Protea Hotel Walvis Bay

... back to green and start all over. No thanks, I&#8217;ll stick with my mediocre skiing skills. <br><br>Gabe had also decided to do the lay down option as there wasn&#8217;t much thrill for him going down a comparatively short sand dune. Almost everyone had chosen this option for the day and we were all fitted with our gear and on our way up the dune. Three quarters of the way up the sandboarders and lay down boarders split up and our instructor showed us how to ...

... and some desert walks. We signed up for sandboarding and then walked into town to check the internet and buy some water. Swakupmund is essentially a big town. There were few cars on the roads and not many people walking around either. But the streets were clean and the buildings looked like they had new coats of paint in various pastel colors. <br><br>We had to be back by 4pm because we had paid for another optional activity which was a tour to ...

... so we all pulled out our cameras carefully and quickly and took pictures. In fact many people's cameras would stop working after the sand got in. <br><br>After a while we began walking back, but after a few minutes I had the irresistible urge to run down, so I handed Gabe the camera and flew down the mountain, taking large leaps that carried me forward and then did a half somersault at the end to finish it off. When we ...

... s dream. Most of the other people on the tour have these big professional cameras but we just make do with our little compact. Even then most of our pictures look amazing, almost as if they have been digitally created.<br><br>Unfortunately Hes was right about the temperature drops as that night the temperatures dropped from around 25 degrees during the day to around -2 degrees at night. A lot of people cleverly took advantage of the upgrade to proper rooms at the campsite ...

... pretty desolate, it is desert camping after all, with few vehicles passing. You have to be self sufficient in fuel, wood, water and supplies. Part of the C14 is tarred; most of it is sand/gravel, although they were working on it as we drove through.<br><br>Walvis Bay surprised us. It is large, clean and parts of very up market looking, new housing developments too. We ...

... from Claire ("a GIRL" - the presenter then proceeded to completely misunderstand a snowboarding question, so she wasn't exactly an expert). Next came the slagging off of the competition, swiftly leading to a rant on how dangerous quad biking was, leaving us with the almost certainty that we'd break a wrist. Maybe with breakfast inside us it would have been better, but it's safe to say that she very much misinterpreted the mood of the group! This initial ...

... sand boarding. Rocko and I are going quad biking on the dunes so it should be really fun. You can drive up the side of them and go as fast as you want so we are both really looking forward to it. Not sure if we will be able to take pictures or not but should be incredible. <br><br>Swakopmund is so German. There are German flags everywhere and the people here speak German ...

... flips down the steep dunes and imitating their favourite wrestlers moves. On our second day we took a tour of the nearby sand dunes on four wheelers. This was so much fun!!! There are no rules in Africa and it was awesome to gun the 4 wheelers and climb as far as we could up the dunes and then turn around and gun it back down. We were on the dunes for about an hour when we stopped at a very steep dune. Our guide waxed pieces of ...

... a stone quarry?" or "would you rather have a diamond mine or 5 Ferraris?" After the museum, we visited a rug weaving business. The employees were spinning, dyeing, and cutting wool, and weaving beautiful rugs on huge looms. It was a bit touristy, but the rugs were real and the employees seemed busy and diligent. Some customers had mailed photographs to the mill, and the weavers had created rugs to match the photograph. For this ...

... spot so I went with everyone else. I got Nat to take a photo of me standing on the edge of the cliff - that was a bad idea! A very strong gust of wind came up the side of the cliff and nearly knocked me over! I kept a good distance away after that! After the canyon we stayed a couple of nights along Orange River, and then went to Stellenbosche in South Africa which is famous for its wines... More of that will come later, along with Shark Diving and the worlds highest bungy!!