Etosha to Cape Town

The western coast of Southern Africa part of our adventure has been all about sweeping landscapes, punctuated with some beautifully remote campsites and a couple of city breaks in Swakopmund and Cape Town.

We’ve travelled from the chalky white and stark brown landscapes of northern Namibia to some beautifully lush regions around the Cederberg Mountains and the Western Cape, even encountering the first drops of proper rain since we arrived in Africa.

It’s meant some pretty long days in the car, so we’ve been trying to find things to do whenever we can to get active. In the north of Botswana and Namibia this had been a bit of a struggle as wild animals and high temperatures prevented us from venturing too far by foot. We were fortunate that the camp grounds have been excellent – some even with swimming pools to combat the heat and get a few lengths in to keep the bodies moving. Thankfully, as we’ve been moving south the giant sand dunes and some great opportunities for some walks have got the endorphins flowing a bit more!

Etosha was unlike any other of the game parks we visited. The wide open pans and the dryness gave the place an epic feel.

The park is going through a severe drought meaning a chalky dust covering the ground and trees. The waterholes that hadn’t dried up were extremely popular.

We saw more lions than in all other parks combined

Likewise with ostriches

Sofia gets blogging rights on the following few pics thanks to her eagle eye:

We saw a few cars and decided there must be some sort of wild cat in the grass. We all wanted to see a cheetah, after all, we hadn’t seen one yet. We drove closer, and I spotted a cat-like head in the grass. We stopped, and found out it was a lioness. At first we were a little disappointed, after all, we had seen so many lions, it was pretty hard to keep track. We were about to move on when we saw a zebra heading towards the lion. At that point, the Zebra was probably thinking; ‘I’m really smart because this long, dry grass totally isn’t a great place for a lion to hide and wait for prey to come – oh wait!’.

The lioness pounced. The zebra wildly bucked, realizing a little too late that walking alone in the long grass probably wasn’t a good idea.

The zebra bucked the lioness off, and ran. The lioness gave chase, but she decided the zebra wasn’t worth her time.

She then stalked over to her friends, probably to lie down again and wait for another unfortunate Zebra to come.

Smarter zebras – away from long grass…

We wondered how many people visit places like Etosha and label their Facebook or Instagram posts ‘Zebra crossing’

Lions don’t usually climb trees. This fella was giving it a good go!

We’ve found this to be mostly true

…and it certainly was the case at our campsite at Ugab

Zip lining was a welcome activity after some long days in the car!

The next day we headed off on a loop of the local sites, beginning with ‘Fingerklip’

Some local abodes enroute

And then to a petrified ‘forest’ dating back 280 million years, well before when Gondwana broke up

These engravings at nearby Twyfelfontein dated back 2,500 years showing some animals that no longer inhabit the area

Our campsite that night was one of our simplest and loveliest – a tree and a braii (BBQ) area under a tree in a farm that we happened to drive by.

The next day we made a brief foray into the Valley of Desolation. With just the one spare tyre and no satellite phone, and a lot of sharp rocks, we decided not to venture too far as the place isn’t well trafficked, as the name would suggest!

Instead we headed towards the stark landscape of the Skeleton Coast

The coast is named from the skeletons of whales and seals that were strewn across the beaches in the days of the whaling industry…

But was later famed for the number of ships that got wrecked here by rocks and fog

…and it was certainly foggy

Further south we visited the Cape Cross seal colony

…Which is home to a staggering 100,000 seals

They didn’t seem at all bothered by having a jackal in their midst

Then it was a welcome return to civilisation again in Swakopmund where we had a break from camping and enjoyed a real bed again at our AirBNB for a few nights.

The highlight of our stay was a sand boarding excursion in the surrounding dunes.

Sofia and ‘Susan’ at the Swakopmund snake farm

And then it was on the road again to see the remarkable Welwitschia, the national emblem of Namibia, which can survive in the incredibly dry Namib desert for up to two thousand years.

Our campsite at Mirabib felt a million miles from anywhere. The night sky was amazing.

Then it was down to the red dunes of Sossusvlei…

…and the white salt pan of Deadflei

We slogged up Big Daddy, at 325 metres, one of the largest dunes in the desert

Coming down was much more fun!

After a couple of tumbles, Liam was more schnitzel than boy…

And then we hit the road again, heading further south. This seemed more bird nest than tree.

After eight thousand kilometres on the road, we had our first puncture of the trip when our tyre was pierced by a stone the size of a golf. With no garage for hundreds of kilometres and no second spare tyre, we were very fortunate the farm that we camped at that evening was able to patch it up for us…

…which was just as well as we had our second flat tyre after eight thousand one hundred kilometres the next morning!!

That evening, we stayed at a quirky campsite next to Fish River Canyon

Fish River Canyon is second only to the Grand Canyon in size (depending on how it’s measured that is)

It was weeks since we’d seen any kind of green landscape so it was surprising to come across vineyards amongst the desert landscape at Aussenkehr

And then as we travelled across the border into South Africa, things began to get properly green. Our campsite at Jamaka Organic Farm in the Cederberg mountains was one of our favourites.

This part of South Africa is famed for its spring wild flowers. We were a little late for some…

…but there were still plenty about on our hike around the farm the next morning.

And then it was down for a city break in lovely Cape Town

This bean bag, an XBox and Netflix at our AirBNB has felt a world away from the rustic campsites we’ve been staying in!

We learnt about Cape Town’s fascinatingly tragic history of apartheid during a walking tour of the city

This guy had a great business model – shadow and mimic people at the V&A Waterfront until they give a tip! Good fun.

Liam over exerted himself on the XBox Kinect so was too sore for a hike up Lion’s Head mountain, overlooking the city.

Thankfully, the Boulders penguin colony didn’t require a lot of walking as we toured the Cape the next day…

We visited the Cape of Good Hope

And back via Chapman’s Peak drive which had some lovely views of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head

We opted to stay an extra day as the cloud had finally lifted from the top of Table Mountain. We went up via the steep and beautiful Platteklip Gorge…

Indeed, a difficult path once again lead to a beautiful place and was the highlight of our Cape Town stay.