Namibia Day 6 - Spitzkoppe to Ugab Rhino Camp.

After a leisurely breakfast with the local birdlife we packed up and headed out from The Spitzkoppe. We had a long drive towards the coast, gravel at first then changing to sand driving, which Dave thought was great fun.

As we arrived at the coast we joined the Skeleton Coast salt road at Hentiesbaai heading north to Cape Cross to see the Reserve and Seal Colony.

A big surprise is the shear number of seals, there were what appeared to be 1000's including seal pups with the big sad eyes, lovely.

The smell was disgusting and thankfully we had read on our way to have a scarf ready to cover our noses. This is good advice as the smell does take a bit of getting used to. It was $80 Namibia each for entry and a great photo opportunity but as was becoming the norm we took far too many.

We left the seal colony after a couple of hours and as we were running out of wood for fire and the guide book said the next camp was very basic we did a small detour to get a shop and try and get some. Not too many shops or garages available on the salt road but after driving north for about 30 minutes or so we came across a closed camp shop which had a very depleted stock but did have wood so we were sorted.

In future here we would remember to stock up in bigger towns or when ever we saw an opportunity.

We returned south on the salt road to our turn off for Ugab River Rhino Camp. Here the roads became sandy again and then changed to gravel roads. The last 10km we started to think our GPS was sending us to the wrong place. The road was barely recognisable from barren craggy stone landscape with sharp edged rocks that lay everywhere and easy to cause a puncture (not this time tho) so we took things slow and easy until we arrived at our destination.

The camp suddenly appeared like a wide open sandy oasis in the riverbed and the total opposite to the tight rocky drive in.

As nothing had been booked we had to pay $80 Namibian each per night ( approx 4 pounds each so wasn't going to break the bank).

After looking around the trust buildings and Rhino information we went about setting up camp in our own bamboo fenced pitch. As seemed normal a large tree provided shade and a small fire pit and bbq.

We then decided to go a walk along the river bed where we saw lots of different animal tracks including a large lion paw print, rhino, elephant and lots of others. Angela was a bit apprehensive of a lion appearing especially as Dave said she had a bright shirt on and he could run faster lol.

Throughout the campsite were warning signs saying beware of elephants, lion and rhinos that sometimes come through the campsite. We were hopeful we might see them but as long as we were near the car. The setting around the camp fire was so relaxing and we were glad we had made the effort to go and get more wood earlier in the day.

Each pitch had its own bush shower with donkey boiler to heat the water and a drop toilet. Donkey boiler worked a treat with one of the camp staff going round early evening and lights a fire under an oil drum to heat water. Wait about 30 minutes and you can enjoy hot water. Our shower was under a tree with bamboo and branches all around very native but the view was great. Dry drop toilets were not as enjoyable so highly recommended you hold your nose before u go in Angela said she thought she would prefer going behind a tree.