Spitzkoppe

From Swakopmund we headed for Spitzkoppe, on our way to Etosha National Park.  Spitzkoppe is a granite peak, which rises out of the flat, surrounding plains.

After paying our fees, we took a tour of the campsite to find a pitch. We settled for one in the shade of a large, imposing boulder. 

In the afternoon we went on a tour with a local guide. He showed us some of the local plants including one which has poisonous, milky sap which was used by hunters to impregnate their spears and arrows. He also, without much success, taught us some words of the Nama language; which along with the 26 letters of the English alphabet also includes 4 letters represented by clicks of the tongue. I’m not sure our attempts were particularly comprehensible! He also showed us a couple of collections of rock paintings, which were apparently used by the nomadic tribes to inform others who followed them what wildlife was present in this area.

After a quick stop at the bar and cooking an evening meal, we retired to the top of a large boulder to watch the sun set.

Windhoek

Starting our journey south, back towards South Africa, we split the journey in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

We went out for dinner to Joe’s Beerhouse, walking from our hostel. It’s definitely not a pedestrian friendly city with many roads lacking pavements and short pedestrian crossings.

We had a interesting meal, sampling some of the meats we’d just seen in Etosha; oryx, zebra, kudu and springbok. They were all pretty tasty! 

We’d been told by a couple of people that there wasn’t much to see in Windhoek. And we agree. The next day we headed for a couple of museums.

First, the Independence Museum, which showcases the Namibian war of independence. It was a very strange place, built in a North Korean style by a North Korean firm. The exhibits were mainly captioned photographs, with nothing in the way of descriptions or narrative, and large, graphic murals. Then even the captions ran out. It had the air of propaganda about it.

From here we headed to what we thought was the National Museum only to be told that this was the administrative building of the museum, that the actual museum was closed to renovations, but there was a small section still open – the Owela museum. It featured a number of exhibits about the native people and their customs, and also about the animals native to Nambia. This too was a rather uninspiring museum, better than the last but a number of the displays had no lighting. The Swakopmund museum was a much better museum.

Canyons and Border Crossings

To break the long drive between Windhoek and South Africa we stopped for two nights in Grunau so we could visit Fish River Canyon. This is described as Africa’s Grand Canyon, it is 160 km long, 27 km wide and in places 550m deep. It’s also Namibia’s second most visited tourist attraction.

We thought it would be pretty busy, however when we arrived at the view point we were the only ones there. I think we must really be outside the typical tourist season.

The canyon was pretty impressive but its really hard to get an idea of scale without being able to walk along it. There is a 5 day 88 km hiking route which runs along the floor of the canyon, however you can only get permits for this between May and September. This is because there can be flash floods and the temperature can get to 50 degrees at the bottom of the canyon in summer.

The hike is quite committing, there is only a single escape route from the canyon and this at the beginning of the second day. After a rise in the hikes popularity and a number of difficult rescues from the canyon you now need a medical certificate dated within 40 days of your permit date. You also must walk within a group of three or more.  It sounds like fun so maybe we will have to come back and do this another time.

After our second night in Grunau we packed our stuff in our prison like but very functional room (which had air conditioning!) and headed for the eastern border with South Africa.

We got to the crossing and managed to check out of Namibia pretty quickly. The Namibian border offices are actually at the last settlement so you then have to drive 20km through no mans land to check into South Africa. 

We arrived at the offices and it seemed to be the same old office 1,2,3 in order system. Perhaps a little complacent we went to show our passports and fill in the form for the car. Olly wrote down the number plate from memory, I noticed he got the last 2 digits wrong which he corrected then handed over the form.

After a few minutes the guy behind the desk asked “are you sure this is the correct vehicle reg” Olly said yes and then found a picture of the car on his phone and showed the guy. Turns out it wasn’t and Olly had actually got another digit wrong which I hadn’t noticed. The guy tapped on his computer and told us the police would now be looking for a stolen car. We thought he was joking, he then pointed at a police man walking past and said “here he is”. We laughed at his joke. 

Then the police man then came into the office and took us away into office number 4 (at which point we weren’t laughing). We then proceeded to explain we had written down the number plate wrong as we had done it from memory. Queue half an hour of photocopying evidence for a file; passports, incorrectly filled forms, the car details sticker (which had to be prised from the windscreen) and eventually we were allowed to leave. Lesson learnt, fill in cross border documents correctly.

After that stressful morning we then headed to Uppington and laughed at our mishap over a few hours of wine tasting at the Orange River Cellar. 

