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[NAMIBIA]

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A BEAUTIFUL OASIS ON NAMIBIA’S
SKELETON COAST, SWAKOPMUND IS THE
PERFECT PLACE TO TAKE A SAFARI INTO
THE OLDEST DESERT IN THE WORLD
WO R DS BY S COTT S M ITH
T
he landscape might remind you
of something like the Nasa lunar
imagery from the 1960s or a
remnant of an old sci-fi movie
where they shot the scene for
some desert planet. Here the dust
blows high and spins across the
road in little tornadoes, and it’s
easy to get lost in your imagination. But just over
the next crest you see the spray from the ocean
and then the tankers and fishing vessels bobbing
PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOLIBRARY
in the water and you remember you’re on that
special stretch of road between Walvis Bay and
Swakopmund on the west coast of Namibia.
For the next few kilometres, all one sees is
dunes and telephone poles and a stretch of tar that
meets in the distance, cutting a drifting line
between the massive hills of sand and the misty
sea. But beyond that one can be forgiven for not
being too impressed by Swakopmund – on the first
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xxx
drive in. It’s small, the outlying homes are
unimpressive and the side streets drift quickly
off into sand. It isn’t a striking place, but
give yourself some time, book into your
accommodation, have a drink and soon the ideas
for activities will come to you with every sloppy
wave that slides up the beach.
Founded in 1892, just two years after the
Namibian capital of Windhoek, Swakopmund was
built to be the main harbour of the then German
South-West Africa. But most such activity has
taken place at Walvis Bay since 1915, when the
German colony was taken over by the Union of
South Africa. Since then, Swakopmund has been
developed as a tourist spot and it shows today
with the lengthy line-up of outdoor activities that
can be enjoyed all year around and the number of
good eating establishments.
A short walk around town reveals all sorts of
little treasures. There are some gems of German
I N D W E M O N T H 201 0 89
19/1/10 14:26:02
 xxx

architecture,
rchitecture, such as the distinctive red-and-white-
striped lighth
lighthouse, or the Woermann House, built
in 1905, and the Damara Tower, which are still
surviving eeven though the municipality hasn’t
been too st
strict about the upkeep of the less
heritage
heritage-orientated buildings dotted around town.
Ther
There are some great restaurants with amazing
seafood – under hushed whispers of secret recipes
– and fantastic, home-brewed dark beers of
German tradition.

There are great

restaurants with
amazing seafood
and dark beers
The waterfront and popular beach area brims
with activity, and there is a surprising cosmopolitan
vibe: Germans, Afrikaners, English, white, black
and every economic strata mix and mingle and
seamlessly flow around one another. Holidaymakers
and residents alike enjoy the sunset beach. A walk
out on the quaint old jetty is a must, and when you
are tired of the sun, take a stroll along the Schad
Allee or Strand Street and stop in at any of the
welcoming restaurants or pubs along the way.

Brightly coloured beacon

There’s no shortage of suitable accommodation in
Swakopmund, whether you’re on a budget or not.
We booked into the Swakopmund Guesthouse, a
brightly coloured beacon just off the main road.
It’s new, just over a year old, and was a family
vacation home before it was completely renovated.
It’s essentially an upmarket bed and breakfast
offering anything that a guest might ask for. The
rooms are clean and the sheets crisp – it’s a perfect

Eye-catching: spot
amazing wildlife
such as dune
geckos, skinks and
desert chameleons

Hot pursuit:
explore the Namib
Desert in a Land Rover
on a fly-in safari

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 THE GERMAN
CONNECTION
Namibia’s ties with
Germany have
given us some
great beers. Ask the
hordes of German
visitors to Namibia
who claim that
Namibia Breweries
in Windhoek –
established in 1920
– brews beers that
are “more German
then Germany
itself”. These
include Tafel Lager,
Hansa draught,
Windhoek Lager
and Urbock, a
traditional dark
beer known as
“bock” beer, which
comes with a kick
of 7 per cent.
Establishing
even closer ties
with traditional
German brews,
Namibian-born
chemical engineer
Jörg Finkeldey
established his
own family-owned
micro-brewery,
Camelthorn
Brewing Company,
early last year. He
now produces a
traditional
Bavarian
“weissbier”,
Light entertainment: branded “Weizen”
take a seal and – German
dolphin tour of the bay for “wheat”.

