Namibia and all of its glory

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Namibia was mostly an adrenalin filled trip. Firstly though we spent a few nights at Etosha National Park. Still, nothing can compare to the Masai Mara, however we did get to go on a night game drive here which was a first. The highlight of this drive was seeing lions. The tour guide got out a bright flash light and asks "If anyone asks if I used white light, what will you say?" We all chirped in with a resounding "No" and he says "Good, cos it's illegal and I'd get into a lot of trouble" He did explain that it doesn't matter too much with the lions as the light doesn't effect them, however it blinds antelope and other animals upto 45 minutes which makes them a good target for prey. He shone the light on two black Rhino's and they started fighting with their shadows thinking it was some other Rhino - it was pretty funny.

Our next main stop was a Cheetah Park. In Namibia the cheetah is not protected, and so the farmers shoot them if they come onto their farming land. One family saw the cheetahs plight and decided to set up some sort of reserve for them. If a farmer finds a Cheetah on his land, this family will buy the Cheetah off them and release it into the "wild" which is basically just a huge section of land fenced off. They do have three tame Cheetahs which just cruise about in their front yard with a few dogs in tow. They were gorgeous and so placid. We got to pat them and have our photos taken with them as well. Towards the end of the day, they took us out in a ute and we watched the 'wild' ones get fed chunks of donkey meat. They actually got out of the ute and threw the meat up in the air for the Cheetahs to fight over. Some of them got a bit narky about waiting for their feed and they'd jump, thump the ground and hiss/spit at the guys who were feeding them. A little bit of a work hazard I think! It was a truly amazing experience thought - definitely one of my favourite places we've visited.

Following the Cheetah Park we went on to Swakopmund which is the adrenalin capital of Namibia (and our first taste of real civilisation!) Our first activity was sandboarding. Clinton chose to do the stand up, and I did the lie down. It was so much fun. There was one slope where we had to dig our feet into the ground to prevent us going onto the gravel and ruining the board. I stopped around a metre from the gravel and Shae was to follow. She went scooting upto the gravel, onto the gravel, and three metres into the gravel. Needless to say, her board was a little worse for wear! The next big dune we had a speedo to see how fast we were going. I scored the 3rd fastest with a whopping 64km's per hour and Shae (with her lovely scratched up board) got a whopping 35km's per hour! She made up for it on the next dune where she held first place for all of five minutes. I ended up getting 70km's per hour and she had 73km's. The highest was achieved by Yvonne the Irish girl who was an absolute hoon. She achieved the fastest speeds on all of the dunes. On my last big trip down the dune I got eye fulls of sand which pretty much stayed with me for a few days. A lot of people ate a heap of it though - I'm not sure which would be worse?! In between a few of the larger dunes, Shae and I got to go down one together. She had to hold up the front (without breaking it) and I had to steer and slow us down if we looked like we were going to spin out. We survived. The next two down was Ash and Megan who broke their board in half, created a nice big speed bump for the next two, who subsequently broke their board in half as well! It was very amusing to watch. Clinton's Sandboarding efforts were a lot better than what I was expecting. I got to watch his first go which he did really well (though still fell off.) Towards the end of the day he was getting a little more adventurous and tried the jump twice, to which he came hurtling back to earth god damn quickly. It was not a pretty sight (luckily caught on camera so I got to see it!) He also came off a doozy at the bottom of the dune and informed me he actually blacked out for a few seconds - Nice. He hasn't stopped whinging about how sore he is ever since though (no sympathy from me though - sounds a little heartless but you'll soon learn why!)

An hour after Sandboarding we then went quad biking over the dunes. Both Clinton and I jumped on the beefed up fully automatics. Unfortunately we found ourselves stuck in the slow group, but soon Clinton spied the ultra fast group and took a sharp turn to his left leaving me in his dust and still stuck in the slow group. I gradually made my way to the front of this group overtaking when I got the chance. As the guide came near the medium paced group he told me and one other person to change (thank-god!) This group was pretty awesome and we went up and down the dunes like bats out of hell! (That's what it felt like anyways) One girl took a turn too quickly and she came toppling off with the quad bike falling on top of her. She was alright in the end, just didn't go so crazily afterwards. I too nearly lost it from pure speed (There really is no other explanation, I was going dead ahead without any turns - maybe I hit a bit of loose sand, either way, I took my finger off the accelerator and I gained control and possibly saved a few injuries!) The whole experience was pretty exhilarating.

The next day we were scheduled to go sky-diving. We were previously told by Bec, our first tour leader, that the company has had no fatalities and is the safest. When we changed groups and got Steph, she informed us that they had two fatalities (the dive master and tourist) in April this year. Supposedly the girl freaked out and curled into a ball which made it impossible to open the chute.. and they came crashing to earth. They both survived the impact, however the dive master died at the scene, and the girl died later in hospital. This didn't dissuade anyone from jumping though - as it obviously was just an unfortunate event, nothing to do with negligence. So anyways, there were six of us that jumped - Karen, Yvonne (the Irish girls), Nicole, Shae, and us. The first three went up first. Later we saw the video footage of Yvonne and she had a look of horror on her face the whole time! She was even holding onto the dive masters arm and refused to let go as he was trying to ply her hand off him! On my flight, Shae jumped first followed by me and then Clinton. We had a 15 minute scenic flight until we got to 10,000ft where Shae and her camera man jumped out, and then it was my turn! Inside the plane we were all pretty much sitting on top of her dive masters laps as there was no room at all in the plane. Once Shae was out, I had to shuffle to the door and hang out with my knees bent back and holding onto my harness (to which thankfully was attached to my dive master) a few seconds later I was falling through the air! The speed of the wind was unbelievable, and the whole experience you just can't put into words. It's definitely something that has to be experienced by the person!

The following day we got up at an unreasonable time of the morning to watch the sun rise over the dunes. We had to walk up this HUGE dune, to which I nearly died half-way. Everyone was coughing and wheezing at the top, and a lot of people were still doing this the following few days. Yes - we are a very unfit bunch! Once the sun had risen, we then had a few choices as to how to get down. I ended up holding Clinton's camera so I just walked down with Shae and her fractured leg. Clinton, on the other hand, chose to roll down the dune.. and this is why I have no sympathy for his sandboarding pains! He also chose to roll down another dune later in the day when we went on a Bushman's walk.

The Bushman's walk was ran by a Japanese lady who was the most craziest and funny person you could imagine conducting a tour in Namibia. She, in fact, was a tourist herself 9 years ago and was offered the job so she stayed on and later married a local. She basically took us around the dune showing us the plants, which ones you can eat and which ones are poisonous. She also showed us the different animal tracks and also these spiders which build their nests in the sand with like a trap door to get out (namely to keep the sand out though.) She also told us that the animals produce solid urine as they use every last drop of water/fluid that they can get. It was a really interesting tour, amazing how anything and anyone could survive living out there!

Our last stop in Namibia was Fish River Canyon which was absolutely HUGE. Clinton was too "sore" to walk the 3km's along the canyon to our picnic spot so I went with everyone else. I got Nat to take a photo of me standing on the edge of the cliff - that was a bad idea! A very strong gust of wind came up the side of the cliff and nearly knocked me over! I kept a good distance away after that! After the canyon we stayed a couple of nights along Orange River, and then went to Stellenbosche in South Africa which is famous for its wines... More of that will come later, along with Shark Diving and the worlds highest bungy!!

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