Spitzkoppe, Namibia by Kev and Mel

Hello from Spitzkoppe (if you had to read that a few time to pronounce it, I did it too!)
Spitzkoppe (means the ‘pointed dome’ in German) is an hour and a half drive from Henties Bay where we were before. It is inland and hotter! It gets cool at night time, but it is much better than on the coast at this time of the year.
We drove there on the 31st of May. The town is very small and seems to be mainly built around those huge massive rock formations. We got to our campsite and it was not quite what we were expected. We got directed toward the share camping ground where the view is amazing. But on the website where I booked, it said electricity and hot shower. We are staying here for 4 nights, so we kind of need that! But there was none of that. Not even a sink. The only way to get water is to get it from the shower head (cold of course and not super practical). There is that big rock around which the campsite it organised and if someone is on top of it, they have a lovely view inside the shower which has no roof! We still set up there. The kids had a ball climbing on top of the big rock.
There are a few things we had to be careful of around here: Kev saw a scorpion and a snake (a horned adder which is venomous) was in one of the shower… There are also those massive beetle type all over the floor. They are not dangerous, but they are big and I don’t want one on me!!! So yeah ! Fun!!! Andrew loved playing with the beetles though!
We walked a bit around the camp, climb on that rock to watch the sunset, made the fire and had dinner around it. I tried to take some pictures of the night sky with my small ish camera. I got a few good one (but I so wish I had a way better camera!!!).
The following day we visited the park. Spitzkoppe is a massive rock formation. The highest peak is 1728m high above sea level. Spitzkoppe’s story begins over 700 million years ago when volcanic activity shaped the region. These granite peaks emerged from magma chambers deep within the Earth’s crust. Over time, erosion sculpted these colossal rocks, creating truly beautiful shapes and colours. The colours are due to the presence of mineral and especially quartz. A lot of those can be found around and a lot of locals try to sell different rocks found in the area.
On the way to the entrance of the park, there are a lot of local people trying to sell rocks and small crafts and asking for water. We weren’t sure at the beginning what was the meaning of them waving empty water bottle at us. Were they selling water or asking for it: but they are asking for it. Water is a rare resource over here. We don’t have much water with us (2 bottles and a big 5L bottle that we use to fill up the two small one. We keep toping this one up when we find good tap water) As there are 4 of us, we can’t really give away the water we have. It is always hard to know what to do when facing people who need so much when we have a lot. I always say that spending our tourist money is one of the way to help, but I’m not sure it goes to the people who need it the most. A lot of the camping and places we are staying seem to be owned by white people. Of course, local people are working here, so that is good. But what about the more needing people. I don’t know what to do. We can’t buy things to all the people who offer things for us to buy. We would need another 3 backpacks full if we did.
The main thing to do here is climbing on rocks and driving around rocks. It sound boring, but it is not! The rock formation or rock giants (we keep seeing human form in them, so we decided they were rock giants) are amazing, gigantic and simple incredible to watch. We climbed on some when they were not too steep. The view from the top is breathtaking. We got into small caves (one of them under what we thought was the hand of a rock giant).
We also saw some rock painting which were between 4000 to 2000 years old. We had a guide for that (as you have to) and he was very interesting. We got a lot of amazing information about the Khoisan people who were nomad people who used to live here and did the drawings. The shaman was the only one allowed to paint after doing a trance dance. The paintings were used to communicate with other groups of nomads. They drew elephant or rhinoceros to indicate which direction to find water (as they followed those animals to find water). They painted the animals that could be hunt in the area (springbok, wildebeest, giraffe..). If they drew a lion, that meant be careful.
The kids were super interested, so I am sure they will share a lot of the facts we learnt.
One of the things I was interested is the origin of clicking language. I had heard about it before but now I know why it started. When hunting, the Khoisan people didn’t talk as it would alert the animals of their presence (they were disguised with animal skins), so they used clicking noises (which sound more like natural noise) and it is part of their language. It is still used today. Our guide gave us a demonstration and it was pretty impressive. We tried to copy and failed miserably!
After a quick sandwich we went to an arch made by stone. It is apparently relatively famous (I think I saw pictures of it before) and it is impressive. All natural made by rocks which fell the prefect way to form that arch. We took the regular selfie in the arch of course! We walked all around, climb some more. We also saw some Hyraxes or rock dassies: they are small mammals living in the rocks in the area and they are usually active in the early morning and end of the afternoon to avoid the heat of the middle of the day. The strangest fact about those is that they are closely related to elephant. Both species come from the same ancestor, the Tethytheria. Their teeth, skull and toes are similar, just on a different scale! We haven’t seen big animals here. I don’t think there are a lot, but a lot of insects, snakes and birds.
