Day 8

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Another 8:00AM start from the very pleasant Le Mirage. Today it will be around 300Km and a late lunch arrival at Swakopmund, if we get a move on.

However, we are not the type to rush along if there is an experience to be had along the way, so we take our time, with no thought of making it to the Nando's for lunch. The other reason is that gravel roads tend to develop a wash-board like surface after a while. This, I have heard, is due to the bouncing suspension of the trucks and cars that pass over it. Its pretty fatiguing on the arms, butt, teeth, fillings and nerves and speeding over it is unpleasant for rider and pillion. Going faster would get it over with quicker I suppose, but the dental bills would be horrendous.

So we stop for coffee and buy a pastie, pie and pastry dessert at the Pie Shop in Solitaire, to eat further down the road. A zillion little birds flock to get the crumbs off the rather tasteless muffin we eat with coffee. Our commitment to lighter eating seems to have been conveniently forgotten. A lady we speak to claims to be being driven mad by the wash-boards in her car and asks how we can cope on a motorcycle. We smile and nod and mount up. We spot a family of Meerkats as we re-join the road - very cute and much lightermthan we expected.

Now the thing is that we never thought we would be shivering as we entered into the tropics, but there you have it. After a photo-stop at the crossing point into the Tropic of Capricorn, we continued on until, in just a few miles, an amazing landscape revealed itself.

The Namib desert is the world's oldest, and because its so dry there are some very unusual features. The road wound up through land that seemed folded in on itself, which some call Moon Valley. Its as if the land was a boiling treacly sea that froze instantly, with curved hillocks bursting from the ground, rising up from a sharp V join with the previous hillock to plunge down to a sharp join with the next. Never seen anything like it.

From there we scooted towards the coast, headed for Walvis Bay on the coast, when we would turn right and head up to Swakopmund, 30Km further north. But first we came across Dune 7, the highest in Namibia. Although we had been through some of the Namib desert already, this was the first time Pam had come across dunes of this type. What was really unexpected was the chilly sea air and sea mist that we went through on the way up the coast. The wind was blowing strongly and there was salt in the air - the visors were steaming up! Everyone was telling us "this is winter, silly", but Pam said it never occurred to her that Africa would be so cold, especially in the tropical parts! So much for Pam's bikini packed for the day off in Swap!

The mists swirled eerily around the desert dunes on the right hand side of the road, the waves crashing against the shore on our left. Although I've seen dunes in cold weather in England, somehow these were different. There was no dune grass growing on them, or kids chasing dogs and kites. Nope, these were proper desert dunes in a weather context I had not previously imagined.

To those of you who (quite rightly) think we have done little (or no) research on what to expect temperature-wise, I would like to say that having new, unexpected experiences wherever we went was entirely the point. Except I can't because it would be a lie. Nope, we just didn't really read the fine print on the Motoaventures (or any other) website.

The Hotel Europa Hof is definitely a step down from our previous night's lodging, but we check in around 4:00PM, get wrapped up and go for a wander down to the beach. There is a pier and we take a bracing walk down its length. Back on shore, The Tug bar opens at 5 and we huddle inside with Sylvia and Ben, another couple riding the trip, and have hot chocolate with rum. It turns out we are to have dinner here too, so we are back at 7:00PM. Surf and Turf for me, as a main course, which consists of prawns and...yes, you got it,...Oryx! :-)

The evening reminds me of those you have in a ski resort with a blizzard outside. Long table, noisy chat, paraffin heaters dotted around the wooden restaurant. Very nice. Back in the room at the hotel, we grab all the blankets from the wardrobe and put them over the duvets before crashing out exhausted.

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Comments

[David Whitehouse]

All sounds fantastic
Thank you for the blog Garth, never knew you could weave English as well as code! And Pam, well, blimey! Good luck on your turn inland.