Skeleton Coast Road · part 4

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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

   Cape Cross is where the day begins. Next is Ugab.

2. 2. 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 comes up 50 km in. Next is Torra Bay.

3. 3. Torra Bay

   Torra Bay is a name on a map, a dot on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, and a place you need a plan to reach. It lies on the stretch of Atlantic shore where the cold Benguela Current meets the desert, and the sea's chill produces thick fog that rolls in most mornings and burns away by noon, giving the coast an eerie, silvery look. Sailors named it the Skeleton Coast for the shipwrecks and the bones of whales and seals scattered on the sand, and in the early days, ships that ran aground rarely saw rescue.

   Read the complete Torra Bay write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   At least 165 km in you reach Torra Bay. Next is back through Ugab.

4. 4. back through Ugab Gate

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   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

   back through Ugab, about halfway. Next is back through Cape Cross.

5. 5. back through Cape Cross

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   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

   back through Cape Cross sits at 201 km, about halfway. Next is back through Henties Bay.

6. 6. back through 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

   back through Henties Bay comes up 252 km in. Next is Swakopmund.

7. 7. 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 closes the day.