sits exactly where it broke down in 1896. The Martin Luther — so named by the workers who dragged it through the desert because it refused to move — was imported from Britain as part of a failed scheme to transport goods through the Namib sands to the interior. It never worked and was never moved. The Namibian desert air has preserved it for over a century, still identifiable, still sitting in the open.
It is not much to look at up close, but the setting is the point: a Victorian-era machine, made in Leeds, stranded in one of the world's oldest and most hostile deserts. A small heritage board marks the site. Go in the late afternoon when the light on the dunes is warm and the absurdity of the thing is most apparent.