Walvis Bay, Namibia - Day 273 - Boots on the Loose

Backtracked 100km’s directly east out of Luderitz to a small town called Aus, then against a number people’s advice, took the north turn off to start the 650km dirt road adventure up to Walvis Bay (broken up over 2 days, thankfully). I read yesterday that Namibia has just over 5000kms of paved road, and over 37,000kms of gravel road! We could have gone the paved route to Walvis Bay but it would have added hundreds of kms plus (at least to me) this sounded way cooler…

Road started very rough and a number of times we questioned what we were doing… but every time we came close to a decision to turn around, the road seemed to smooth out nicely. Lots of semi-arid brush, the odd mountain sticking out here and there, passed by a good 2 cars an hour (seriously… you wouldn’t want mechanical problems out here), the odd farm… decided to take a turnoff onto a secondary gravel road to see this bizarrely located German-built castle in the middle of absolutely nowhere (built around 1905). Had 22 rooms, some neat furniture and fixtures from Europe, but overall had a hard time justifying the extra mileage! Pulled into Maltahohe perfectly before sunset.

Turned out to have a really great hotel (on it’s 100th birth year, amazingly) run by a really fun and quirky (white) local girl. Shortly after we got setup, a couple young South African guys checked in with their dad (plus another older guy), and before you can say Jagermeister, we had one of those completely unexpected parties going on out in the middle of absolutely nowhere (in my opinion I can take partial credit for going behind the bar and putting on the CCR).

We’re now in one of the regions where the local languages make use of the tongue clicks and pops; somehow this came up at the bar and “Eurine” (the bartender) went and got one of the kitchen staff to come out and talk for us. So strange to hear; but now I always notice it when people are walking by talking (before I thought they were just making noises). Hit the hay with a bad case of the hickuips, hit the road after breakfast to (hopefully) complete our journey to Walvis Bay.

Stopped halfway between Maltahohe and Walvis in a town called Solitaire for reportedly the best apple strudle in Africa, but unfortuntely they were sold out. Road got notably busier north of Solitaire due to so many people visiting Sossusvlei (that really famous spot with the dead trees surrounded by sand dunes… we’ll be visiting it on our way back down through Namibia). About an hour north of Solitaire hit the Tropic of Capricorn for our second time on the trip (previously done in Botswana), another few hours of even worse road, then like being shaken out of a bad dream, poof… back onto pavement, right beside “Dune 7”, the 7th tallest sand dune in the world!

Made a phone call to the mother of a friend back home (Judy Stafford) who lives in Walvis Bay; very nice lady who offered us a place to stay which we took her up on (we did look into the backpacker but it was closed down and everything else was quite expensive). Walvis Bay is a fairly industrial town, being one of Namibia’s only 2 ports (Luderitz beng the other); in fact for the first couple years after independence from South Africa in 1990, SA held onto Walvis Bay and you’d have to clear customs entering and exiting the city. Judy’s originally from Jo’burg and is one of the few around with an English heritage; was interesting hearing her talk about the Afrikaaners… overall she didn’t sound too fond of them.

Judy had to work the next day so left us the keys to the place so we could come and go as we pleased (very nice of her!). Headed over to Dune 7 to give ‘er a climb, but to be quite honest we didn’t see much of a difference between that one and the numerous others we had climbed back in North Africa. Was RIDICULOUSLY windy at the top… took about 5 minutes for the wind to cover our tracks up and you could barely open your eyes at all! Heading back to town we stopped to watch a bunch of workers clearing the sand off the train tracks by hand, inching the train forward bit by bit to get it through. It turned out all of this was an Easterly wind that comes through Walvis Bay every now and again and lasts 4 to 5 days… the hot wind comes off the sandy desert to the east which means much warmer weather, and sand all over the inside of your house (and everywhere else imagineable).

Headed back home for some rays in the backyard, then to the southern end of town for a drive. Just past town is “The Lagoon” where there are thousands upon thousands of beautiful flamingos (and some pelicans) wading around as far as you can see. Just below the lagoon is a massive salt factory (where Judy’s worked for the past 18 years) that supplies most of Southern Africa with its salt. Around the factory are massive pools of evaporating sea water, each pool being at a different stage in the evaporation process, the water being moved from pool to pool when necessary; a satellite image of it all looks like a gigantic tray of paints. Anyway the process is almost entirely natural (ie. no chemicals used) and is apparently an integral part of why the flamingos go there every year, as well as helping the nearby oyster farm (did I mention Walvis bay is fairly industrial??).

Made it out to the southern-most point for our “sundowner” that night, picked Judy up from the house and took her to “The Raft” for dinner which is a beautiful restaurant and pub built on stilts out in the middle of the lagoon. Back home for a round of Irish coffees and off to bed. Walvis Bay is definitely a less travelled town compared to it’s next door neighbour, Swakopmund (about 30kms up the road). I always appreciated these sorts of places, and love the chance to meet someone local whenever possible!!