Day 1
We arrived in Walvis Bay after a fairly long trip: 9 1/2 hours night flight from Frankfurt to Windhoek, arriving at 8am to a bright and chilly Namibian morning, then the rest of the day transferring to Walvis Bay.
Points to note: You’ll need to know the name of a hotel in Namibia to fill out the Visa form correctly on landing. We had nothing booked, and the immigration official didn’t like being asked to suggest the name of a hotel we could stay at. The airport WiFi wasn’t working, so we couldn’t look one up. A fellow traveller helped us out by giving us ‘Roof of Africa’ hotel in Windhoek, which was where we headed to for some breakfast and afterwards got picked up by our Swakopmund shuttle.
Prices: Everything seems pretty cheap so far. £12 each for a 4 hour minibus ride, £40 per night for a swanky hotel room in the lagoon overlooking the beach, although the hot water ran out, and the electricity was intermittent.
First impressions: Everywhere is very clean, the people are very helpful. The landscapes are vast and impressive on the 4-hour journey from Windhoek to Swakopmund, just a taste of things to come. Biltong and hot pies are widely available. Parts of Walvis Bay look a bit sketchy, especially the parts our taxi driver kept stopping off at to pick up and drop off more passengers.
Day 2
Next morning we woke up early, had breakfast and walked to the shipping office to collect the car. Flamingos are everywhere in the lagoon opposite the hotel. The car battery was flat – the air compressor had been left on during transport.
We stocked up on fuel, food and a warm blanket at the Dunes Mall. I had a rummage through Andy P’s suitcase, pilfered the good stuff and gave the rest to the Mall security guard. Again, people are very welcoming and friendly. We then headed SE towards Sosusvlei.
After a bit of a diversion towards the Kuiseb Canyon we got back on the C14 and headed east through the Namib desert towards Sossusvlei. We stopped for a look at Vogelfederberg Campsite, just off the C14. Its very nice buy has not facilities other than a long-drop toilet.
The scenery is stunning: vast, wide vistas, with a new view round every corner. As the sun was getting low, we started looking for a campsite. Kries se Rus looked good: far enough from the main road so to avoid being spotted: we didn’t have a camping permit – a bit of an oversight but we weren’t prepared to drive back to Walvis Bay at that hour.
The campsite was pretty wild, with no facilities. We had a small campfire, sunk a couple of bottles of wine and kicked back to gaze at the best view of the stars & Milky Way I’ve ever had.
Day 3
We packed up camp by 10am and continued towards Sesriem, stopping off for some photos of the Kuiseb Canyon and lunch in Solitaire.
Views were spectacular again, even more so than the previous day. Cameras just don’t do this place justice. We spent all day on gravel roads, mostly in good condition with some mild corrugations in places. We were able to drive at around 60mph on the gravel, the roads being quite wide and straight. There was very little traffic compared to driving in other African countries, which made driving a real pleasure.
We did have to do a minor repair en route – the roof mounted solar panel shook loose so I gaffer taped it back on. I also noticed a couple of bolts securing the wheel arches were coming loose. A fairly simple fix. The MC4 solar connectors were loose too, so the solar panel wasn’t charging the leisure battery. I tightened them back up. I hope all repairs are this simple.
We stopped at a campsite outside the National Park gate in Sesriem – no point in paying double to camp inside the park to see the sunrise at Sosusvlei as we don’t get up early.
It has very nice views across the plains, with some bird life, Oryx, and at night Jackals and we also heard Hyenas.
Day 4
Sossusvlei and Deadvlei visit: The drive in was predictably spectacular, the last few kms were on a nice soft sand track which required a lot of throttle in 2nd gear 4WD. It was my first go at driving on soft sand and it was a lot of fun. At Deadvlei we walked up a giant bastard of a sand dune. I can see why people die within half a day of getting lost out here in the summer. Desert travel is much nicer from the inside a comfy 4×4.
Awesome views (again), but this time of giant dunes stretching far into the distance in all directions. The classic ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ type of view, minus the camels. The contrast between the red dunes and the cream-coloured pans make this seem like another world, and is why it gets lots of tourists visiting.
We have a light aircraft flight over the desert booked for the morning. It’s about £140 pp for an hour but we’re only here once I guess. Hot air balloon flights are £350 pp and the budget doesn’t stretch that far.
Day 5
Doubling up the blankets during the night kept us nice and toasty, but it felt like the temperature didn’t drop too low. We woke to discover why: cloud and mist during the night had covered the skies, and there was the finest of light mizzle in the air (a made up word for ‘misty drizzle‘).
Our dune flight was cancelled due to the cloud cover. Sad face emoji followed by a happy wallet emoji…
Side note: Camping with the missus is often dampened by complaints of having to get dressed, get out of the tent and find somewhere suitable for a piss in the middle of the night. These complaints become more vocal when camping in areas with dangerous wildlife, using a roof top tent, or using campsites with long walks to the toilet blocks.
Bring forth the best camping gadget since the tent was invented: the she-wee. It allows the princess to have all the benefits of a gentleman’s sausage, but without the unsightly testes. Wee in a bottle, wee from the top of the tent ladder (spraying any camping equipment left in the way), the options are endless. It even gets round the problem of using rank ladies toilets. No longer ladies do you need to sit on a scummy throne. And it stores in a hygienic zip-loc bag too. It’s a game-changer: Suma now actually enjoys camping.
