Day 7 - Sealing the Deal

14:00
We need to talk to about chutney. Specifically, Mrs Ball’s Chutney. It shares more than a little DNA with HP Sauce - a sort of fruit and vinegar based condiment. Bit tart, bit sweet, totally lovely. This morning, it adorns my fried eggs on toast. Later, it might join my Boerewors, fresh from the braai. At some point today, I will almost certainly buy some Simba chips (crisps) flavoured with Mrs Ball’s Chutney - which are amazing by the way. Probably closest in flavour profile to Worcester Sauce crisps in the UK.

It’s a fairly damp and dank morning. Mist hovers over the desert dunes, and there’s a distinct nip in the air - a nip I thoroughly enjoy. Everyone else is dressed in long trousers, long sleeved tops, and in some cases a coat. I’m in shorts and a vest top, and smiling at the freshness.

I’m breakfasted and packed by 09:00, and have some time to plan out the rest of my day before I head off. I’ve around 300km and 4 hours on the road today, a cruise down the Skeleton Coast, and a visit to the seal colony at Cape Cross.

The Skeleton Coast - so called originally because of the whale bones that pitched up on shore when the whaling industry was in full flight. In more modern times, the meaning has shifted a little, to reference the many shipwrecks found up and down the coast as a result of offshore rocks and heavy fog. Prior to being called The Skeleton Coast, the local San People (NOTE - not the Tusken Raiders from Star Wars, though some of the scenery might suggest otherwise) called it, “The Land God Made in Anger.” Great pep talk.

At 10:00, I head into town to pick up some groceries for the next few days, and to have a mooch. I visit the jetty, which is a pier by any other name. Looking back at the town from the end of the jetty, and particularly in the cool and increasingly mizzly conditions, makes the town look a little sad. I stop by at the old railway station, which is a magnificent edifice, though it massively reminds me of the colonial post office in Saigon. On the way out of town, I stop for fuel (a still quite wallet threatening £140) and to check the oil and tyre pressures, and then grab some groceries at Checkers. I’ve got I think 3 nights before I hit another decent grocery stop, so need to stock up. Now, I think most of you that know me well know that I'm not a proud man, and that I'm more than willing to be self-deprecating when the need arises. Remember I bemoaned the cost of groceries a couple of days ago? Yeah - I'm an idiot. It transpires that I was shopping at Namibia's equivalent of the Whole Foods chain. Everything substantially expensive. At Checkers, my grocery bill is a much more wallet friendly experience. What a dickhead.

By 11:30, I’m on the road North to Cape Cross, home of a famous seal colony. I’ve been up close to sea-lions before (check out the 2022 Vegas/California trip if you haven’t already….) but never seals. I’ve loved watching them on documentaries - they seem to have an awesome balance of coolness, with an utter ineptitude until they’re in the water.

It’s a tarmac road, all the way to Cape Cross (or at least, so I’m told) so I head out at a decent 110km/h clip. The Skeleton coast is sparse. Most of the human activity seems to be people fishing. I barely pass another vehicle in 30 minutes. The drive North takes about 90 minutes.

As I pull up to the seal colony, I can hear the braying noise, even over the sound of the engine, and the music I have playing. When I open the door - fuck me, the smell is abrasive. I’ve a vague recollection I’ve read about this, but it hasn’t prepared for me the stench. It smells like Satan’s urinal - the odour of ammonia is pervasive. There’s another smell though - which makes me think of death. Rotting, putrid death. All too soon, I find out why.

