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We drove from Weltevrede into the Namib-Naukluft Park and our first stop was Dune 45 – a massive dune that was definitely worth climbing! This is a legendary dune and Skye and Willow had every intention of climbing so Papa went along. Not nearly as big as the giant dune we climbed in Namibia but still some great views from the top!

Weltevrede was the name of our first stop in our 28 day tour of Namibia and Botswana. We drove south from Windhoek past Rehoboth then onto a dirt road for several hours to Weltevrede. The Guest Farm is on the edge of the Namib-Naukluft National Park in the Namib desert and only an hour drive from Dune 45 (known as Big Daddy), Deadvlei and Sossusvlei – all legendary Namibian sights! Namibia is mostly dirt roads….the good news is that the dirt roads are very good and you can go 85-110k on them – especially when we kicked in the 4 …

Windhoek is the capital city of Namibia. This used to be German South-West Africa then it was ruled by South Africa post WW2 and then all but the town of Walvis Bay got self-rule in 1990. South Africa gave up Walvis Bay in 1994. Windhoek is a real dessert town of only 325,000 people, while all of Namibia only has 2.6 million. Many buildings still have a German look and the language is still widely spoken. Even at 1700 metres elevation, it is damn hot. We stayed for a few days and that time was centred around our hostel Paradise …

Finally it was time to say good bye to South Africa so we left on New Years morning on a scheduled 24 hour bus ride to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia! The trip ended up taking 26 hours due to a few hours spent at the border around midnight! Unfortunately two Middle Eastern guys were stopped right before us and they seemed to be trying to sneak a whole lot of stuff into Namibia – not drugs just stuff.  

So we are far from home and needed to mark the New Year. What better way than to burn all our paper garbage in the barbecue on our deck?

With our time in Cape Town running down we planned on a day at Camp’s Bay beach and then dinner with an old friend from HK days. He was originally South African and had moved back to Cape Town with his English wife. We had mentioned we wanted to go to the beach and he told us to be super careful! The day before a bunch of white folk had paid private security to keep black people off one of the Clifton beaches https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/racism-protest-rape-clifton-4th-beach-cape-town-south-africa-security-guards-sheep-slaughter-a8704036.html. So before meeting our friend Gavin, we spent an uneventful day at Camp’s Bay beach. We …

Going to Cape Town and not going up Table Mountain would be crazy so we luckily picked a nice sunny day and went to the bottom of the cable car to go check it out! Most days had been cloudy which would obstruct the amazing views from the Table top. When we got to the cable car the line up was super long and there is only one car going up! Luckily it fits about 40 people so the line only took about 45 minutes! At the base was some chap telling the history of the mountain, pointing out the …

Any time spent in Cape Town requires one to do a tour of Cape Point and the sights along the way. Cape Point is kind of funny in that it advertises itself as the ‘most southwestern point in Africa…however the most southerly point is Cape Agulhus and there are tons of countries in Africa more westerly… so really – who knows! It is a spectacular drive and there is lots to see! After some research we found the Baz Bus was the cheapest tour that offered the most value. We knew we wanted to do a boat tour to see …

Usually our girls sleep ok on Xmas Eve but this year they were too stoked and didn’t sleep much waking us at 5:30 or so on Christmas Day! We told them to go read the magazines in their stockings and return later…an hour or so later we ate a bit then moved to opening some pressies! As mentioned they had each received an email from the NorthPole Central Registry informing them their gifts would come to the right address and would be portable…they were prepared! We had time as it was only about 7 am – all that we had …

On our first morning in Cape Town it became clear – it was two days until Xmas and we still had a lot to do!!! We chose the Mother City for the holidays because we had used an old HK neighbour as a mailing address so we had to meet with her to pet our deliveries. We found out that morning that Claire was flying out later that evening for the U.K. So we arranged to meet her and her dog, Gracie, at our place. Then we walked to a place called Jarryds which allowed dogs and had a great …