Trip to Swakopmund

jona wrote:
"Peter H.M. Brooks" wrote in message ...

We'll have a couple of days
in Swakopmund as our final destination, but will stop off along the way.
It looks as if the Fish River Canyon is a good place to get to the first
day.


Uhmmm, again, when is your trip, FRC is closed over most of the summer.
I think it opens again in April, but you need to make sure.

Really? I'd have thought it quite difficult to close and reopen a canyon
every season!


Last time I was there we had a puncture in the desert, and I'm told that
the roads are fairly notorious for that. That time we discovered that
there was no wheel brace in the hired car, which was a bit of a bugger,
but fortunately, after a couple of hours, despite it being a side-road,
a fellow in a bakkie lent us his and were were on our way. This time I'm
better prepared, but I think we'll do most driving on main roads. It's a
pity as there is only one main road there and back and it would be nice
to have variation, but I don't think it really worth the hassle to go on
the secondary roads - or are they good enough?


It's been spot-raining quite a bit lately, so the secondary road conditions
are anyone's guess. I hear many of the Kaokoland roads have been
washed away, but the South should be OK. One option would be to
take the tar road TO swakop and the secondary roads back to CT
after more and present investigation as to their conditions. I know that
when I travel to Windhoek I'd rather take the Komashochland or
GamsbergPass road than the tar road. Provided I'm not in a hurry of
course.

Thank you, that's good advice. I think it makes the most sense too to
get there reasonably quickly then meander back.



--
A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding
citizens but by how it treats its criminals. -- Fydor Dostoevsky
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Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
jona wrote:

"Peter H.M. Brooks" wrote in message
...

We'll have a couple of days
in Swakopmund as our final destination, but will stop off along the way.
It looks as if the Fish River Canyon is a good place to get to the first
day.



Uhmmm, again, when is your trip, FRC is closed over most of the summer.
I think it opens again in April, but you need to make sure.


Really? I'd have thought it quite difficult to close and reopen a canyon
every season!


Peter has probably left by now, but I think you will find that the
canyon is closed to walkers in the summer due to previous fatalities
because of heat. The resort at the base of the canyon (Ai-Ais) will be
open, I have stayed there in Feb.
I would agree that it might be best to visit on the way back as it may
be neccesary to pre-book in Windhoek or Swakopmund as it is MET resort.

Philip

Kolmanskop is absolutely fascinating, and well worth a visit. Take the
opportunity to do the guided tour of the ghost town, as you'll learn a
lot more that way. Take a good camera, and you'll get some wonderful
photos of houses semi-filled with sand, and strange, bizzarre images.
The best part is that the town is continually changing as the sands
shift, so what you see will be totally different from what I've seen
there.

Marc

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:56:33 +0000, Slow Eddy
wrote:

Philip wrote:

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
I'm going to be taking a short holiday, driving up to Namibia and back.

Congratulations on an excellent choice of holiday destination.

To what Philip has so helpfully provided, I'd add that the accommodation at
the Ai Ais hot springs is basic but clean. Nice place, although this time
of the year it's probably hell hot down there.

As for Luderitz, I suppose you've heard that the ghost town of Kolmanskuppe,
a few kays inland is meant to be interesting. I've never been there, but
friends raved about it.

On your return journey, near Keetmans is a place I think they call the
"Giant's Playground". Just a bunch of huge boulders amid kokerbome, but I
quite liked it. You'd have to ask at info to get better directions.

Perhaps draw one of Lawrence Green's Namibia-centred travelogues from the
library? It'd make a nice read for the trip, and perhaps give some tips.

A bit off topic, but here we go... If anyone of you have seen
South African director Richard Stanley's stylish psychological
thriller 'Dust Devil' from 1992, perhaps you can tell me if the
sand covered ghost town where a long sequence towards the end
of the movie is shot, is indeed Kolmanskop? Given the description
written below, it would certainly make sense.

// Marten


Marc Lurie wrote:

Kolmanskop is absolutely fascinating, and well worth a visit. Take the
opportunity to do the guided tour of the ghost town, as you'll learn a
lot more that way. Take a good camera, and you'll get some wonderful
photos of houses semi-filled with sand, and strange, bizzarre images.
The best part is that the town is continually changing as the sands
shift, so what you see will be totally different from what I've seen
there.

