Day 5 and 6: Solitaire and Walvis Bay

After our adventures in the sand in Sesriem we drove onward on a pretty bad road. To shorten our drives we decided to stay in Solitaire, a small place, not much bigger than an average gas station next to a highway in Europe. There is a bakery / restaurant, a small store, a workshop, campsite and lodge with pool. So basically everything you need for a tourist stop. Also some tours are offered to nearby Cheetah Sanctuary.

As the place is famous for its Apple Pie (and we were starving anyways) we decided to try it right away.

Several birds and other animals where joining us while we sat at the restaurant and I took some pictures. I also finally had time and internet to fix all the issues with the blog, so you can finally see more posts, and even click images to enlarge them. After relaxing for a little we jumped into the pool and finally made some good food.

After it got dark it was time for another round of milky way pictures. As the moon is growing larger the night sky seems less intense. Maybe it is also just because of the different locations or because we are in more dusty areas than in the beginning... not yet sure 🤔...

Continuing our journey we drove another 200 something kilometers to Swapokmund. On the way there we passed some absolutely stunning landscapes, hills and valleys, lots of yellow grass and very dusty roads. I took the opportunity to fly my drone and also take some more pictures.

Here are some more photos:

After a longer drive, during which I finally tried cruise control on our fancy car 🛞, we arrived in Walvis Bay. This place is famous for lots of flamingos 🦩 that live there. Other than that it is mostly an industrial area, which is why we did not want to stay there. But on our way through we could see an amazing amount of flamingos in big flocks, near a river and in the sea. While watching we could even observe 3 dolphins that where showing their fins every now and then between all the flamingos.

After a couple more kilometers we arrived in Swapokmund. We chose the campsite called "Alte Brücke". It was quite a strange experience for a campsite, lots of green grass, and every site hat its own little house with shower, toilet and dish washing area. Later on we found out that it is called "Old Bridge" because it is near the old railway bridge, that was destroyed by the Swapok river in 1934. You can still see the leftover pillars today.

Finally we headed to the beach and city. On the way we found a lot of interesting shells and bones on the beach and met a few hundred people that where really eager to sell us some souvenirs for a lot of money... But overall it was interesting to see Swapokmund with all its "German-ness", Brauhäusern and even posters for the "Swapokmund Männergesangsverein" established a very long time ago.

In the evening Johanna did test out swimming in the very cold sea and we found a very nice restaurant with great fish for our dinner, where we spend the evening, before preparing for our next early morning trip to the desert... 🏜 but this is for the next post...