The morning of March 12th we broke camp at Sesriem and headed inland and to the north. Inland because you cannot drive through the sands dunes, and north to get to the Skeleton Coast accessible through near Walvis Bay and Swakopmund.
The drive was on gravel roads with hundreds of kilometres of …. pretty much nothing. What wildlife we saw was intent on staying in the shade during the heat of the day, while the infrequent vehicles that we met were announced by a plume of dust visible from miles away. Half a day of driving brought us to a wide spot in the road named Solitaire, which certainly lived up to its name. About as solitary a hamlet as one could imagine, and the awesome apple pie served at the local café and bakery made the stop to stretch legs and enjoy a cold drink even better.
Even more hours of driving to reach Namibia’s second largest city, Walvis Bay. Our two-night stop here was a restocking point for camping supplies, a chance to wash sand and dust out of clothes, and enjoy some great seafood fresh off the boat. But the main event was a chance to combine some dune driving with a visit to the local seal colony, some 60,000 strong, and other birds and wildlife of the Atlantic coast.
The next morning, we drove through the coastal sands to Pelican Point, following our guide vehicle from Eco Marine Kayak Tours. A challenging drive past the local salt plant, through flocks of 1,000s of flamingos, brought us to the colony of Cape seals and their predators, black backed jackals (out during the day), and hyenas (only footprints visible since they are completely nocturnal). At the shoreline, within sight (and smell!) of the seal colony we launched kayaks and enjoyed an hour or so with the seals investigating our boats, and occasionally splashing water into them. The young seals, aged about 4 months, were especially curious, while the older, mother seals mostly watched from shore or were busy heading to or back from the feeding grounds, far to busy to play! The flamingos clustered by the shore were mostly silent feeding machines, but the screeching gulls and barking seals certainly made up for them.
After a delicious snack we headed back past the lighthouse and returned to Walvis Bay. The afternoon was spent grocery shopping followed by another seafood dinner, so that we were ready to head off early the following morning. The coastal road up to Swakopmund was a foggy trail of dune after dune on one side, and the waves off the Atlantic on the other side, We very briefly looked at the waterfront of Swakopmund, then continued north to the Skeleton Coast. We didn’t get very far up this isolated stretch of treacherous coastline, named for its history of hundreds of years of shipwrecks. We only got as far as the wreck of the Zeila, a relatively recent grounding and so still visible from the shore. Most ships are swallowed up by the sands or broken up by the waves so aren’t visible for too long.
We had planned to camp that night on the Skeleton Coast at Cape Cross, home to an even larger seal colony than at Pelican Point, but we changed plans in order to go to a truly unique campground. So there we turned around, backtracked a ways, and turned back east, inland to Damaraland.
See images on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720315848095
