Car: Mums Toyota Corolla
Team: My 2 best girlfriends and a guy named Terrick
Possibly the dumbest idea we ever had but certainly great fun. I had had my licence for less then a month when my girlfriends (Sam & Chris) and I decided to go visit some friends in Namibia for new years. Our plan was to go in Sam's
Hyundai Atos,
across
Botswana and into Nam, then Down to
Walvis Bay where our friends stay. It would take over 18 hours of straight driving.....yeah and we wanted to do this in an atos!!!!!!!
Luckily Mum offered her Toyota Corolla and Sams bf Terrick asked to join, so at least I had a co-driver seeing as Sam wasn't actually licenced yet.
We left Magaliesburg at the crack of dawn, only to sit for a couple of hours at the border, waiting for it to open at 8am. Bad planning that one.
I have to say that for a long trip I highly recommend the
toyota corrolla.
Its comfortable, light on fuel and drives like a dream. I do not recommend travelling through Botswana unless you have a map with Petrol stations marked on it though. The little towns on the map, are not like little towns in S.A, they are actually mostly "locations" and finding fuel can be tricky.
We were nearly on empty with no clue where the next Service station would be so decided to turn into one of these "towns"
After finally finding a local that spoke english, we were directed to the back of this little "spaza shop" type cafe. There we got fuel out of a barrel with a watering can. I just preyed the fuel would be clean and good quality and that my mother would understand why I filled in the log book so vaguely at this stop.
As it was, the very next town had a beautiful Star Stop type station, but onwards we went.
Botswana is a very interesting looking country and I hope to one day have the chance to actually visit, instead of just driving through. The landscape is like a strange dream, changing colours every few km's. The road was in excellent condition so the only thing slowing us down was the occasional livestock crossing.
We droves through 'clouds' of butterflies and when we finally reached the border into Namibia our car looked like the Texas chainsaw massacre for butterflies.
Ah yes, finally we had reached Namibia, what a beautiful country. I'd love to live there. When you think of Namibia, most people just think of desert, but actually there is lots of green too. The drive from the border to Windhoek was magnificently beautiful.
Windhoek is a quirky little town, set in a bunch of hills. You can't see it as you get close like with Jo'burg, you suddenly turn a corner, come over a hills and you're in it. Another place I'd like to go back and visit properly.
After Windhoek, our next stop was
Swartkopmund. We had finally reached the coastline so naturally had to stop and get out feet in the ocean, even though it was already dark.
Swartkopmund is to me what Cape Town would have been if it wasn't so over-crowded and commercial.
It is the perfect little tourist spot.
My favorite attraction is the Aquarium
After our brief stop, we pressed on to Walvis Bay, our final destination.
Walvis Bay is possibly my favorite place in the world. I loved the town, I loved the people I met, loved the food, the pubs and especially the natural attractions.
Walvis Bay is on the coastline of
Namibia. It is a small industrial town once owned by South Africa. Its reputation as an industrial town seems to have kept the tourist at bay a bit and the town still retains its small town, quirky charm. Its best feature is Flamingo Bay, the lagoon around which the town is built.
It is also close to Dune 7, which is huge and the salt pans which are beautiful. It is a natural playground for 4x4 enthusiasts and quad bike junkies.
The salt pans contain an algae that turns the water..and the flamingos pink.
This spot we chose to camp out at for new years is a popular horse-shoe shaped dune called "Amphies"
It was an absolute blast, we sand boarded, raced quads and 4x4s across the desert, played drums and danced around the fire. An altogether fantastic experience.
