Cape Cross Seal Colony

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Not long after leaving our bush camp site we arrived at the famous Cape Cross Seal Colony. Now the first thing to say is that we had been warned that the smell of these seals is usually very unpleasantly overpowering. When we first arrived I could therefore confirm that my sense of smell is as bad as I have always thought as I couldn't really smell anything, let alone anything unpleasant! Ha ha.

We spent about 45 minutes at the colony and it was amazing. There were seals as far as the eye could see. Thousands and thousands of them. However, the best thing was that we had timed it just right for when the seals were giving birth to thousands of tiny babies. We even saw some being born there and then in front of us. It was such a sight to see, and the noise! My god the noise. The female seals were moaning and groaning, half of them in some stage of labour. The tiny little babies sounded like little lambs bleating away (although they looked like black Labrador puppies), the waves were crashing on the rocks and our cameras were clicking and whirring away as tons of photos were taken. I was taken aback at how aggressive the seals were, male and female and we often saw thenm fighting amongst themselves. The males were huge and would bound there way through a crowd, squashing any little babies that got in there way poor things. We did see lots of dead or dying babies and people warned me not to go to a certain bit of the beach as I would find it to upsetting. My response (which looking back on it must have been quite funny) was 'I watch the nature programs, I know what I'm dealing with here'.

Onwards we went to our next stop where we would be for 4 whole days .... in a bed .... Swakopmund.

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