I am back underway on the next part of my sabbatical travels. I arrived in Cape Town late morning after a long flight via Istanbul from Manchester, and was greeted by Table Mountain in all her glory. It was such a beautiful, clear day and as I assumed the next couple of days would be the same, I didn’t bother taking a photo…

I spent the first day napping and relaxing after the journey. I’ve been to Cape Town before (in a post which has been sitting in my drafts for about 2 years!! I may yet get round to finishing and posting it), so I didn’t feel in too much of a hurry to be out and about seeing things.

I had booked a full day wine tour to Stellenbosch, Franshhoek and Paarl the following day. There were only 2 others on the trip so we managed to squeeze in an extra stop in the colourful Bo-Kaap neighbourhood in Cape Town at the start of the day. This had been on my list to do so I was glad to be able to see it.

It was a very cloudy day with lots of low cloud hanging over the mountains. As we drove out towards Stellenbosch, our driver bemoaned the weather as apparently we should have been able to see some lovely scenery…

We were at our first tasting at 9am, 2 whites and 2 reds plus some biltong. Not a bad way to start the day!! The weather had lifted and after stops in the pretty towns of Stellenbosch and Franshhoek, both of which reminded me of other towns in wine producing areas elsewhere in the world, we had a short ride on the Franshhoek wine tram before stopping at the next winery for lunch and 3 more wines. The final stop was in Paarl for 4 more wines to round off the day.

On my final day before the tour started, I took the hotel shuttle bus to the V&A Waterfront, in the pouring rain. After wandering around the shopping mall, I ventured out in the rain towards the contemporary art museum, which I had been to on my previous visit.

After lunch and a further wander (it had just about stopped raining at this point but still no sign of Table Mountain), I headed back to the hotel in time for the evening meet up prior to the tour starting in the morning.

I am travelling on this trip with Nomad Africa. Overall it’s 8 weeks but it’s split into 3 sections, the first of which is Cape Town to Victoria Falls.

We left Cape Town bright (well, still cloudy) and early the next morning, and started with a brief stroll at Blouberg Beach where you’re meant to be able to see a lovely view of Table Mountain from across the bay. We could barely see the sea, let alone anything else! We continued to head north, with a stop off for supplies at a supermarket before stopping for lunch at a gas station on the Cape Namibia highway. Thankfully by this time we had escaped the clouds and it was a warm and sunny day.

As we continued to head north, I was struck by the landscape with these wide open vistas, huge skies and then later, craggy mountains as we headed slightly inland.

We are in rooibos country and we stopped at a place that sold rooibos tea, had wine tasting and was growing citrus! I quite like rooibos, and after an hour or so in the sun chatting with my group, we were then on our way to our overnight stop just outside of Citrusdal, in the Cederberg region. There are lots of citrus trees growing in this region, and the place we stayed produces 1500 tonnes of fruit per year for export, alongside its camping and accommodation business.

The next day it was a long driving day to the Namibian border. I was glad I’d arranged my e-visa online beforehand (though the website was fairly temperamental) as it took us all quite a long time to get through the border. Namibia is my 50th country, and I’m sure it will be a good one.

We arrived at our accommodation on the banks of the Orange River just as the sun was setting in a glorious red sky.

We started our exploration of Namibia the next day with a drive to Fish River Canyon, a vast canyon, definitely on a par visually with the Grand Canyon with the added bonus of significantly fewer people! We had a short walk along the edge of the canyon, which meandered sufficiently to get lots of different views of the canyon. You can never quite capture in a photo what you can see with your eyes, it really was spectacular. We then had lunch before continuing our journey north to our overnight stop at Keetmanshoop.

Onwards the next day, towards the Namib Naukluft national park. On our way, we stopped at Quiver Tree Forest where all these trees are apparently growing out of the rocks. We also stopped at Giants Playground where all these boulders appear to have been very carefully placed in various formations, but it’s all completely natural weathering of the stone.

The landscapes on the driving so far have been vast, and surprisingly green. There were rains at the end of April which have caused grasses and other bushes to spring forth which means Namibia doesn’t quite look as I’d imagined. There was more grassland as we headed west towards the Namib desert, and then suddenly there were flowering bushes, mostly yellow flowers interspersed with orange-coloured bushes. It’s so interesting to see not only the landscape here but the flora and fauna too, which is adapted to survive in some harsh desert conditions.

We stayed overnight in Hammerstein before a very early, pre sunrise, start the next day to explore the national park. The park gates open at sunrise, and we joined a long queue to get into the park. We then drove the 45kms to Dune 45 for an early morning hike up an enormous sand dune with a bunch of other tourists. The colours at this time really took my breath away. Extraordinarily red sand dunes with the backdrop of a beautiful clear blue sky. I couldn’t stop myself from just staring at the dunes and the colours and trying to take it all in.

Hiking up a sand dune is quite hard work. The firmest sand is on the ridge, which is fairly narrow, and this dune rises more than 100 metres. It was also surprisingly windy, and I lost my nerve at a flat section about two-thirds of the way up and called it a day.

After that it was time for breakfast before continuing on to the Sossusvlei pan, with yet more red dunes, and Deadvlei, where trees in the pan appear to be petrified, which makes a very striking photo with the red dunes and blue sky. I am certain there is a very similar image which pops up on Windows desktop backgrounds…

After a final stop at Sesriem canyon, we headed to our next overnight stop in the desert. I have to say the rooms we stayed in at this place were stunning, and the nicest accommodation so far.

The next morning started with a super-interesting desert drive and talk about animals and insects that live in the desert, as well as the bushmen, or san, peoples who live off the land here. We had not nearly enough time but everyone in the group found it to be enormously enjoyable.

We were heading northwest towards Swakopmund, and passed through the Tropic of Capricorn along the way, as well as the Moon Landscape, which certainly looked different to what we’ve seen so far in Namibia. It was a long and very bumpy drive to Walvis Bay for a breezy lunch by the sea before we rolled into Swakopmund in the mid afternoon. We are here for 2 nights and have a free day for an assortment of optional activities but I am taking the chance to have a quiet day strolling around the very German-feeling town, doing my laundry and catching up on some admin.

I’ve hugely enjoyed Namibia so far, the scenery has been absolutely spectacular, we have seen some awesome things, and I’m sure this will continue as we head north towards the wildlife…