You wonder how so Swakopmund has received a mere 10mm of rainfall

on average annually for the past 10 years. It’s funny
much activity is to think that just over the next crest is a bustling
tourist town. But life doesn’t just bloom in the city: if
sustained by the you participate in a “living desert” tour, you’ll find

moist Atlantic fog that the desert is alive, too – you just have to know
where to look. Then you wonder how so much
activity is sustained by the moist fog blowing in
from the Atlantic Ocean less than a kilometre away.
pla to relax. To top it off for the responsible
place Enquire with your hotel or organise a larger tour
trave
traveller, it’s eco-friendly, using solar energy and through an operator such as NatureFriend Safaris,
recycled water. Swakopmund Guesthouse is just a
recycl based in Windhoek, which does a number of
block oor two up from the sea and a five-minute walk packages and fly-in safaris in Namibia and
from town.
to Swakopmund is small enough to walk neighbouring countries. The natural areas around
anywhere, so you don’t need your car unless you
anywh Swakopmund are unbounded. Once in the dunes,
want to venture into the dunes.
really w there are so many distractions along the way it felt
like we knew where we were going but never knew
Over the dunes
Ove whether we would get there.
Con
Considered to be the oldest desert in the world, with A “living desert” tour is a lively affair. Our
some of its largest dunes, the Namib Desert around guide, Christopher Nel, reminds one of the late

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 xxx
PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOLIBRARY

Enjoy the landscape:

tear up the windward
side of a dune on a
quad bike

Tracks from wagons enjoy the landscape, hire a quad bike and go on a
guided tour through the desert and play a little by
of 18th-century tearing up the windward side of a dune. But it needs
to be stressed that these are guided tours through
settlers are still visible the dunes where they stay on the sand and avoid the

on the plains
Au
Australian naturalist Steve Irwin as he jumps
in an
and out of his Land Rover inspecting every
fresh ttrack in the sand and never tiring of talking
about tthe same thing. Christopher is particularly
excited about what he considers to be the “little
five” of the desert: the dancing white lady spider,
transparent dune gecko, the legless lizard
the tran
called a skink, the sidewinder snake and the
desert chameleon.
deser
The scenery on this tour is particularly
T course, for the more cultured, there is always the
sstunning. If you want to be a little freer and simply
gravel plains where the tracks can stay for a lifetime
– surrounding natural habitats are respected. Our
guide says the tracks from the wagons of 18th-
century trekkers are still visible on the plains more
than a century later.
There is something about those dunes around
Swakopmund: you can get lost in their vastness,
tumble into a valley and safely imagine that you are
the only person in the world. You can sit back and be
surrounded by their peaks and appreciate them all
the more because you know you don’t have a five-day
trek to get back to civilisation and a cold drink (such
luxuries are just over the top of that dune). Of
Rossmund Golf and Conference Centre, which

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 Learn more at
www.subaru.co.za/legacy

Huge amounts of
the local oysters are
exported as far
away as China
boasts one of the five all-grass desert golf courses in
the world.

Happily lost
The sea around Swakopmund can provide days of
entertainment, and there are suitable spots for
surfers, boats and divers. A popular option is to take
a dolphin and seal tour with catamaran charters
from nearby Walvis Bay. On these tours, you go past
the local oyster platforms, from which huge amounts
are exported as far away as China. From there, the
boat makes its way into the beautiful bay area, where
you see a shipwreck, a lighthouse, birds, seals,
dolphins and an abundance of marine life.
Namibia is one of the only countries still growing:
Pelican Point annually adds to its length as silt
deposits stretch it out into the sea. The old
lighthouse’s improbable position on the sandbar
is very romantic, the land extending out some
500m into the sea harbouring a seal colony. If you
can take the smell, ask the captain to inch as close
as he can before the boat scrapes the sea floor and
you will witness the activity of the colony while
dolphins jump around you. In this wonderful place,
you become happily lost in your imagination.

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lighthouse was
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