We woke up in our Kulala to find the front door wide open! it had been pretty windy in the night, so much so that the locked door had blown wide open and we had slept on soundly without even realising it…luckily there are no man-eating predators here or it may not have ended so well!
We packed up, said goodbye to Kulala and set off on another 5 hour plus drive to our overnight stop in Swakopmund, a city on the coast of Western Namibia. This wasn’t really a place on our to do list, just a necessary stop off to break up the journey to the next destination.
After a fairly uneventful, but long drive to Swakopmund, we arrived at the Swakopmund Guest House. The first noticeable difference was the drop in temperature, we had gone from a very hot 30 degrees to about 16 degrees in a few hours and we really felt it!
The room at the guest house was nice and clean and fine for one night. However, for some reason they decided to tile the bathroom floor with weird pebble tiles which were about as pleasant to walk on in bare feet as real pebbles are plus these were much colder…odd choice!
There was no restaurant in the guesthouse so they recommended a place within walking distance called the Alstadt restaurant. It turned out to be the best thing about our stay in Swakopmund. Great rock music, great German food and it served Jack Daniels and Tullamore Dew so both Paul and I were happy! Paul even got to order his favourite German dish Currywurst!
We headed back to the guesthouse in cold dreary sea mist and woke up to find nothing had changed! So off we went again on another 5 hour drive to our home for the next two-nights. For the first and only time whilst driving in Namibia we ended up getting a bit lost leaving the city and adding about 50k to the already very long drive!
I got very excited when we drove past roadsigns warning drivers of elephants crossing, but sadly they didn’t need to get to the other side of the road that day so we didn’t see any! Instead Paul was treated to topless Namibian tribeswomen on the roadside beckoning tourists to stop and visit their villages.
We only made one scheduled stop in a weird place called Uis. This was the only time on the trip I felt a little on edge, with lots of men hanging around trying to sell stuff, so we literally topped up the fuel tank went to the loo one at a time and got back on the road!
By mid afternoon we arrived in paradise, otherwise known as Vingerklip Lodge . We were booked to stay here for two-nights which we were both ready for. Its not a place for organised activities, it is a place for walking, relaxing and just enjoying the awe inspiring landscape and wildlife.
Our accommodation was in a cute thatched bungalow and we were excited to find out that our private balcony looked directly onto the floodlit waterhole. Just a small manmade waterhole, but with the prospect of seeing some of the resident giraffes and other wildlife.
The lodge is famous for two things, The Vingerklip rock or finger as it’s known and the Eagles Nest Restaurant high above the Lodge on the Ugab Terraces. We decided to book the Eagles Nest for dinner that night and were advised to start walking up the steps along the rock face at 6.15pm to make sure we got up the top for sunset.
It was quite hard work in the heat and I imagine a lot of people would be put off by the steps and the height, but it was so worth it. Definitely not a night for heels though!
The views from the top are something I will never forget. My only complaint is that it would have been perfect to watch the sunset with a nice glass of bubbly, but the restaurant didn’t have any which seemed like a missed opportunity.
Dinner took the form of a BBQ cooked just outside the restaurant door, making your mouth water with the smells. I decided to have my first taste of Springbok in the form of a sausage and some ribs. Even better, there were Brussel sprouts to accompany it much to Paul’s horror! The meal was finished off by a lovely cheese board with one of the most punchy, mind blowing blue cheeses I have ever had. I ate so much of it I was a little concerned the steps might not hold me on the way down.
The pathway to dinner 
Not a bad view with dinner
Safely back down the rock, we headed back to our balcony with a bottle of red to see if any wildlife was going to show up at the waterhole. After about 45 minutes of sitting in darkness, we saw some movement in the trees and outstepped two beautiful Giraffes, an adult and infant. It was just so surreal watching them in silence drinking from the waterhole and to make it even more magical it was topped off by a shooting star. If Carlsberg did perfect nights in Namibia…..!
Loving Life and Food 