Good news: whilst writing the above, the weather began to clear up, so there was a chance the dune flight was back on again. We packed up and made our way to the lodge reception, and found that it was indeed back on! Our pilot outlined the route, we paid our £280 (bank card), and departed for the airstrip.
The flight was amazing: we circled around deadvlei and the dune we climbed the previous day, then headed directly west across the dune sea to the Atlantic Ocean. We flew north along the coast, around the area where The Grand Tour Namibia special was filmed. We then flew back inland across some more dunes.
It’s such a vast place, and well worth the money for a 1hour 10min flight. Suma did feel a bit air-sick halfway due to a bit of mild turbulence.
Afterwards we drove back towards Walvis bay, but now having a national park permit, we diverted off the main gravel highway towards a campsite in the Kuiseb river called Homeb.
The drive off the main gravel road was 50km across a desolate plain of nothingness, before dropping through a strange moonscape into a sand river, lined with tamarind-type trees and humming with bird-life.
The opposite bank of the river butts up against a wall of ancient petrified red dunes. They form the northernmost part of the Namib dune sea which we flew over earlier. The campsite is quiet and basic, and has only a water tap and a long-drop toilet that neither of us went anywhere near. Were happy to piss in the sand, the turds can wait for the posh bogs in the Walvis Bay mall resupply mission planned for tomorrow.
Cheap community campsites like this are in beautiful spots but are very basic. This suits us fine as the truck has everything we need. There’s plenty of firewood available so it should be a good fire tonight. I’m skipping tea again due to being on a strict beer, whiskey & biltong diet.
Day 6
Another top day in the Nam. We had a morning stroll in the dusty riverbed and a friendly chat with a visiting voter registration official, who was armed with a pistol and rather bored that there were only 2 voters that he could register in the area. I resisted the urge to ask if i could shoot his pistol at some stuff, a decision I now regret as there may have been a chance he would’ve let me.
After sharing the breakfast leftovers with a couple of the most disease-ridden and ugliest dogs I’ve ever seen, we packed up and headed back across the nothingness back towards Walvis Bay.
Suma wanted a night with more luxury than our exquisite camping setup could offer, so we planned on a resupply then a hotel in Swakopmund that evening. The drive wasn’t that far, so we had the whole afternoon free. Work emails needed doing, but we had a leaflet offering coastal dune tours out of Walvis bay. When phone reception came available, I gave the guy a ring on the off-chance he had something available for that afternoon.
Result. We had just enough time for a turd-drop at the mall and then went to meet one of the guides at the lagoon (loads of flamingos there). A self-drive was not possible due to our truck being so heavily-laden and top-heavy with camping gear: we would have just got stuck in the dunes or worse. We were offered a ride in a 100 series Land Cruiser with our own expert driver.
We then had a 4 hour trip: starting off heading south down the beach dodging waves, then returning via the dunes with a lunch/beer stop.
It was superb. The driver was so knowledgeable and had years of experience playing in the dunes. It was amazing fun, and I’d recommend it to everyone. It was even better than the dune flight.
That evening we went to a bar/restaurant, I ate a fantastic steak while Suma grazed on some salad, had a few drinks then headed back for an early night, knowing tomorrow we had to crack on with our journey. Almost a week had passed with us pissing about having enormous fun in the desert, and we were still no closer to Tanzania.
Day 7
Early start to drink some coffee and do some overdue work emails, then a food/fuel resupply that we put off from yesterday in favour of the dune trip.
We knew we wanted to head north, but hadn’t got a route planned due to conflicting opinions from people we had been speaking to.
So we just headed north along the salt road towards Henties Bay, briefly stopping to look at a shipwreck, one of hundreds along this coast. Often the roads in Africa are lined with people selling local produce: mostly food like bananas, sugar cane, tomatoes etc. In Namibia, the locals also sell local produce at the roadside. Since no food will grow in a desert, they sell rocks.
At Henties Bay we turned inland towards Uis, the scenery pretty bare and bleak.
Just after Uis, there was a signposted turn towards Twyfelfontein. There were more people in this area than in the desert: a lot of top-less Himba women trying to flag the car down.
This area showed on the map as being a UNESCO world heritage site, so we decided to head towards there as it was en-route to the Hoanib valley and Epupa falls.
The scenery began to change into looking more African: red sand/dirt roads, lovely small rocky mounds and short shrubs everywhere. Very pretty and great fun to drive through.
At Twyfelfontein we topped up on fuel at a bush fuel station, and when I asked, the attendant assured me there was no water or elephant shit in the diesel.
After paying the chap, we realised that we were pretty low on SA rand / Namibian dollars: nowhere near enough to pay for fuel and camping through the remote northern part of Namibia we were headed. A bit of an oversight! Looking at the map (and Google – we had phone signal), the only place guaranteed to have an ATM was at Khoriaxas, a village 50 miles away but in the wrong direction for us.
Being in such a remote area we had to play it safe and divert to the ATM to stock up on dollars.
So here I am, now sitting at a reasonable stopover campsite just outside of the village, with a wallet busting with a brick of Namib dollars, sipping an ice-cold whiskey & coke.
It was a long drive today: 7 hours on mostly gravel roads. Some bits were smooth, other parts had corrugations that loosen the tooth fillings. We stopped only occasionally to check the vehicle. Nothing had worked loose. That last 50km into town was a grueller. The truck worked hard today, it performed brilliantly.
I didn’t take any photos today as we were just mile-munching.