When we were done, we got back to camp and asked at the reception where we could have hot shower and asked why we didn’t have electricity like written on their website. They said that they don’t have camping site like that (and it shouldn’t be on the website), but they moved us near a hut type thing where we can plug the car (for the fridge in it) and there is hot shower in it. Yeah (4 days with no hot shower with this cold weather, I can’t do it!)!!! We set up there and had a regular evening after that.
The next day was school day for the kids, organising the 3 billion pictures I took lately for me, laundry day as well and relaxing doing not much after that!
The third and last full day at Spitzkoppe, we went back in the park to do some more climbing on the rock and take on a little bit more of the beautiful views. The shapes of those rocks are truly mesmerizing. We got to see more Hyraxes, bugs, lizards and some black birds which seemed to be following us around!
The afternoon was spent doing a bit more of school work and pictures sorting and then board games and lazying around.
On the 4th of June, which will be our 5 months traveling anniversary, we are going to our next stop, Swakopmund which is back on the coast of Namibia.
See you there.
Mel

31.5.2025. Today we're off to another spot, Spitzkoppe. There was no rush as it's only a couple hours drive. The kids played with some other kids in the campsite while we packed up. We headed to a supermarket and resupplied, we were told by another traveller in the campsite that Spitzkoppe doesn't have much, so make sure you take what you need. That's what we did, fridge is full again(not just beer), we hit the ATM just to be sure, and set off. Pretty rough road and a really strong headwind, it's blowy as here at times. The trip was a little slower than we expected, but not too bad. We found our new campsite, Spitzkoppe Tented Campsites. We checked in and found where we are supposed to camp, around a big rock, right near the park. However, when we booked, the website said hot shower and electrical point. We had neither, something Mel had decided to bring up later. Some more people rolled in and started setting up. That came with more kids crawling all over the big rocks. The kids had new friends to run around with. We had a bit of a chat with some of the adults, when you travel you always have something in common with other travellers. The most brought up topic is kids schooling, after they learn we're on gap year. Nearing the sunset, we all climbed up to the top of the highest rock and watched it set over the mountains in the park. We saw our first rock dassie(hyrax). This little grey furred animal between some rocks, as soon as it saw me it froze. Kinda looked like a massive hamster. Andrew thinks he saw a snake, naturally a lecture about being careful flew out of me. We went back down, made some dinner, lit a fire and enjoyed our evening.
1.6.2025. We had planned on getting an early start to get into the park, that didn't work. It was cold and nobody wanted to get up. Another camper found a snake in a shower and came to let us know. We saw our first horned adder. Not a really big snake, still didn't like it tho. Eventually we set off for the park, we drove through town, took 2 minutes, and arrived at the entrance. Fees were paid and admittance was granted. We stopped a few places and climbed up as high as we could. Emma has come along way with her confidence in her bodies abilities. She climbed very well, and seemed to really enjoy it. The views are amazing, massive rocks pushed up through the earth's crust 160-170 million years ago. We did a guided tour to see some cave paintings, the guide had lots of interesting information for us. The paintings date back 2000-4000 years, and told the nomad tribes where they could find water and what animals were here to hunt. He told us they would make a hole in ostrich eggs and remove the yolk and white, then put a little honey inside and place near an ants nest. The ants would clean out the shell perfectly and they then used this to carry water, fascinating stuff. He talked to us in “click” talk, something the people developed to communicate while hunting. If the animals heard them speak they would run off, but clicks they would just assume as natural. The people would also hide under animal skins, including the horns so they could get closer before shooting their arrows. After that we made lunch, then drove around to see more of the park. It really isn't a very big park, lots of it is closed off or set for guided tours only. But we saw a lot and climbed on heaps more before heading back. Once back to the campsite, we stopped at reception to use some wifi. Mel checked their website, well whattayaknow, it says hot showers and electrical point. Mel asked them what's going on, as we're paying a fair bit (for Namibia) to stay here. We promptly got told to use a cabin so we could shower and plug in. We parked next to the cabin, checked it out, and set up the tents. They use “donkey geysers” here to heat the water, as soon as we thought it was ready, everyone had a shower. It was glorious, hot and refreshing. Dinner was enjoyed by all and a good sleep was had.
2.6.2025. Camp day. Got up whenever we wanted. I cooked breakfast for everyone and we started doing some blog. Blog is starting to be a bit of a problem, Andrew has lots to write, and his writing is really good, but he gets distracted and takes forever. I call him Distracto! His super power? Getting distracted. Emma got some maths done. Now we just let the day unfold as it normally would.
3.6.2025. We decided to try breakfast at the restaurant. As always, I should have picked something else. Mel's omelette looked really good, while mine, which was more expensive, left me wanting. Not gonna do that again. We packed up and went back into the park, with the intention of just climbing things and exploring. That's what we did. We saw some more lizards, dassie and birds. We climbed way up the side of a hill, until we couldn't go any further. We'd had enough and came back. Camp set up again, coffee made, kids blogging. Stay tuned, more to come.
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