Damaraland

I’m getting behind here in the Blog. I will write about our “autumn” break camping trip up north through Damaraland two weeks ago, and later catch up on other things we've been doing. Camping trips aren’t for the faint of heart here in Namibia. Namibia is a great place to camp, but you can really get out there! We spent the first night in a place called Omaruru. The woman who owned the rest camp had hundreds of birds in cages and outside, so it was quite loud early in the morning. Ruby was not fond of Omaruru, as there was also a pig roaming the grounds which would chase her around. She did NOT like that pig at all. We then ventured up northwest into Damaraland, a part of the country where the Damara people live. This is also a place with many rocks and gemstones that one could just find laying on the side of the road. Because of all the rains, there were numerous road wash outs. We had to wait for several hours in one place for a grader to fix a wash out. Later, we got ourselves stuck in the middle of a river with our combi. Luckily, a group of men and boys spent the day hanging out of the river, digging and pushing people out for money. It took three Land Rovers (the first one broke its winch, the second its alternator) and about 10 guys pushing and digging with shovels to get us out of there. After our river episode, we went to see some ancient rock engravings in TWYFELFONTEIN. We saw the famous “Lion with the long tail”, and many others. These are more than 2,000 of these rock engravings that date back 6000 years, and it is supposedly the greatest concentration of Stone Age carvings in the world.


Some Damaraland Scenery






Our Combi stuck in the riverbed


We then went on one of the worst roads, though it was classified as a major highway, with numerous river crossings, washouts, sketchy detours, up to a lovely, remote lodge called Palmwag. Palmwag has an exclusive lodge with beautiful chalets that tourists use as a stop in their “fly-in” vacations, as well as a very nice small camping ground with 8 sites. The campground had beautiful views of the countryside, and even had its own bar and swimming pool! Ruby made friends with all of the campground staff when she would sit at the bar by herself drinking her Orange Fantas. We stayed for a few days here, and enjoyed going on hikes up the hills, playing in the creek, and searching for agates and other stones. One night there was a huge storm, and we got to witness a “flash flood” right by our campsite. You could hear the flood coming for a few minutes, and then suddenly the little creek that our campsite overlooked became a river about 10 times as large in about 5 seconds. It was remarkable. Bill and a few other people had to form a human chain across the “river” to help some people who got trapped on the other side. The area around Palmwag was especially green because of all the rain, and there were beautiful wildflowers. All the vegetation made it hard to see animals, but we did see springbok, gemsbok, impala, and some giraffe. We saw evidence of recent visits by the desert elephant, but didn’t actually see any of them.



Girls Hiking at Palmwag


Girls at the top of the hike


Our campsite - with the great view

After Palmwag, we drove over the pass to the skeleton coast. The drive itself was fascinating. In about 120 kilometers, we saw two houses, and they were at the police checkpoint. The land turns from beautiful green hillside to barren desert in about two kilometers. In the barren desert, the only thing that seems to grow are Welwitschia plants, which can grow in areas with virtually no water. We saw lots of Springbok in this barren landscape too. After we entered the gates to the Skeleton Coast, the landscape became even more barren (at noon, the person at the gate told us we were only the second car to cross the pass that day). Only the southern part of the Skeleton Coast is open to cars, and visitors going to the northern part must use light aircraft and stay in very pricey lodges. We then drove down the coast for about 100 kilometers through the dunes and saltpans. At one point, we ran into our friends coming the other direction. We had a fun hour visiting with them on top of a dune looking at the ocean.


Entrance to Skeleton Coast Park at Springbokswater


Windy Skeleton Coast

We stopped a few times to play at the beach and to look at old Shipwrecks (it’s called the Skeleton Coast for a reason). Most of the wrecks were north of where we were, but we did see a few small ones. We camped that night at what the guidebook calls the most barren, windswept campsite you’ll ever see. The name of the campsite is “Mile 108”. We were there without about 10 South African groups, who all came with generators, wind guards, and all sorts of wind-camping gear that we’d never seen before. They were all there for fishing, and we saw photos of huge fish that they catch. We looked pretty pathetic there with our two cheap tents that we tried to shield from the wind with the combi. We were happy that the Afrikaners were there though, because we got a flat tire, and found out that our spare tire was locked with a padlock! Luckly, the Afrikaners were well-prepared, and three of them came and got our tire out without essentially saying a word to us.


Skeleton Coast Campsite


The next day we visited the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, which is home to the largest breeding colony of cape fur seas in the world (these are actually sea lions, but they call them seals). There were literally 250,000 seals in this one rocky part on the coast. We could get very close to them on a walkway, and we just watched for hours. The baby seal pups were a few months old, so it was fun to watch them practicing swimming and playing. There’s also a nice lodge here, and we stopped here for a breakfast.



Seals at Cape Cross

We spent the night in a seaside vacation town called Henties Bay, which was only settled about 30 years ago by folks who wanted to go fishing on the coast. It’s very nice, and we ate at a great, little seafood restaurant that was lined with photos of people with their fish. On our way home, we went on a gravel road for about 150 kilos, which made for excellent gemstone hunting. We stopped 5 times in different spots and collected lots of quartz.


Looking for gems