Pelican Bay Hotel Walvis Bay

... down the mountain but having a great opportunity to learn how to snowboard. Or, the other option was to lie on your belly on a flexible board and fly straight down. I was tempted to do the snowboarding-type option since if I’m ever going to learn this was the best scenario, no ice, no cold snow, little risk of injury…but in the end I decided I’d rather go for the thrill and besides, trying to learn to snowboard means I’m going to have to ...

... one biggish room with lots of bunk beds and a bathroom with two showers. There was also a tiny room with a toilet that the girls decided the boys would use. In our room were all the couples except Lance and Francine, who had upgraded to their own room; Chris and Hollie and Kevin and Krista and us. Our first order of the day was to watch a video on all the extra/optional activities we could choose to do. Included were sky diving, quad biking ...

... began to tire of gripping, and our hearts beating hard took our breath away. I think all of us felt how out of shape we were then. <br><br>The view was gorgeous; we were climbing on the ridge, the red dunes falling off to either side and stretching endlessly in the distance. When we got to the top the sand was blowing hard up the dune, but the sun was cresting the ridge line and the sky was turning all kinds of shades ...

... to watch the sunset. Rachel stayed at the campsite to take advantage of a hot shower but I struggled up with a few others and after half and hour climbing we were rewarded with stunning panoramic views of the Namibian countryside. There really is vast stretches where the only thing that shows evidence of civilisation is the roads that stretch forever over the horizon in either direction. We could see cars coming 30km away by the dust they left in their wake. It is a postcard ...

... gemsbok, springbok and were lucky enough to see bat eared foxes (not near enough for the camera) and one of the foxes was seriously injured at the roadside. It didn't feel right to take a photo of an injured animal. There are campsites in the Park but you need a permit as you do to drive on some of the roads. Must admit what we could see of the camping areas they ...

After the rude awakening from the wind, the chance to get to our hotel (yes, hotel!) in Swakopmund, have breakfast/addictive hot beverages of choice and have a shower would be extremely welcome. So to be dropped for a presentation on what activities were on offer was already a bit of a blow, compounded by having the worst public speaker in the world. Poor jokes were bad enough, but this was followed by being told how uncool we were for not being snowboarders ...

Today we got to Swakopmund. This is a gorgeous city in Namibia that is right on the beach. We stopped on the way here at a seal colony that had thousands of seal basking on the beach. The smell was brutal but the sight was incredible. There were mom and baby seals everywhere!<br><br>Here there is the opportunity to do a bunch of different activities like sky diving, quad biking ...

... because of an DVD they watched from the 2005 Stanley cup finals. All the way to Africa and we were still able to talk hockey (as you can imagine Carol was thrilled). That evening we walked about 500 meters from our B&amp;B and walked to the top of a sand dune and had a couple of drinks watching the sunset. We were a little distracted when a group of 6 twelve year olds decided to put on a show for us which included cartwheels and ...

... privately owned souvenir shop thinly disguised as a collection of rare gems). George wanted to buy a handful of copper flakes but the museum did not accept debit cards for small purchase. I had not changed money into Namibian dollars by that time. Those of you who know George will know why he enjoyed the museum and why he wanted to buy some copper. Recently, he might have asked you something like "would you rather have a copper mine ...

... 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 ...