Hogsback

We left Uppington, and headed towards Hogsback, splitting the drive with a night in Cradock. We were heading for Hogsback, renowned for its lush green forests. In the morning we got to see why it was so green as the heavens opened, our first real rain shower of the trip.

We arrived at Away with the Faries Backpackers, and settled in. The next day the weather had improved, and we set off early for a hike up a nearby mountain, Hog 1 (1836m). 

With a not-to-scale paper map, we walked along an unmade road until we reached the path. Alongside the river we climbed up, passing a number of waterfalls. The ground underfoot was still quite damp from the day before, making it reasonably slippery. After a while we left the river, and followed a shallower path along the side of the hill.

Once we were close, the footpath continued off into the distance. We followed it for a while hoping it would loop back round, to take us to the top. But after a short while, we decided we’d have to make our own track, and do climbed between small trees and over boulders to make our way to the top. 

We stopped for lunch at the top, overlooking a wonderful 360 degree panorama, before heading down a shorter route than the one we’d taken up.

Heading down through the forests, we took the forestry track instead; slightly longer but a better made path. Back at the road we took a different path back to our accommodation through the wooded valley. A steep descent down a set of rather dilapidated wooden steps and boardwalk led to the Madonna & Child waterfall.

It was welcome relief to be waking in the shade of the forest, as we headed towards ‘Big Tree’. It lived up to its name! A 38m tree rising high above the surrounding canopy.

Then, after another steep climb up on the other side of the valley, we arrived back at the hostel. A long 10 hour day, our first major hike since the South West Coast Path; we felt exhausted. 

Luckily the hostel has a bath tub, heated by a wood-burning boiler where we could soak our wearily limbs. Definitely the best view from a bath I’ve ever had!

We both had a quick soak before heading to the bar for a beer and pizza, feeling it was well earnt.

Nature's Valley

After a reasonably long drive from Hogsback to Port Elizabeth we began to see why the following section of coastline was called The Garden Route. The road is sandwiched between the sea and beautiful forested mountains. We passed beside a few little towns and crossed some interesting canyons before our turn off.

Our accommodation was at the Wild Spirit Backpackers which is situated between the Garden Route National Park and Natures Valley and over looks the Tsitsikamma Reserve. The place has a hippy commune vibe and has an awesome tree house style bar/reception.

We were given a tour of the campsite and shown the pet cats, dogs and horse. We were told not to pester the horse as the place was quite busy and the horse would be overwhelmed by petters. Considering my dislike for horses I assured the lady their would be no chance of us over fussing the horse. The horse (named Miracle) had other ideas and decided to hand around by our tent or follow us to the camp kitchen and watch us eat dinner. 

We were also woken up at 05:30 each morning to loud chewing noises or particularly loud pissing. Miracle also left us a present behind the car. 

There were a few short walks which could be done from the campsite, but we didn’t have time for these. We did however check out the tree house (below) and sat and looked at the view from a look out called “God’s Window”.

The garden had lots of lovely flowers including lots of agapanthus and I think they grew their own vegetables. There was a free shuttle for a five hour hike in Nature’s Valley, we signed up and were ready to go the following morning.

I think I was over prepared with 2L of water, snacks, lunch, walking poles, first aid kit.... 

The first 6 of us crammed ourselves into the guy’s estate car, we were given some instructions along the way such as don’t feed the baboons you get a 500 ZAR fine. If you see a snake or a scorpion don’t make a fuss just let it move out your way. Oh and don’t swim in the sea as there are sharks...  Apparently a whale carcass had recently washed up on the beach and had attracted quite a few sharks to the area.

We set off on the walk with our team, these were a lovely friendly set of people that we got on really well with. We followed the map given by the hostel through the forest and popped out by the lagoon. Here we stopped for a swim, I hadn’t packed a swim suit but was wearing sensibly large underwear which dried reasonably quickly. The lagoon was brackish water and quite a pleasant temperature. Suitably refreshed we walked along the beach until we reached the stop off restaurant. We had a packed lunch but had an ice cream and drink with the others. By this point we were probably running quite late for the return shuttle and needed to get a move on. It had also clouded over and was beginning to look like it would rain.

The next bit of the path involved some rock scrambling past a sign that said “unstable cliffs do not proceed”. We did proceed and were treated to a lovely secluded cove, we then had an uphill hike back to road. We were just about in time for the shuttle even though we had said we would be late. 

We decided to have the hostel dinner that evening, which was Chicken a la King, I didn’t know what this was but it turned out to be very similar to what my mum cooks and calls Chicken Surprise. It was delicious and we spent the evening drinking a few beers and playing a new card game with our hiking team. In hindsight there is probably quite a lot more to do around Natures Valley and I would definitely go back.