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Tuesday, 2000-07-25, Swakopmund : Elmari and Thandie are buying vegetables, Wouter and Pim are buying beer. Earlier we visited the aquarium (not as nice as Cape Town aquarium) and did the brewery tour (yea!). Breakfast was at the takeaway place next to the laundromat -- recommended (try the omelettes). We also got the permits required to camp at Gobabeb in the Namib Naukluft Park.
As normal, the shopping takes longer than anticipated, and we end up leaving Swakopmund at 14:00 (15:00 SAST). I wanted to look around Walvis Bay, mostly because the Yellow Rand-Lover came with a "Impala Motors Walvis Bay" sticker on the back window way back when it was still a grey Land-Rover. But we were late, so we pushed on to the camp site, where the others were already parked off, some since the day before (we spent an extra day in Swakopmund, remember?)
[WPT 152 -23.638389 15.182360 25-JUL-00 16:33 GMT 18:33 SAST Camp Site]
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Apparently there's a killer wind that comes up at around 10 o'clock
in the morning and razes the camp site until about 2 o'clock in the
afternoon. Fortunately we're not sticking around to experience it.
Elmari makes a very rich paella, and we hit the bed. |
Wednesday, 2000-07-26, Gobabeb : Elmari wakes up feeling not-so-great. Malaria? Or maybe just the paella?
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[WPT
154 -23.481855 15.760977 26-JUL-00 11:02
GMT 13:02 SAST
Lunch Break, Kuiseb Pass]
The road from Gobabeb is a long slow uphill, and we get the wind from the front. Third gear all the way to the Windhoek turnoff on the other side of the Kuiseb Pass, from there it's downhill to Solitaire. |
[WPT 155 -24.486525 15.799193 26-JUL-00 15:10 GMT 17:10 SAST Sesriem]
I almost made it from Swakopmund to Sesriem on one tank of fuel. Switched tanks on the D826.
Wednesday, 2000-07-27, Sesriem : We're up at 04:15 and at the gate, which opens at 04:45. Or so we've heard, it actually only opened at 05:30. We had coffee in camp, and some more coffee waiting for the gate to open. Reached Sossusvlei just before dawn, but we were going a bit faster than the speed limit (40 km/h sand, 60km/h tar, we were doing 60/80). Pim is having fun, with his sand tyres he can overtake the rest of us easily... until he hit the really sandy spot and disappeared in the rear view mirror, that was...
I head for the toilet, all that coffee... phew!
We had a champagne breakfast after climbing the dune. Quite a climb. Elmari drove back, to get some sand driving experience.
Back at Sesriem I fill up the main tank, we used about 28 liters for the return trip.
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[WPT
158 -24.660181 15.986288 27-JUL-00 14:39
GMT 16:39 SAST
Turnoff]
[WPT 159 -24.659227 15.991759 27-JUL-00 16:25 GMT 18:25 SAST Last Camp] Wit Water Sos-ses Desert Camping. 063 293243. Very nice showers, the whole farm is wind and solar powered. The wind does blow like mad here. We paid N$60 for two people, not bad. Recommended. We were treated to a magnificent sunset, a very nice evening indeed. Elmari makes her famous moerbeibrood, I get into trouble for moving the fire around (secret of making a good bread in a black pot, move the fire around :-) |
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