We are now in Luderitz and therefore back on the coast. It was a bumpy 4 hours on gravel roads followed by another hour or so on tarred road before we got here. We did pass through the Namib Rand national park on the way and managed to spot the usual array of animals including springbok and gemsbok/oyrx. I felt the need to take more animal photos (don't ask me why). Later on we saw 3 bat eared foxes, which was good, as we had not seen them before, and they are not normally out in the day. We also saw [View Full Entry]

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After another 4 hour drive - it takes at least 4 hours to get anywhere round here - we are at the Desert Homestead. Like most places it is in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere in this case is on the outskirts of the Namib Naukluft park and near the tallest sand dunes in the world. The journey here did have one highlight and that was that we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. There was a huge sign to inform us of this fact so needless to say we had to get out to take a (well several) photos. Today we [View Full Entry]

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We are now in Swakopmund which is the adrenaline capital of Namibia. It is not quite on the same scale as Queensland in NZ but there is still a fair amount of stuff to choose from, most of which seem to be based around sand in some way! Swakopmund has the coast on one side and the Namib desert on the other. When we arrived the wind was blowing off the desert and it was like being in front of a hair dryer and getting blasted with sand at the same time! When we were driving here the sand storm was [View Full Entry]

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Seals are smelly! I did already know this from NZ where a small number of seals made a terrible smell. This was NOTHING compared to the stench of Cape Cross. There are 200,000 seals here and they all smell! When we first got out of the car it was pretty overwhelming. You did get used to it pretty quickly though. The seals were amazing though mainly because there were so many of them. They were as far as the eye could see. It was like being in a BBC documentary! The only not so pleasant thing about it all was the [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in the hottest place in the world after a long drive. We did stop along the way, once for petrol where we felt like we were actually in Africa with hustle, bustle and hawkers everywhere, and once to see a Petrified Forest (presumably it had seen Laura driving on the rock laden roads!). The Lodge is nice although we can't walk more than 5 paces without looking at the Lizards and Bushy Tailed rock rats (stick a bushy tail on a rat and you are happy for them to run around your feet....). After a lovely lunch in the [View Full Entry]

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We have spent the last 3 days exploring Etosha National Park and it was awesome, one of the best places that I have been! We saw loads of animals and I took loads of photos. Some would say too many! One of the great things about is Etosha is that it is all self drive so you just get to the gate, pay your fees and then you are free to drive off in search of wildlife. It was so cool. No soon as we were through the door we saw a heard of springbok and then some zebras. Loads of [View Full Entry]

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We have left Windhoek and headed north to Waterberg Plateau. It was mainly tarred road all the way and as we predicted there was not much traffic about. We had a short drive on gravel roads and as a result the car now has an ominous sounding rattle! The camp is really nice and we are staying in a very swish little bungalow. As there are lots of paths around the park we have spent our time walking. We took a trip up to the top of the plateau although we nearly did not make it as we got scared by [View Full Entry]

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As the title suggests we have made it to a new continent and this time it is Africa. We are currently in Windhoek, Namibia and are about to start on a 3 week self drive tour of the country. We have got a Toyota Corolla for the duration, lets hope that she survives driving on all the dirt roads. Windhoek seems a nice but very quiet city. We drove here from the airport at about 9 am which you would have thought was rush hour but there was hardly a car on the road! I have since read that it is [View Full Entry]

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Thought I would add a map to my blog that lists all the countries that I have visited including all the ones I haven't blogged. There are quite a few patches of red but quite a few white patches too. Hopefully it will get redder as the years roll on! Visited Countries Map [View Full Entry]

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We are back in Istanbul and the holiday is nearly over :-( Can't believe it as it has gone so fast. We fly back to the UK tomorrow. We went to Gallipoli on Friday on the way back to Istanbul. we got the 7am ferry to the Gallipoli peninsula so we were there very early as the sun was rising. It was very peaceful. We started at ANZAC cove where the allied troops landed on the 25th April (ANZAC day) 1915. When you see how steep the cliffs are you realise why they never really had a chance. Thousands of people [View Full Entry]

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