To Swakopmund

Next stop was Swakopmund, a few hundred kilometres north on the coast.

We first headed inland to Solitaire, very isolated, virtually an old time store and a petrol station, but made famous by Moose McGregor's bakery and particularly his apple pie. Unfortunately Moose has passed away but his legacy lives on. This is the man..

..the store..

..the bakery counter..

..and the pie.

They also repair tyres, and plenty were being done..

..and they have some imaginative plantings

The road was generally fairly flat through desert, though there was this scenic part through the Kuiseb river canyon

Not long after we came across our first quiver trees. Very unusual, endemic and highly adapted to the desert. The branches of these trees, with a very soft and fibrous centre, were hollowed out by the bushmen to hold their arrows. Hence the name.

There were other interesting roadside geological features..

...and as we approached Walvis Bay, we hit a yellow sand desert, with a slick dead smooth clay like road that we subsequently learned had a salt based surface

There was an impressive dune just outside town, aptly named Dune 7

We headed down to the waterfront for lunch, the whole area is reknowned for oysters, so oysters it was..

..then very good calamari, chips and salad, all washed down with a local craft beer (it was a German colony remember), and overseen by a beautiful yellow billed pelican.

We drove around the bay and were rewarded with close up views of hundreds of flamingos

Just 30 km further up the coast to Swakopmund, but what a drive, misty, wing blown sand..

..and a pretty unappealing beachfront.

We had a quick look around town, not at its best we felt on a windy, cloudy day..

...before settling in at our accomodation for the next two nights, Pebblestone Guesthouse.