ZAHELO: Windhoek, Etosha and Swakopmund

Hello Everyone!Hope you are all well!

Day 17 of our tour we arrived in Windhoek earlier than expected. We planned to have coffee and wait until Suane finished work, but as we pulled off the road Suane intercepted us. Amazing, and what a welcome. Windhoek rocks!

We spent the afternoon relaxing at Suane and Nico’s beautiful house entertaining their two Brassard Hounds, Sebastian and Maya. I’m not sure who entertained who? Suane later showed us around Windhoek and took us to meet some of her family. We ended our day with Nico’s famous weber chicken.

Hennie and Maya

Nico with Sebastian and Maya

Thursday was admin day; we had to fix the yellow canary’s (Toothless) chain guard. Nico and his dad, Oom Dirk were very kind and helped to organize the necessary welding work. Thanks to them Toothless was road worthy again! We did some necessary shopping for us and the two bikes, and had lunch at a cute little café.

That evening Nico and Suane took us to dinner at Joe’s. This is apparently the second biggest tourist attraction in Namibia…?

Supper at Joe's

ETOSHA….the 400km drive to Etosha the next day was spent chatting and laughing. We were enjoying being off the bikes and not having to concentrate on the road all the time. We would not have been able to enter Etosha on the motorbikes so it was great of Suane and Nico to take us. Our first night we stayed in chalets in Okaukuejo.

Nico,Suane,Mia and Hennie - Etosha Gate

Okaukuejo chalet

With all the recent rainfall the park was wet, green and picturesque, but the animals a bit scarce. Despite this, our game drive the next day was very successful with a Hyena, 3 Lions, a Chameleon (my highlight), a turtle swimming in a large puddle in the road and many others

Our first exciting find

Camacamacameleon

Zhee Lyon...up close and personal

Saturday night we stayed in the “Shebeen Lodge” where the whole restaurant is decorated like a Shebeen with a bit of a political twist and the staff dance and sing while you eat….very entertaining

A night at the Shebeen

Nico & Suane

We drove home on Sunday and Hennie spent some TLC time with the bikes, under Nico’s supervision (haha). The evening Nico’s Mom & Dad (Tannie Andriette and Oom Dirk) helped us plot our route and showed us videos and photo’s of their last two African trips. They have just returned from Ethiopia….really inspirational. After talking to them we were ready to take on the whole of Africa!

We’d like to thank Suane, Nico and the rest of the Badenhorst family for their hospitality and warmth. You were wonderful!

Monday morning we received news that our Canadian visa’s were ready to be processed which meant we needed to send some emails and figure out our time line, so we left Windhoek a bit later than expected. The road to Swakop was long and initially terrible. 350km gravel with no town or fuel, only hills, grasslands and then Namibian Desert. Toothless/The yellow canary felt rebellious and decided to fall over on a bad patch of downhill. Her right mirror broke off and then she refused to start….mors dood.

Bush mechanic Hennie worked his magic, in the middle of nowhere and resuscitated the poor canary (AKA Die Geel Moer). Lucky for us, as we did not pass a single car/person for the next 150km’s.

Bush mechanic

The road to Swakop

So we arrived in Swakop much later than expected and were very thankful to Nico’s parents for letting us stay in there house which meant no tent or camping. Baie dankie!

Camp Badenhorst

Swakop – We love Swakop. A really quant, rather large town with a lot to do and see.

In Swakopmund at last

We started our tour with the road to Walvis Bay which is spectacular with desert dunes on the one side and stunning beaches on the other. In Walvis Bay we had a look at the salt works, a lovely water front and lagoon side.

Walvis Bay Lagoon

Herbs at the harbour - Walvis Bay Waterfront

Pink is in

Do you think he bites?

We found dune 7 and had some unexpected fun sand boarding down huge dunes. As if we have not had enough of riding in sand on bikes on the Namib roads we still decided to try our skills on the 4 wheelers. Thank you to Johan, Louis, Amanda and Endan from Dune 7 Adventure. We loved it!