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Published: September 10th 2009
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Happy Birthday Cheryl Day 59 Bush Camp - Bush Camp 5.8.09
Another very long drive day was separated by a 2 hour stopover in Windhoek (Namibia‘s capital). Windhoek was a great place that had a Miami feel to it, palm trees, expensive boutiques and lots and lots of white people (mostly German)?! Apparently Windhoek was a German colony during the war and is still heavily influenced by their culture. During our short visit we had a look at their Meteor exhibit which is displayed in the town centre, it consisted of 32 meteor chunks that were part of a 57 piece meteor shower. It sound’s far more impressive than it was! After this it was onward to the next bush camp where Michelle discovered that our sleeping bags zip together to create a double sleeping bag, good to find this out so close to the end of the trip!
Day 60 Bush Camp - Etosha National Park 6.8.09
We left the bush camp at 5.45 to get to Etosha NP at opening time for a morning game drive. Etosha is one of Africa’s premier National Parks and it was obvious to see why, the place was vast! We visited several waterholes
and saw a lot of various animal interacting together for the first time on the trip. We also saw many wild elephant, one of which seemed to be performing to the viewing public, demonstrating standing on two legs and dancing the Charleston! The other wildlife seemed unimpressed by this guys antics and two lions were laying feet from gazelles and zebra in joint disgust of the show in front of them. I concluded he was probably hoping for a talent scout in the crowd to get him away from the more untalented elephants! After some more hours of game driving we stopped for lunch at one of the parks campsites (which was again full of Germans) and we all decided to use their showers and pool which was a really pleasant surprise! Then it was some more game driving around this massive park before leaving for our final bush camp, which was literally on the side of the road so we were unable to set up tents until about 9pm!
Day 61 Etosha NP - Cheetah Park 7.8.09
A 7.30 leave from our makeshift bush camp saw us head to Cheetah Park (unsurprisingly the home of many cheetahs).
We stopped briefly in Outjo to pick up supplies for dinner and try out the bakery with best toilets in Namibia and also buy a Game Pie. We arrived in Cheetah Park at about 3pm and were invited up to the owners house to play with his domesticated cheetahs, he has 2 adult females and one very cute baby cheetah who took delight in chasing the jack russell around the garden, incidentally the jack russell was a spit of Michelle’s little brothers dog Joey! After some picture taking we all jumped on the back of a cattle trailer and drove around the park to watch them feed the cheetahs. Later that night we played cards whist everyone else was drinking.
Day 62 Cheetah Park - Spitzkoppe 8.8.09
We left Cheetah park and stopped briefly at the house to say goodbye to the Cheetahs, Ostrich’s, Dogs and very sociable giraffe who liked to suck peoples thumbs and headed to Spitzkoppe, described to us as the best camping location on the trip so we were all very excited! We arrived at about 3pm and took in the surroundings, basically very big rocks. We set up our tents and went for
a climb. We probably only got a quarter of the way up but it felt really high. We sat on a rock and took in the view, it was very peaceful and the sunset was possibly the best yet. That evening we sat around the bonfire in a large nook in the rocks.
Day 63 Spitzkoppe - Swakopmund 9.8.09
Today we headed to Swakopmund which is Namibia’s answer to Vic Falls, offering adrenaline activities such as sand boarding, skydiving, quad biking, hot air ballooning and lots more. We were both watching our wallets so decided on just doing the sand boarding. There was no camping facility here so we were forced to share a dorm, which wasn’t ideal since someone decided that the snorers should stay in one room and non snorers in another, as we were last in the room we were relegated to the snoring room! We looked for hours around the town for a room elsewhere but had no luck so we were stuck with it tonight. Everyone then got very drunk in the evening and ate pork ribs.
Day 64 Swakopmund 10.8.09
We managed to get a double room to ourselves in
the hotel, which was really good since last night we were treated to an orchestra of nasal noises, at one point they started harmonising! It was really nice to get away from everyone for a few days and enjoy some time to ourselves, we decided that tonight we’d buy Doritos and chocolate and pig out in our hotel room whilst watching TV, which was brilliant!
Day 65 Swakopmund 11.8.09
Our last full day in Swakopmund and we were up and ready at 9.30 for Sand Boarding, kind of like snowboarding but we were lying down so more like sledging! It was REALLY fun but VERY tiring, we walked for what seemed like hours up a dune only to slide down it at around 70kph on a piece of plywood in about 4 seconds (at this point I‘m obliged to point out that I reached 71kph and Michelle reached 74kph). After doing this about 6 times on different runs we stopped for lunch and were really impressed by the free drinks and rolls provided (even pocketing a few drinks for later). We got back at about 1pm and decided to go and watch Transformers 2 at the local cinema,
which was very small. Not a great film but Megan Fox is stunning and is now on my list of “if she knocked on the door and asked for some sugar then Michelle would allow me to borrow her some…”, Michelle has far more people on her list than I do inc Dave Grohl, Hugh Jackman, Jonny Depp, Nelson Mandela and the guy that plays the umpa lumpa in charley and the chocolate factory! We spent our last night in Swakopmund again watching TV with fish n chips.
Day 66 Swakopmund - Agama 12.8.09
We left Swakopmund late morning and headed to our campsite in Agama just outside Sossusvlei (the home of the famous sand dunes). It was Cheryl’s birthday so the drive day was turned into a moving daytime truck party. We played games that included pass the parcel, musical statues (which is near impossible on the truck) and draw the penis on the man (who was ripped out of heat magazine). It was a good day and everyone was in high spirits which isn’t usually the case after spending a long time in one place and then doing a drive day. We arrived at our campsite
at about 5 pm and proceeded to get numerous complaints from the other residents about our noise, again they were mostly German!
Day 67 Agama - Sossusvlei 13.8.09
A 5.45 start and we were on our way to visit the sand dunes of the Namib desert. We arrived just after sunrise which was a shame as sunrise and sunset are the best times to see them. However they were still pretty impressive and took some really cool “arty farty” pictures, we walked about halfway up dune 45 and where basically sandblasted into submission and headed back down before walking 5k out into the desert to see the petrified forest, apparently 260 million years old, although I don’t think they counted the rings on the inside of the trunk! We took some cool pics and headed back to the truck, 10k in the blistering heat with no water is ill advised and we would not recommend it to anyone. Later that day we drove on to the next camp site with possibly the best showers so far. I cooked a dinner of bangers and mash which was amazing!
Day 68 Sossusvlei - Fish River Canyon 14.8.09
Another
really early start and very long drive day and we were at Fish River Canyon, disputably the second largest canyon in the world, disputed because there is some debate on how you measure a canyon. We arrived at the canyon at around 3pm and took in the views before watching the sunset with cheese and wine. I thought the canyon was pretty spectacular but Michelle has seen the largest (grand canyon) and concluded this was a mere dent in the earth’s surface in comparison! From the canyon we headed to the campsite on site for our last night in Nambia before heading to the SA boarder the next day.
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