Marc

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:56:33 +0000, Slow Eddy
wrote:


Philip wrote:


Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

I'm going to be taking a short holiday, driving up to Namibia and back.

Congratulations on an excellent choice of holiday destination.

To what Philip has so helpfully provided, I'd add that the accommodation at
the Ai Ais hot springs is basic but clean. Nice place, although this time
of the year it's probably hell hot down there.

As for Luderitz, I suppose you've heard that the ghost town of Kolmanskuppe,
a few kays inland is meant to be interesting. I've never been there, but
friends raved about it.

On your return journey, near Keetmans is a place I think they call the
"Giant's Playground". Just a bunch of huge boulders amid kokerbome, but I
quite liked it. You'd have to ask at info to get better directions.

Perhaps draw one of Lawrence Green's Namibia-centred travelogues from the
library? It'd make a nice read for the trip, and perhaps give some tips.

Philip wrote in message ...
Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
jona wrote:

"Peter H.M. Brooks" wrote in message
...

We'll have a couple of days
in Swakopmund as our final destination, but will stop off along the way.
It looks as if the Fish River Canyon is a good place to get to the first
day.



Uhmmm, again, when is your trip, FRC is closed over most of the summer.
I think it opens again in April, but you need to make sure.


Really? I'd have thought it quite difficult to close and reopen a canyon
every season!


Peter has probably left by now, but I think you will find that the
canyon is closed to walkers in the summer due to previous fatalities
because of heat. The resort at the base of the canyon (Ai-Ais) will be
open, I have stayed there in Feb.
I would agree that it might be best to visit on the way back as it may
be neccesary to pre-book in Windhoek or Swakopmund as it is MET resort.

Thank you for that. Yes, I've been and returned, a most enjoyable and
interesting trip.

Ai-Ais was open and we spent the night there - hiking was stopped for
the reason you suggest, though, at 45C, I'd have no inclination to go
hiking.

I wasn't very impressed with Ai-Ais. It was overpriced and the food
was extremely basic - the worst we found anywhere in Namibia by a wide
margin. There was air-conditioning in the room, and it did reduce the
heat from 45C to 35C, but that is still rather too hot to sleep in
comfortably. I noticed, in the morning, that they'd managed to get the
air-conditioning working considerably better in the reception office
than in the rooms. The pool was lovely and clean, though, it was
strange to find hot spring water cooling - and stranger to feel cool
on getting out of it, if only for three minutes.

The funny thing was that the weather broke when we were in Windhoek.
There was a most impressive tropical (the tropic of capricorn is
sign-posted on the drive up) storm there with the streets bone dry one
minute and a foot deep in fast-flowing streams the next. The big news
the following morning was that the Fish river was flowing, apparently
the first time it has done this for quite some time.

Slow Eddy wrote in message ...
Philip wrote:


As for Luderitz, I suppose you've heard that the ghost town of Kolmanskuppe,
a few kays inland is meant to be interesting. I've never been there, but
friends raved about it.

I missed this post - it arrived after I'd left.

In the Namibian National Gallery (a rather small '60s building,
without a lot to recommend it) there was an exhibition of photographs
by a father and his daughter. The write-up was quite sweet, all about
the drama of experimenting with digital photography, something I'd
thought most people, who were interested in photography, would have
been doing about a decade ago. The photographs were generally very
good though. There was a whole series on Kolmanskuppe that gave a very
good feeling of the place and an idea of why it was, in a strange way,
beautiful. We did think of going, but it was quite a bit out of our
way - and the road back to SA was a minor one - so we gave it a miss.
If I were to do the trip again, or make a recommendation to anybody,
on the strength of the photographs, I'd recommend going to
Kolmanskuppe rather than the Fish River Canyon.

For a geologist the Fish River Canyon must be lots of fun. It is
starkly attractive, and I'm pleased to have seen it, but, as great
sights of the world go, it's certainly pretty low down the list - well
below the Drakensberg.

On your return journey, near Keetmans is a place I think they call the
"Giant's Playground". Just a bunch of huge boulders amid kokerbome, but I
quite liked it. You'd have to ask at info to get better directions.

I loved the scenery in that area.

Perhaps draw one of Lawrence Green's Namibia-centred travelogues from the
library? It'd make a nice read for the trip, and perhaps give some tips.

I'll look it up for future reading.