(28 June)
This morning we left our little cottage near the beach behind us. Before leaving Swakopmund entirely, we stopped into Two Beards to get some coffee, and also sandwiches for our lunch later.
At Walvis Bay we headed east into the desert again. The desert here is more of a gravel desert with larger stones and smaller rocks. Everything is a beige/grey color, rather ugly unlike the other deserts we have passed through.
Just outside of Walvis we passed by the salt works. And later Vogelfederberg (Bird feather mountain), to visit it a permit is needed. The same goes for driving on other roads other that the two major ones. The reason being that the Namib-Naukluft Park is home to the nama people.
As we drove east the landscape changedm, we went up hill slowly but steadily. It then got steeper as we crossed over part of the Naukluft Mountains, with serpentine roads up through the Kuiseb pass. We passed the Kuiseb canyon. It wasn’t safe to stop and take pictures since there were already many cars. It is a dark grey/black deep, but not very wide canyon. From there it was serpentine roads down hill through the Gaub pass.
After turning south we soon passed the Tropic of Capricorn. The three Capricorns in our car got out for a photo.
When we got close to Solitaire we saw an oryx, and three zebras next to the road.
In Solitaire we stopped for a fika, coffee and apple pie, at Mc Gregor’s bakery. We also got help at the gas station to empty our jerrycan, and then topped up the tank. Solitaire is a small settlement on the outskirts of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, and the only petrol stop between the coast at Walvis bay and Sossusvlei (roughly 400 km).
After our fika we had less than 20 km to our lodge, Namib Nukluft.