Happy Birthday Julie – Best Sister in the world
We left Desert Quiver camp at 8:30 for the 340km drive to Swakopmund. Our drive out the Sesriem area was again on dirt roads. We soon entered the mountainous Namib – Nauklift Park. Some of the mountains are oddly shaped with different rock types dominated by various colours – a geologists dream. The vegetation is again yellow tufts of grass, sprouting out of a grey clay hard ground, interspersed with green, brown and grey hardy shrubs. We then entered the Windhoek District the terrain, although the mountains were in the distance was much the same.
We passed Solitaire, a petrol station and general dealer ‘town’. They had a whole lot of old car shells littering the entrance.
At 10:15 we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. Shortly after this we went over the barren mountainous Gaub Pass and passed over the dry river bed of the Gaub River. There are long cliff drops into the gorge below, with no guard barriers. If we went over the edge, I'm not sure if we would have been found. The long flat roads became windy and hilly after the Gaub Pass.
On entering the Swakopmund District, we hit a tarred road for 2km and then it was back to dirt roads. The mountains are strange shaped inselbergs with hewn rock faces, caused by millions of years of wind erosion and tectonic plate movement. It was a rather hairy descent into the Kuiseb River valley. We stopped for a picnic at the causeway to the river, having driven over the river bridge a few km earlier. In April, 4 years ago, this now dry river bed was flooded and the water almost covered our tyres.
We then passed into the recently proclaimed Dorob National Park, that extends around the Swakop area. You require permits if you leave the main road to explore areas of the park. The terrain is flat and arid. We were fortunate to see mountain zebra. The final stretch of long flat road into Walvis Bay was totally arid. The only respite was an interesting rocky outcrop – the Volgewelgeberg.
Around 10km out of Walvis the coastal clouds rolled in and the temperatures dropped. Small beach sand type dunes paved the way into Walvis, until you actually enter the town and then roads are lined with palm trees.
We had another TrenTyre stop in Walvis so Tony could replace his other tyres. The road out of town was again lined on both sides with palm trees. The 30km drive to Swakopmund was along a tarred road with the sea on our left and white sand dunes on our right. There were lots of holiday houses and housing developments on the sea side. I can't believe the development in the last 4 years.
We arrived at Lyfestyle11, in Libertina Albathuli Ave, a 3 bedroom apartment block and our home for the next 3 nights.
After a chilly walk along the promenade, it was great to see the sea after so much desert sand, we headed off to the Jetty for dinner. The Jetty is a restaurant , that was establishes in 1905, and is built at the end of a 300 jetty, over the sea. Over a wonderful dinner, we swore we could feel the building move as the waves crashed around us.
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