Swakopmund

Fuelled up and with fresh ice in the coolbox, we joined the dust cloud convoy moving north to Solitaire – the first place to refuel and get coffee. Here a dozen or so 4x4 were parked up, along with six middle-aged guys doing their trans-africa on motorbikes, and a couple of brave souls in salon cars.















North of Solitaire the scenery becomes stereotypically African – vast planes of grassland, punctuated by craggy hills. The picture cried out for huge herds of wildebeest, but alas all our game sightings turned out to be misshaped trees or rocks. We had lunch at the only shaded picnic spot for miles, just after one overland tour had left, and getting the table just before another arrived - dozens of tours run this route; we'll be doing one from Jo'burg to Nairobi in June/July, but for now we can be smug about being independent travellers.














Turning back towards the coast at Walvis Bay, the land rapidly becomes drier, transforming into an almost lunar landscape. Close to Walvis Bay is Dune 7 – one of the Swakopmund area's main dune based activity centres. Pretty soon we (meaning I) were sold into a 45 minute quad-bike dune safari. Kirsten and I, together with the guide zoomed off and up a dune. It was at this point that Kirsten saw down the dune, and decided enough was enough. After some persuasion she got on the back of the guide's bike, and again we took off, up and down dunes, and doing the rather disconcerting manoeuvre where you shoot up a very steep dune, turn the bike across the slop, slide a bit, then turn back down the slope. Kirsten did much of this with her eyes shut, starving the guide of much needed oxygen.















After the exhilaration of quad-biking, it was time for the more relaxed pursuit of Zorbing. I couldn't persuade Kirsten to climb into a giant inflatable ball with me, so alone I was pushed down a small dune, in a ball containing about 20 litres of blue coloured water. The effect, I guess, is similar to being in a washing machine.















Swakopmund is only 20 miles along the coast from Walvis Bay – this is the start of the Skeleton Coast, a bleak coastal desert running for several hundred miles up to and beyond the Angolan boarder. Swakopmund itself is a relaxed town, which gave us a night in a real bed, a decent meal out, and the chance to buy a replacement number-10 gas cylinder.