Joyful as it is to see these wonderful animals up close, there’s a painfully blunt side to their existence. The first seal I spot on the sand is actually dead. It’s a pup, and it’s body has clearly been rotting for some time. A couple of gulls are gleefully pecking away at its tiny body. Mum sits a few metres away, having finally given in to the inevitable. A few metres further down the beach, there’s a mum that looks like she’s only recently given birth - but sadly to a stillborn. She’s clearly in the crucible of high emotion, and can’t give up on her dead child. Meanwhile, a gang of gulls (there might be a more correct collective, but surely not a more appropriate one) are advancing, to try and scavenge the (I imagine) still warm carcass, but mum keeps fighting them back. Speaking of fighting back, so am I - tears. Genuinely heartbreaking to watch. It doesn’t help that my overactive imagination has an Attenborough voiceover to this overwhelming scene of sorrow. I do manage to see some pups involved in deeply joyful activities, like bounding across the beach, and suckling. The indelible memory I’m left with though is that of death and decay.

Back in the truck, I find the smell has accompanied me. Windows open for a good 20 minutes to flush it out. 10km down the road, I find a bar, and reason that I ought to tilt my elbow to the fallen.

18:00
I’m headed for Spitzkoppe this afternoon. It’s about 130km as the crow flies, but the GPS system is trying to send me all of the way back to Swakopmund, before heading inland. I smell bullshit. I drive South until my phone picks up a decent connection, and check Google Maps. There’s a cross-country route that should be half the distance, and save me an hour.

As I turn off the main road, I’m almost immediately presented with a gravel road. 5 days into my road-trip, and I’ve come to something of a realisation. Shortly after I passed my driving test, my dad booked me onto an advanced driving course. I think it was largely because it offered guidance for motorway driving, but it covered general driving advice. It taught me to look much further ahead down the road, rather than focusing only on the one or two cars in front of me. In the case of motorway driving, I was told to look maybe 200m in front of my vehicle, in case anything went wrong ahead of me, and so that I would have time to react. Now, that’s a brilliant model of driving when the surface you’re driving on is consistent. When it’s constantly changing though, you do miss out on some of the essential detail. I’m learning to look as few as 10-20m in front of me, so I can see the exact moment the texture of the road is going to change. It’s made a MASSIVE difference to my sand/gravel driving. I know when to brake for a particularly loose bit of road surface, I know when I can accelerate because the road is stable for a few hundred metres. We’re not talking warp speed suddenly - but I reckon it’s increased my average speed by 10-15km/h, which is enough to make a difference to my travel times.

There’s no such thing as an ETA in Africa - particularly not in this part of it. You drive to the road conditions, and not an arrival time - otherwise you could come horribly unstuck. When I’m 40km from my overnight, I reason it’ll take me maybe 30-35 minutes to get there. Little do I know that the last 10km is going to be down a sand track, on which I nearly become stuck on more than seven occasions. My speed drops to 20km/h tops, and that feels quick on some stretches. When I arrive though - oh my goodness, the place is bewitching. In the shadow of several mountains, peace abound, and ice cold Savanna in the bar = WIN WIN WIN. It’s sort of in the Camp Gecko category of loveliness, but with a couple of extra comforts. I’m sold. Apparently there’s a 4km hike one can take out to a beautiful sunset spot. I’ll tell you what’s gonna be beautiful about the sunset I’m about to watch - it’s that I’m sitting here, glass of wine in hand, and trying to decide whether lamb chops or steak for dinner.

21:00
Lamb chops, since you ask. Sunset is spectacular, even if I don’t make the hike into the desert to watch it. As I headed further inland, the temperature has shot up. When I arrived at Spitzkoppe Camp, it was 32C. As the sun sets, a wonderfully cooling breeze whips up, and I’m grateful for it. I spend a lovely hour or so catching up with folks back home. I’m stoked to hear Alain and Aimee have got engaged! They’re visiting us in Brighton a couple of weeks after I get home, so am looking forward to celebrating with them. Sunset = fire time. I’m getting much better at building my fires, needing fewer and fewer firestarters to get it going. I’m sure I’m still a rank amateur compared to many, but my skills are definitely developing on the quiet. My lamb chops are super tasty, and I have some very cute mini sweet potatoes with them. It’s getting pretty chilly, and I’ve had a long day. Time for some snooze…Read more