Coast to Coast
The last coast of Africa we saw was in Tanzania with the French lady on the beach north of Dar el Salaam, now we have traveled across the continent to the Atlantic coast and a big change, no palm-fringed white little bays of sunshine, it’s now the big open wind swept beaches of the Skeleton coast.
the road to Skakopmund on the coast was typical of Namibia, but the town was a stark contrast to anything we had seen before, gone are the rustic tribal villages, the tin shed style ranches, this town was pure germanic conformity and like jumping to another continent, neat clean and weird but also a bit to Germanic, with odd flairs of whacky. It was a pleasant surprise, the town had coffee shops, tourist mini mals etc etc, the town and this part of the coast is big on fishing for the Namibians who come here in the summer, there are loads of 2nd homes/villas and the money shows, all very expensive looking with garages for cars and neat walls and gardens.
we looked around and moved on the Walvis bay, the sea fog was amazing, from a distance it looks like a mountain range out to sea, but the next morning we felt the full force. it’s a deep heavy fog that feels like a drizzle.
ther is a shipwreck halve way between but too was too foggy for a good picture, but one of the crew who didnt survive was by the car park to great us.
Walvis bay is a old British port and now services the oil rigs out to see, so it is wealthy and with lots of industry and supply shops.
we went out of town to wild camp and by chance spotted on iOverlander a quad riding company that allowed people to stay for next to nothing, we called in and we met a two south Africans a father and son setup who owned two MAN overland trucks, we camped up, had some beers and talked bollocks, then Milly noticed a picture of the South African redlined race car, it turns out this is where the south Africans come to train, its only 2000km from Cape town and flights are cheap direct to Walvis bay, it’s like us going to vast dunes in Spain.
For some reason the German influence means that places are named , Dune 7, Dune 8 etc or along the coast the fishing locations are Mile 13 etc …wow what imagination
they knew everyone, Al Atiyah, Tom Bell and all the team mechs, such a small world and they told us they have 5 different types of dunes in 100sq Km’s so it was the best place for testing. …if your in SA.
the next morning we departed for another of Namibia’s top tourist traps, Deadvlei..
