Walvis bay to Swakopmund

The entertainment over the tea break had been a young couple who had arrived with a flat tyre. A tour guide from another group had kindly changed the wheel for them and there was much support and input from those assisting. Woody also went to help as it seemed the young couple had not understood that they needed to tighten the wheel nuts so that was ably done by Woody meaning they didn’t later loose the wheel having worked the nuts off over the corrugated roads….

The stones around were all glistening in the sun from the mica in them, apparently it is used in mobile phones

The roads are long, and err…. straight….

We amazingly saw this giant eagle which is rare though I cannot remember what it was eating some kind of bustard (another rarity) as we drove by. It only got unsettled after we turned round and stopped very close to it for a good look and a photo or several. It’s partner also appeared to be circling in the skies.

Look more sand!

We got to Walvis Bay and drove along the lagoon where we saw pelicans and flamingoes.

We saw Greater and Lesser Flamingoes though there were greater numbers of lesser flamingoes and lesser numbers of greater flamingoes.

This is a salt pile. Salt here is taken from salt water in the salt pans and the salt is used for many purposes including building a salt road (photos of this later) as well as the the more traditional uses - some for table salt and some for adding to grit for the icy European roads 

We had a very lovely calamari and kingclip combo platter for lunch at a restaurant at the harbour area. I like the idea of this art which is actually photos on wood….(a future project methinks)

I had a rock shandy - not convinced it was angostura bitters but nice all the same

Along the front of where we had lunch...

looking out at the more commercial area of the harbour

Somewhat wonky as driving but you can see it is a busy coastline - there are lots of ships waiting permits to go and join the rigs out at sea as well as fishing boats etc We drove on from Walvis Bay to Swakopmund where we were staying the night...

We stayed in the Swakop Sands hotel in Swakopmund, this night and if you can see from the picture it was possible to run round the bed, into the shower and out round the bed again to dry off. Through the doorway was the toilet.

Being an old German colonial area there are some more interesting buildings - often they are largely square concrete places with little character but here there is some style from the colonial period...

Doris had advised us to go to 3 places in Swakopmund - Hanza Hotel (super posh), Kucki’s pub and Anton’s cafe…. We found the hotel and went in and were allowed to take photos. Not posh enough to stay and Woody’s shorts meant not even allowed a drink at the bar!

Photos in the Hanza Hotel

Continuing to look around the town Woody found some horny friends….

This building looked lovely and had a lighthouse behind it….

And another building with lovely character…..

This photos starts a story….

My granny had her mother’s wedding ring and on her ruby wedding anniversary my grandfather had a ruby inset into it to mark the occasion and I always thought it was beautiful and also a beautiful thing to do. I have thought about having this done to my wedding ring as it looks stunning and also adds a bit of Woody and I to this lovely family heirloom that is my wedding ring. I had been wondering what stone I would like to add - something special and whilst I like the idea of many stones nothing really seemed to stand out. Tanzanite would be lovely as it was the stone Woody chose for my engagement ring but the purple would not look right. However more recently on a  family visit to the Natural History Museum there was a display of lots of different stones and one in particular made me stop and take photos. It was Dioptase which it turns out, comes from Namibia and resonated with ones chakra apparently. Nothing like a bit of vibrating chakras I always say. So I decided I would try and find some of this stunning stone in Namibia (the first country that Woody and I have been to together which neither of us has ever been to before) and get some to mark this amazing time with the stunning stone… Here I thought was the shop to get it from!

We didn’t find the shop but looking at the map I found it the next day with the others only to find it was shut...

We did, however, find Kucki’s pub where we had a beer. And another one as a nice man bought us both drinks and when asked why he said “just because”. I am a hundred percent advocate of random acts of kindness! So thank you also to Dori for telling us to go there!

We found this helpful skip in a road on the way back to the hotel. We have often threatened our parents with getting them a skip for Christmas to help them clear out their house which is full of… well a mess. However this might have the opposite effect and bring more mess in...

Namibia’s national language is in fact English dating back to the time when it was part of the English colonies. However there are many languages including German and many of the languages from different tribes. Not all translations work well such as here where you can have gloves in your coffee and at breakfast you could have eggs and beacon.

Above our room was a roof terrace where you could see the sea behind the South East Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (SEAFO) Building which also had Benguela Current Commission on it.

Dinner was at another hotel which was very lovely and you could see the food being prepared. It was very posh. We had small quiches and salads mainly because we had had such a big lunch.

Cheers my lovelies! Down the hatch!

And a good night was had by all…. boat trips tomorrow xxx