Overlanding Day 6: Cape Cross Seals, Messum Crater and Skeleton Coast

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Namibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

The initial plan for today was for a fairly chilled out day seeing the seals at Cape Cross in the morning, before making the easy drive up the Skeleton Coast looking at shipwrecks, however in the lodge we saw an option to make a large detour and head into the remote Messum Crater, which involved 90km of remote off road driving. After this we then tried to squeeze in an attempt to see some Desert Elephants near the Ugab gate, which we didn’t really have time for, but we were treated to a wonderful lunar landscape – in the absence of the elephants. It was very lucky that we added the other activities to the day, as the shipwrecks were somewhat of an anticlimax, with only one shipwreck really having any meat to its bones. Cape Cross Seals Cape Cross is home to the largest colony of Cape Fur Seals which is up to approximately 100,000 seals during the breading season, which we are in now. The Cape Fur Seal isn’t actually a true seal at all as they are related to sea lions. Unlike seals they have ears and. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 5: Pelican Point Kayaking, Swakopmund and Skeleton Coast

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Namibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today was expected to be mostly about the activity, and that was probably correct. This isn’t to say that the drive wasn’t enjoyable, but the activity was so much better than we had expected. Pelican Point Kayaking An activity which is really raved about, which we decided to do is kayaking at Pelican Point, the reason it is so special is that there is a massive colony of Cape Seals there, who are totally chilled about people Kayaking near them, in fact they often play with the people in Kayaks as they are curious and playful. When booking I had noticed that there was a self drive option, this really appealed to me as it meant that I knew it would be easy to take my photography gear and it certainly sounded more fun that sitting in the back of a bus for a long time to get to Pelican Point. The drive there was really amazing, and to be honest by the time I got there I wasn’t that interested in actually doing the kayaking as I had had such a good time. We saw Flamingos, Jackals, Cormorants and. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 4: Drive to Walvis Bay and Sunset Dune Tour

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Namibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

I thought the main event of the day was going to be our sunset dune drive from Walvis Bay, and that the drive there was just going to be a mode of travel, but how wrong I was, as it was absolutely stunning with contrasting scenery from gorges, to water formed landscapes, to mountains and then desert.  The Drive In my head the drive was just a means of transport, and my excitement was for our afternoons activity. Very quickly we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn for the second time of our trip, this time there were road signs to mark the occasion, unlike the first time were we had to rely on the GPS on the second morning of our trip. Within a very short period of leaving our wonderful camp at Bushman’s Desert Camp, we encountered our first surprise, as the road descended into a gorge, the so called Gaub Pass. It was amazing driving within this gorge which was so clearly formed by water, but now in a landscape totally devoid of water. This was going to be a theme which continued for the next 90 minutes,. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 3: Deadvlei, Big Daddy Dune and Bushman’s Desert Camp

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Namibia, Overlanding Short Link

Today the plan was for a very early morning to see sunrise over Deadvlei, before climbing up the tallest dune in Namibia at 325m and then making the drive to our next stop, at Bushman’s Desert Camp to break up the journey to Walvis Bay. The stats below exclude the driving in Sossusvlei. The drive to Deadvlei Parking We set our alarms at 4:15 so that we could be packed up and in a good position in the queue for the inner gate. The drive through the park to the campsite along the tar road was, well fast, maybe not the best idea in the dark with animals around, but at least I wasn’t at the front of the convoy so it was somewhat safer. When we arrived at the main parking, I elected not to let the tyres down to the recommended 1.5 bar, and just continued with the pressure we had been using on the dirt roads in order to save time. Thankfully this did not result in us getting stuck, but after one unnerving section near the start I engaged low ratio and diff lock for the. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 2: Lake Oanob Resort to Sesriem & Sossusvlei

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today was a day where we packed an awful lot into a single day, and had a fantastic, if not slightly tiring, time while doing it. It also happened to be Christmas Day, not that it really felt like it due to the heat and the activity packed day. We drove from Lake Oanob Resort to Sesriem via the Spreetshoogte Pass. Once we were at Sesriem we first explored the canyon, before returning to the campsite for an early dinner and then heading out to the dunes for some photography and then to climb Dune 45 for sunset Lake Oanob We woke up fairly early knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us, while also wanting to make the most of the day when we arrived. Our day stated off wonderfully watching two Southern Masked Weavers building a nest, while sat eating our breakfast overlooking Lake Oanob. Breakfast and packing up the truck was not the quickest affair, given that it was the first time we were getting used to everything, but we were on the road by 7:30. The journey to Sesriem via the Spreetshoogte Pass The. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 1: Windhoek to Lake Oanob Resort

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today our plan was simple, collect the 4×4, do some shopping and take a short drive down to Lake Oanob Resort to start our trip. Summary: Our plan largely went as expected, the pickup from Bushlore took longer than expected, we had assumed two hours and it took closer to three, but in fairness there was a lot of information for them to share about their very well thought out vehicles, lets just hope we don’t need to use the high lift jack! On our way out of Windhoek we stopped in a supermarket to pick up some food for the next week and some other general missing items we had already left behind or decided were not good enough (power adapters and a hat). Again this took quite a while but eventually we were ready to set off down to our destination, to sort out the van and enjoy dinner. While were were driving down south on one of the few tar rods in Namibia, we quickly saw plenty of wildlife, including boks&baboons, along with plenty of stunning scenery. As were were arriving I remembered that there was an. Read the full article…

Boulders Beach Penguins

Alastair BegleySouth Africa, Wildlife Short Link

With a short window until we had to be at Cape Town airport to head to Namibia, we had time to visit the classic Boulders Beach to see a colony of African Penguins which are unfortunately an endangered species, in 1910 there was an estimated 1.5 million African Penguins, but only around 10% remained at the end of the 20th century. The uncontrolled harvesting of penguin eggs (as a source of food) and guano scraping nearly drove the species to extinction. We arrived later in the morning as we had a slower start to the day after the previous day’s wine tasking, stopping en route in Stellenbosch for some brunch and excellent coffee. This unfortunately meant that we didn’t have time to head down to swim in boulders beach, just having enough time to go and see the Penguins from the boardwalks over Foxy Beach. It really was quite remarkable seeing penguins in their natural habitat, especially as this area is so surrounded by a residential area. The species of the bird is Spheniscus demersus, and this colony has grown from two breading pairs in 1982 to around 2200 penguins. Read the full article…

Vineyards near Cape Town

Alastair BegleySouth Africa Short Link

One of the things which I definitely wanted todo while near Cape Town was to do some wine tasting, due to a few days of non-flyable weather, I ended up having more days tasting wine than expected, no bad thing! So in the end I had two days of wine tasting near Porterville, one day with Becky when I picked her up and then we had two days staying in Franschhoek. Nederburg, Paarl My first experience was at the beautiful Nederburg wine estate near Paarl. It was really very special driving in down the drive with the views over the vineyards and the mountains. To start with I enjoyed a tasting of 4 wines, along with cheeses. This was exceptionally good value and it was a great way to start the day. After the wine tasting, I headed to the restaurant where I enjoyed a fantastic lunch of mussels followed by ostrich steak, all of which was very well cooked. Unfortunately there was no more wine with lunch as I had to driver after. After lunch I headed to the Drachenstein Lion Park. Saronsberg, Talburg On another non-flying day we. Read the full article…