After a particularly terrible nights sleep, we set off a little later than normal for Sesriem. The drive was spectacular! We had to make lots of stops enroute to take photos and admire the scenery. We also did a drive through tour of Walvis Bay, which is just down the coast from Swakopmund and was a British colonial town. It seemed mostly to be industrial.
The scenery was barren. It was desert in varying forms. Sometimes it was pure beige sand, other times rocks and as we neared Sesriem, the sand turned more orange. Jamie enjoyed driving on the gravel road too. Only when we reached Sesriem did we realised just how windy it was. The wind was blowing the sand into ours faces. It’s not surprising when you think about it as we were here to see sand dunes and how are sand dunes formed? Wind moving sand. But we were surprised that there was no protection at all on the campsite.
The conditions were so harsh that we weren’t sure the tent would cope. We definitely wouldn’t be able to cook. We decided that we’d have to stay at least one night though, so we put the tent up and headed into the restaurant. We sheltered in the restaurant for quite a while, watching the sun go down whilst eating and having a beer. When we finally emerged later, we felt that the wind had got even worse. We got ready for bed and climbed up into the tent.
After half an hour, however, it became clear that there was no way we were going to get any sleep in the tent. The whole thing was shaking, flexing and rock the car on its suspension. So we got up again and took the tent down, which wasn’t easy in the wind! We cleared the back seat of the car too. Then we settled down to sleep for the night in the car, Jamie in the front passenger seat and me on the back seat. At least it was quiet in the car, and not moving!
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