Skeleton Coast

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After leaving Swakopmund, we drove north along the Skeleton Coast through the Namib Desert coastline. This area is protected, covering nearly 2 million hectares of dunes and gravel plains. You may think it was boring as it was so desolate but it wasn't, it was beautiful. along the way we stopped off at Cape Cross Seal Colony - the breeding place for thousands of fur seals - and there were literally thousands! They were pilled up on top of each other and when they came out of the water, they just waddled over the top of the mass of seals! The smell was so awful though so we stayed as long as we could before driving back down the road for lunch on the beach. on our journey further north our tour guide had said that there was an amazing shipwreck right on the beach which we would stop and see but when we got there it had disappeared beneath the sand so it wasn't so amazing! Instead we collected firewood for tonights bush camp. We also stopped at an old oil drill station which was rusting to pieces. The story goes that someone tried to drill for oil here, didn't succeed as there was none and then sold it on to some poor bugger with false books and company history! We drove into the evening watching the sunset over the dunes whilst we drove. Once we left the reserve we found somewhere to bushcamp for the evening along the roadside. It was only after we'd set our tents up that we found scorpians everywhere and had to where closed shoes for the rest of the evening! Fortunately no one got stung that time!

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