A petrified forest and skeleton coast all in a day

Trip Start May 31, 2006

Trip End Oct 14, 2006

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Flag of Namibia Skeleton Coast, Namibia
Sunday, October 1, 2006

1st October...couldn't believe i'd past the 4 month point on my trip! We left early at about 6.15, as we had a lot to pack in, and drove to the petrified forest. This place was quite amazing...you were looking at what looked like a log, but when you picked it up, it weighed of rock and it was rock...but just still had the original look of the wood it was! On the tour of the forest (basically sand with the wood all petrified so lying along the ground) we saw whole trunks where you could see where the limbs of the tree would have been, and also saw some desert plants...that were 150 years old...a hardy plant that one is! At one point we even could tap the tree and it sounded like wood when you tap it...but was rock...it really was a bizarre place, if i'm not getting that across. Before we left the area, the guides from the forest gave us a rendition of some local songs with lots of clicking of the tongue to make sounds...one of the songs was Amarula...Ronnie's favourite. They finished with the Namibian national Anthem...i suppose i shouldn't have been surprised when it was in English...but it didn't seem quite right after their beautiful songs in their language

Petrified Forest tour

. We left the forest at about 10am and headed on down to the coast of Namibia and into the Skeleton Coast National Park. The landscape here was just startling in its grey/white colouring and large expanses of flat, other areas gently undulating (never has that phrase been so helpful as it has on this trip!), and some higher rises in the distance...and some hillocks of green appearing regularly. As we approached the sea it changed a bit...actually becoming flatter, more windy (and a cold wind at that) and i got my first view of the Atlantic Ocean from Africa. At about 2pm we stopped at a derelict oil rig and almost got blown away as the wind was so fierce, and by 3pm we had reached Uchabmund...the end of the Skeleton Coast National Park...certainly worth the drive. We then just continued to drive along the coast getting into a more Dune landscape until we reached Swakopmund. On arrival we found we were in dorms...not our tents...a bit of a treat, and that we could use their kitchen to cook. After chilling for a bit we had a fry up courtesy of Greg and Anita, and i spent most of the rest of the night on sole washing up duty...not gonna miss that!