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Windy Windhoek
Lake Oanab Resort, our intended destination after reluctantly leaving the Atlantic coast at Swakopmund, turned out to be less of a resort and more of a building site.
A campsite with a pitch strewn with rubble, sloping towards a 20-metre drop to the lake below, didn't help. Downsizing from our own ablution block to a dirty portaloo was more than we were prepared to accept though, so we headed north to Windhoek.
Such was the relief to be out of Lake Oanab Resort, the dual carriageway and airport straddling the Arrebusch campsite in Windhoek seemed a minor nuisance. Despite being 1800 metres above sea level and windy (hence the name) Windhoek can be very hot. We went from a chilly and damp 14C at Swakop to a dry 34C in Windhoek in the space of 6 hours!
Whilst staying at Arrebusch we met up again with the Pietsch family (Jan Hendrik, Michaela, Carlotta and Carl Johann), who we'd said goodbye to in Swakop before they left for Etosha. Given the natural rivalry between the British and the German nations, and given our well-documented love of children, how come we keep making friends with Germans with 2 children?
They were so nice they left us with a load of provisions and equipment before departing on their return flight to Hamburg via most airports and train stations in Germany!
After receiving similar donations from Florian & Susie, Arjan & Patricia and Isaac & Liesel, it has dawned on Angela and I that we could live quite well by ensuring that we see people off at the end of their holidays. Perhaps we should put a sign up outside our tent here at Arrebusch requesting that tourists arriving for their last overnight must report in for kit inspection!
One regret about this visit to Windhoek is that we arrived too late for the Namibian Bird Club "morning walk at the sewerage works" but perhaps next time! We were finally able to see a Man Utd match live on satellite TV, a 1-0 win at Liverpool. We nearly didn't manage it though, most of the sports bars in Windhoek had cunningly closed for the afternoon, fortunately a Portuguese restaurant (of all places) was showing the game!
We've shared our campsites with numerous creatures in the past but Arrebusch probably holds the record for sheer numbers on one pitch. There are millions of large ants here, fortunately they are fine until we accidentally tread on them, tricky not to! These ants must have some sort of distress signal or chemical release, as 100s arrive in seconds to exact revenge on your feet!
We ended up as allies with the ants when the gardener turned on a sprinkler system to water a parched sapling near our tent. The resultant flood had us giving the camp manager an earful on the phone and when the gardener returned to turn off the hosepipe he had biting ants crawling up his legs in milliseconds.
Arrebusch is a great place to see one of the less well publicised wildlife spectacles, the annual holiday migration of South Africans from Gauteng Province to the coast at Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. On route they meet up with Namibians doing the same thing (the main reason why we vacated Swakopmund).
These migratory animals are easily spotted, huge 4x4s towing anything guaranteed to make a horrendous noise, whether children, quad bikes, scramble bikes, jet skis or powerboats, often a combination of these machines, often on two trailers! They arrive at Arrebusch to rest up for the night; sadly for us they arrive at all times of the night or morning and leave at equally sociable hours!
At the moment they are still allowed to drive all over the beaches on the Atlantic coast between Walvis Bay and Terrace Bay to the north, unlike in South Africa where beach driving has been banned due to the devastating environmental impact.
Namibia is talking of regulating quad bikes on the dunes and the beaches due to the damage to the very fragile desert environment and the dangers posed to other beach users, it won't be a moment too soon. Whilst shark fishing on the beach the other week we were buzzed by quad bikes, and jet skiers very kindly came close inshore to scare away any sharks that might have been approaching our baits.
At least the ants bite them whilst they are in camp!
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