A quick welcome meeting with our tour leader, Andi, and driver, Grant (Hasty), and we knew we were going to be in very safe hands. Super friendly, knowledgeable and relaxed, we found out this would be their 7th trip around Africa with Oasis and their last before they settled back into reality and life back in New Zealand.
13 of us joined the tour in Cape Town, with 11 others remaining from the 40 week trans-Africa tour that had started in Gibraltar last November. With an age range of 19-62, and a mix of nationalities (English, Irish, Aussies, Kiwis, Canucks, Yanks, Dutch & German) we felt really lucky at the variety of people on and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know everyone over the last 10 days (and nothing brings you closer to people than seeing each other pee several times a day).
From Cape Town we headed to Stellenbosch for a day of winery-fun. We visited 4 wineries, sampled a ridiculous number of wines and ate an equally-ridiculous amount of cheese. After a rainy start, a sunny afternoon meant we got to see the region in all its glory.
A night of camping and two bush camps followed when we quickly realised that going hungry is something we never have to fear on this trip! The quality of the camping meals is excellent - a bit too good when mixed with the availability of inexpensive, and good quality, local wines & beer! We no longer have any hopes of coming home lighter and leaner. It's amazing what you can cook on a fire, in the middle of nowhere during a ferocious lightning storm!
We crossed the border into Namibia on the 1st and were greeted by a dust storm as we pitched beside the Orange River. Having survived the storm we had several long drive days to take us via Fish River Canyon up to Sossesvlei, the famous Namibian dunes.
The drive days aren't as painful as we imagined, as with 24 of you in the back of a truck people find pretty inventive ways to entertain themselves.
After Sossesvlei we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and drove up to Swakopmund, a coastal town and haven for adventure-seekers. We both had an awesome time squadbiking, which was terrifying but utterly thrilling. One positive result of the crappy rain was that the dune sands were more compact than usual which meant we could go faster and higher on them - and that we did!
I went fishing offshore and landed about 40 seabass. 120 were landed in 2 hours. Not a bad effort for 4 blokes.
Swak let us live it up a bit after a week in the bush. The 2kg rib challenge and karaoke were a must.
Today, we leave Swakopmund and head north to a seal colony and a few more nights of bushcamping before hitting Etosha National Park. The weather forecast predicts 30 and sunny so we're keeping fingers and toes crossed...
Location:Swakopmund,Namibia
Guys,
ReplyDeleteSome really great pics and great notes of the trip to date. Very very jealous...
Looking forward to sharing a few beers and stories when you get back.