Out To The Coast

Saturday 13 april 2019

You might think that climbing on sand dunes means that you’re close to the coast, but you’d be wrong. On Saturday we had another long drive, over both paved and dirt roads, to Swakupmund, just up the coast from Walvis Bay.

Although some of the drive was across apparently endless sandy scruff (rarely more interesting than the Bonneville Salt Flats), there were some amazing features worth a stop. Sesriem Canyon was the first. From time to time, flash floods flow through it, sculpting the agglomerated rock further. It’s obviously been flooded at least a zillion times already.

Here’s another view, with a sense of scale:

An artist, probably neither local nor ancient, left a nice mark:

Finally, maybe 100-200 yards into the canyon, we found something very unusual: water.

Our guide was surprised, as it has been very dry lately. But there you are.