Nest Luderitz

Luderitz: four seasons in four days I had been warned, both talking to people and reading about it, that weather in Luderitz can and will be unpredictable. Above all, I had braced myself for the notorious, strong wind coming from the open ocean, especially when Claire and I decide to stop at the Shark Island Camp Ground. In the end, we were miraculously spared from it - even one of the workers at the campsite remarked how ...

Regenerated by the two days spent at our secret little spot by the Naute Dam*, we start our brief journey to Luderitz, a biggish town on the Atlantic coast, squeezed between the southern part of the Namib Desert and its longer stretch in the north. Luderitz was the first German settlement in what was to become at the end of the 1800s the colony of German West Africa. Today it is an isolated, quaint, tourist ...

... It was absolutely forbidden to enter here until just a few years ago. Vehicles or airplanes that landed were impounded and never allowed to leave; such was the tight control exercised by the de Beers Diamond mining conglomerate. A faceless port city in a barren land, the Princess and I feared for the level of accommodation for this night. The Nest Hotel was fine, a view of the crashing waves of the Atlantic below. Only a one night stopover en route to our last adventure.

... of the rope we were towed in at high speed on jus 1.5m of rope - scary!! At the garage the engine was opened up and we needed a new battery and alternator!! So at abotu 10pm (now just 3 degrees!) we set off again for the final stretch, one stop later in Aus in -7 degrees we finally reached Luderitz at just before 1am. I was so tired and cold that I have no idea what I said to Auntie Mieta my host mother - I needed bed. Since then I have ...

We are rich!! We found diamonds!!! Just kidding. We drove through the desert, past the DeBeers signs saying stay in your car, we own this land, through the winds that can sand blast the paint on your car if you drive too fast, and then through a black rocky moonscape to the coastal town of Luderitz. There isn't much to say about Luderitz, except they had Jack Daniel's at the bar down the street from the backpackers. It was so cold, we needed a couple ...

"Travelling makes you modest - you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." After our 4 luxury nights in a bed, our next stop was another bush camp where there was more sand than a sandpit and far too much wind for my liking. I slept on the truck again, this time because I didn't want to wake up to find I'd been buried alive under half a ton of sand. The next official camp site was just as bad in the sand department but then we put the sand to good use and visited some ...

Today the most amazing drive started, clearly the top in my short life. The drive from Cape Town up along the west coast to the border is fantastic. You drive a lot and fast, but still you absorb the changing landscapes around you. We finally found the N7 heading north and Phil did the driving today. The Opel Corsa surprised us by suddenly only going FULL speed!!! A bit scary, but when you remembered there is something called ...

... the last 100k's to Luderitz on the coast. On our way there we stopped off to see some feral horses in the desert. There are many theories about how these horses came to get in the desert in the first place, but all of them state that this wild herd has existed for about 120 years. We were extremely lucky to get to see them at a watering hole. There were about a hundred of them, grazing, drinking, playing and just laying around. It's weird to see horses laying down at all, let alone ...

Question: How do you ensure that 20 travelers are in bed by 9:30? Answer: Tell them that they have to be up by 4:00am to watch the sunrise on the infamous Dune 45. That is what we did today, although we were actually awoken to the loud engine of the truck at 3:30am because Bernie still had his alarm set on South African time - an hour ahead of our current Namibian time. Did he ever get bugged about that!!! Good thing he found it as funny as we did, we all had a ...

Good morning! The fleece sweater pillow case was fabulous!!! We were up at six this morning to ensure that we were on the road again by 7:00. Today was our longest driving day so far. Right when we thought it was going to be broken up a bit...we were on the road for about 9 hours, 5-600km on gravel roads. Right from the beginning we got to see some wildlife though. First were a bunch of zebras. A heard of zebras? A pack of zebras? They were hanging out in a field ...