Walvis Bay is a small town about half an hour south of Swakopmund, on the west coast of Namibia. It has much less available than touristy Swakopmund, so we used the time to recuperate, do a lot of baking in the full kitchen and catch up on home school for a couple weeks. We also experienced a few very awesome things in the Namibian Desert.

We hiked up one side of Dune 7 (sand dune in the shape of a 7) and got talked into sand boarding, which turned out to be an absolute blast. The guides drove us through desert on their quad bikes to the sand boarding dune. We had sooo much fun! Every few rides, they would re-polish one side of the board so it would go faster. At the end, they collected magnetic iron from the sand and wrote us a cool note.

Just driving around Walvis Bay we found flamingoes!

Our (amazing) Airbnb hostess said we should go to Pelican Point, but that we would need a four-wheel drive vehicle, which we didn’t think much of. We passed the salt mine, many flamingoes but no roads or signs for Pelican Point. Reason for that was that there isn’t a road to get there! You just drive on the sand! There is, however, a very faded wooden sign pointing the right direction. After deflating our tires a bit, we were able to build up enough speed to get through the soft sand part and on towards Pelican Point. Driving with fingers crossed, we made it! There are tons of seals. It didn’t smell great because of the carcases on the beach, but it was amazing watching the giant masses of seals on the beach and in the water.

Near Swakopmund, we took a Living Desert Tour to see the small animals who live in the dunes of Namibia. We were lucky enough to see many animals we’d only seen on nature shows: dancing lizards, chameleons, a pregnant Peringuey’s Adder, Darkling beetles, a legless lizard, and a web-footed gecko. Our tour guide was especially considerate of the animals he found, making sure the sand wasn’t too hot for the gecko and making sure there were no legless lizards in the path of our car.

One night at dinner we caught a beautiful sunset.

Our Airbnb hostess joined us for dad’s birthday, showing us how to use the indoor barbecue, or “braii”, to grill steaks. Driving along the coast between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, we noticed many tide pools so we stopped to investigate.

Next stop–Safari!