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Published: April 14th 2012
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During our visit to the Skeleton Coast we found that not just the name of this coast was created from the unforgiving nature of the coast. It is a foggy region with rocky and sandy coastal shallows that has not only been a graveyard for ships and their crews but also we found hundreds of skeletons along the beach which are belonging to the seals, whales and other animals. Hyenas’ tracks are leading to the dead bodies and their remains as well as jackals and birds of prey. Imagine walking through an unburied graveyard and a fresh smell is of the previous nights ramblings wafting on the breeze. On this beach very few walk as you can drive the few kilometers to one of the biggest seal colony viewpoint in the world but we hadn’t choice as we arrived by hitchhiking. At the time it has been an unpleasant experience walking along the Skeleton coast but when we reached the viewpoint of few hundred thousand seals which you could reach by an arm – this was just unbelievable and amazing… but the smell was less attractive and hung on our clothes like a bad perfume for few days.
The way
to the Skeleton coast is much more complicated by hitchhiking as just one or two cars are passing this unbeaten road of Namibia. But you are taking the one of the few chances that passes your way and don’t care how comfortable it is before you are actually sitting on the back of truck in the middle of the deserts. Well we can tell it was quite dusty and boiling hot in parts of Namibia, and the temperature can change from +45 to +20 in a matter of minutes. This happened to us when we were leaving the dust bowl of the centre of Namibia heading towards the coast and we could see in the horizon a blanket of fog smothering the coast and before we knew it the temperature changed 20deg within seconds. At this moment we were sitting in the back of truck and shaking of the cold desert breezes. It has been quite different experience and we have never experienced such diverse climate in few seconds.
We were dropped off in the intersection by the beach and we were absolutely freezing for the first time in Africa. The fog was lying just over the coast area
and we could see in the distance sunny and dry desert. Well we were heading to the seal colony which is roughly 100km north of Swakopmund. We believe that not many hitchhikers have found strength to try to get a lift on this road as it hasn’t been really busy. We were hoping that it will be easy to get a lift as it is Easter time. Many tourists passed us and almost drove off the road as they were not expecting to see any human beings by foot in this cold desert.
But as it was the Easter Holidays many South Africans were also on the road on fishing trips so getting a lift was no to difficult at all. During the off-season in this part of the world hitchhiking must be really difficult because of the lack of people and even local busses going from city to city. He population is really small along the coast and the south so anything that passes should be jumped onto right away.
Anyway once we arrived to the seals it was a great treat. Different parts of the colony also seem to be terrified or use to tourists around.
Since we were walking along the beach the first few thousand we were soon were heading for the ocean fast but as soon as we got to the tourist area they didn’t seem to care about is at all and were even coming up for a closer inspection. It was just also after breeding time so cute pups were playing around the beach, annoying everything and getting rolled on by the large angry males whom seemed to be doing more fighting than anything else.
It is well worth a small detour from Swakopmund to Cape Cross to see this large colony, if your lucky you can even see Killer Whales hanging around this area as well.
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The Open Road
Kris and Dennie
Great Pics
Looks like I have to start saving for Namibia! Thanks for the wonderful entry guys! Kris