Shards of brittle savanna grass snap under my soles as a I wander beyond the warm glow of light spilling from the Kwessi Dunes Lodge. At first, the darkness beyond the artificial illumination feels squid-ink black, but within seconds, my pupils begin to recalculate.

Reflected within the celestial glow of billions of stars, the Namibrand landscape fade up bit by bit from the obscure murk. Bone-dry tussocks of dune grass reveal against the blood-orange sand, and here and there, a lone camelthorn tree scrape against the scintillating bowl of the night sky.

I had scouted the vast Kwessi plain earlier that afternoon, but the landscape is extra-extraterrestrial under the cover of the night. Up above, though, the Southern Cross and Milky Way glitter zirconia bright, seemingly close enough for you to swirl your hand and stir up the profusion of stars.

I stand for a moment, letting the desert aroma waft over me on the near-imperceptible evening breeze … The rusted metal tang of dust and desiccated grass; a popcorny hint of antelope … most probably gemsbok. And then, the rancid whiff of boscia foetida , the smelly shepherd’s tree.

Despite their stinkyness – imagine rutting goats that’s been at it for days – these are some of my favourite desert trees. A multitude of boscia albitrunca (the common shepherds tree) as well as foetida specimens eke out a tenuous existence on these arid Namibrand plains, and they make for exceptional astrophotography subjects.

My chosen boscia rises up like a bent and broken skeleton against the heavens. It is truly Tim Burtonesque, with contorted roots clawing like an alien monster into the desert substrate. Smooth and grey bark glimmers in the wan light, interspersed with fissures and cracks, all along the main trunk, with the branches ending in fang-like spines.

Grey-green leaves shapeshift into a flattish crown, casting a faint moon-shadow upon the detritus of broken branches scattered around the base of the tree. It stands like an ancient and emaciated wizard upon the endless plain, as if daring the universe to a duel it out till the very end of time.

A black-backed jackal keens in the distance, immediately answered by a couple more from amidst the dunes. Soon their coyote howls echo into the night, an all-encompassing sound-cloud while I set up a timelapse to immortalise this boscia frozen in space-time …