Skeleton Coast Road · short arc

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Swakopmund

   Swakopmund is a German seaside town that someone dropped into the Namib Desert, and it is still a little startled to be there. Palm-lined streets, half-timbered houses, a lighthouse and a pier would suit the Baltic, yet the sand dunes begin at the edge of town and the sea is the cold, grey Atlantic, chilled by the Benguela Current. The German colonial administration founded it in 1892 as a landing point, since the lagoon harbour at Walvis Bay lay in British hands, and the old buildings, bakeries and the Kaffee und Kuchen habit are what remains.

   Read the complete Swakopmund write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Swakopmund is where the day begins. Next is Henties Bay.

2. 2. Henties Bay

   Henties Bay is a fishing town with a sandy main street and a very honest purpose: it is where Namibians come to cast a line into the surf. It lies about seventy kilometres north of Swakopmund, where the dry bed of the Omaruru river reaches the Atlantic, and its name is said to come from a man called Hentie van der Merwe, who found a freshwater spring here in the 1920s while fishing. Rock lobster, kabeljou and steenbras are the catch, and anglers line the beach at dawn with rods like a row of antennas.

   Read the complete Henties Bay write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Henties Bay comes up about 72 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cape Cross.

3. 3. Cape Cross

   You smell Cape Cross before you see it. A cold wind off the Atlantic carries a thick, rank, fishy odour across the coastal desert of Namibia, and then the beach appears, packed with brown bodies, and the noise arrives: a continual barking, bleating and groaning from tens of thousands of Cape fur seals. The colony is one of the largest on the African coast, and in the pupping season, around November and December, the rocks and shingle are crowded with newborns. Black-backed jackals patrol the edges, hoping for a weak pup, and the Benguela current, cold and rich in fish, is the reason for the whole noisy business.

   Read the complete Cape Cross write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 128 km into the recorded legs you reach Cape Cross. Next is Ugab.

4. 4. Ugab Gate

   The Ugab is a river that rarely runs, and its dry bed is the reason there is a gate here at all. On the C34, the gravel and salt road that runs along the Namibian coast, the Ugab River Gate marks a southern entrance to the Skeleton Coast National Park, a long, narrow strip of desert, fog and shipwreck that stretches north toward Angola. The name comes from the whale and seal bones that once littered the beach, and from the ships that ran onto the rocks in the thick fog caused by the cold Benguela current meeting hot desert air. The Portuguese sailors called it the Sands of Hell, and local people called it the land God made in anger.

   Read the complete Ugab Gate write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ugab closes the day.