Namibia day 6 - Sandwich Harbour

When we woke up this morning I could hardly see out the window as there was such a dense fog, and it was cool. Not unexpected as Swakopmund has fog most mornings of the year. We had a really good breakfast, made even better by the waiter happily making me an oat milk cappuccino with the oat milk I had brought from the UK (they don't seem to have oat milk here). We were ready by 8.30am to be collected for our day trip to Sandwich Harbour. Toni was not taking us as you need to have a special licence to drive on the dunes and only specialist registered guides can do that. We were also joined by a very nice young French couple on this tour.

When we set off it was overcast, foggy and cool and I was rather disappointed that I would not be seeing the blues of Sandwich Harbour that I was hoping for. Our first stop was Walvis Bay which is only 30 minutes south of Swakopmund. it is an industrial port, one of the largest in Africa. It is also famous for its flamingoes, and we wanted to photograph them. There were thousands of them, both the paler Greater Flamingo and the much pinker Lesser Flamingo. There were also many avocets, sanderlings, plovers, and various other wading birds. From there we set off for Sandwich Harbour, stopping to look at the salt mine on the way. It was fascinating to see the huge heaps of white salt being loaded into trucks. The water in the area has a pink algae in it which is why the flamingoes are so pink, and some pools in the salt mine had very pink water in them. 

After we left Walvis Bay our driver deflated the tyres sufficiently so we could drive on the beach. The route to Sandwich Harbour is about 65km of driving on the beach near the waterline. It was very scenic with the water on the one side and the golden sand dunes on the other. We made a few stops to photograph the dunes and to look at the areas of pink sand - pink from crushed garnet in the sand, and black from the iron in the sand. Nambia is rich in semi precious stones like garnet. When we got to the lagoon at Sandwich Harbour we drove to the top of the highest dune overlooking the harbour and the views were breathtaking from there. We could not believe our luck that the fog had lifted and we had blue skies, although it was very windy. The guide then drove back down to the beach to set up our lunch while remained at the top to enjoy the views, and then walked down to join him. He served a delicious lunch of lasagne made with oryx meat and a (gluten free) chilli for me, also made with oryx meat, with salads and fruit. The Namibians eat much game meat, which I suppose is more sustainable than beef. After lunch we went riding the dunes, he drove up and down some dunes and it was incredible to be right amongst the high dunes. The wind is so strong that the vehicle tracks get blown over very quickly, although there are certain routes that the guides know to use which are safe. Some places where we stopped the wind was so strong that we got covered in fine sand, including my camera - it needed a good clean when we got back to the hotel.  We finally headed back to Swakopmund after what had been a really great outing, it was a most enjoyable day out.

We had supper at the hotel again, this time in the steak restaurant. There is always a lot of meat on the menu, not many vegetarian meals on offer, and the quality of the meat is excellent. 

We leave early tomorrow for Spitzkoppe, driving up the Skeleton Coast en route.