African Adventure - Swakopmund, Namibia

Yes, this is one of those group emails to keep you
updated about my travels in Africa.

Well, here I am in Swakopmund in Namibia in South West
Africa. Swakopmund is a German settlement on the
shores of the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the
Namib desert. It is quite a little oasis in what is
otherwise a pretty barren & desolate, although
interesting, landscape.

This town is the home of many adrenalin activities
including sand boarding and quad biking. I have given
the sand boarding a miss, but I am doing the quad
biking this afternoon. And tomorrow, I am jumping out
of a plane at 10,000 feet over the Atlantic, dunes and
desert. How exciting!

This is day 8 of the Kumuka adventure which left Cape
Town last Sunday. Dad & I spent 2 days in Cape Town
before the Kumuka trip left. In Cape Town, we did a
half day trip to Robben Island which is the island
prison where Nelson Mandela was kept for 18 of his 27
years of imprisonment. In the afternoon, we did a top
deck bus tour of Cape Town. That night, we visited the
Victoria & Albert waterfront which is a thriving
restaurant and shopping district. I ordered Springbok,
which was lovely. (Sorry if you are a bambi
sympathiser!)

The next day we hired a car and drove down the
Atlantic Coast to the Cape of Good Hope. The scenic
drive was spectacular. In the afternoon, we drove back
to Cape town to catch the cable car up Table Mountain,
but, unfortunately, the weather set in and the cable
car was closed, so we did not get to go up Table
Mountain while in Cape Town.

The Kumuka truck is a huge beast. It is quite
luxurious in comparison to the Oasis truck which I did
the middle east trip in. The group is great. We have a
driver, tour leader and a trainee with 11 passengers,
so there are 14 of us all up. 8 Aussies and 6 Brits.
Not much of nationality variety but a good group
none-the-less.

The first day was very hard to handle. We drove 1 hour
to Stellenbosch in the wine region and spent the rest
of the day on a tour of 4 wine farms, which included
lunch. The wines were quite good and the scenery very impressive. We all
stocked up on wine for the rest of the trip.

Day 2 we drove to Citrusdal in the Cederberg
Wilderness area and bush camped near natural hot
springs. Again, a tough day!

Day 3 was a long drive north through South Africa to
the Orange River on the boarder with Namibia. We
crossed the boarder and camped on a grassy campsite on
a hill overlooking the river. The place was very
serene and the weather mild so must of us did not
bother pitching the tent and just slept under the
stars.

Day 4 and we did a 3 hour canoe trip up the Orange
River before getting back in the truck and driving to
Fish River Canyon. The Canyon is apparently the 2nd
largest in the world after the Grand Canyon. Not as
spectacular as the Grand Canyon, but worth the look.
We did a sunset walk along the rim of the canyon.

Day 5 was another long drive to Sesriem. We arrived
late afternoon and did a sunset walk down into Sesriem
canyon. This canyon was much much smaller but, in my
opinion, more interesting than Fish River Canyon.

Early 4:30am start on Day 6 for a short drive to
Soussosvlei where we climbed Dune 45 for the sunrise.
The climb up this 120m high sand dune was a hard slog
but well worth the views of the desert dunes and the spectacular colours
with the sunrise. The climb up took about 20-30 minutes and the run back
down the dune took about 2 minutes! After a quick breakfast we then went
on a 2 hour tour of the dunes to learn about the San bush men who lived
there in times past. After lunch we drove another 4 hours or so to
Bloedkippie bush camp. The drive was spectacular and we had our first
game viewing which was quite unexpected. The recent rains had meant
plenty of grass on the plains and hundreds of mountain zebra, springbok,
gemsbok, ostriches, jackals etc sprinting across the plains. It was
fantastic and this was definately the best day of the trip so far. Can't
wait until we get to Etosha to see the giraffes and elephants.

Day 7 we drove to Swakopmund in the morning and then
up to Cape Cross to see the amazing colony of Cape Fur
seals. The seals stink to high heaven and they are
quite stupid animals, but it was amazing to see so
many thousands of them in one spot. Drove back to
Swakopmund and booked into the hostel where we are
staying for 3 nights.

Last night, we went to a restaurant called Cape to
Cairo which has a variety of traditional African
dishes. I had ostrich kebabs which were very nice and
Dad has springok. Others had warthog and all sorts of
other African delicacies. It is a carnivores delight
over here!

Well, now you are up to date and I have to go to catch
my quad bike trip. Emails are pretty few and far
between but I will email again when I get a chance and
tell you how the sky diving went.


If you don't hear from me.....!!

love Meagan