One-month road trip in Namibia (page 3 of 7)

Hi Isabelle, Welcome to the car! 🙂 It’s true, it’s a wonderful country.

Oh, I’m sure you’ll love the Mowani campsite. It’s absolutely fabulous, and the landscapes are stunning. I’d totally stow away in your suitcase! 😏

July 9th: In the morning, we left for the Twyfelfontein site. This site is primarily made up of rock engravings over 1,500 years old. A guide is mandatory for the visit. The place is stunning.







In the afternoon, we decided to go for a short hike. A ranger told us there was one marked after the barriers. Well, we had a hard time finding the start of the hike, and along the way, we managed to get lost. Total goofballs when you see that 😮 🤪



It’s breathtaking.





Really great hike. We ended the afternoon by the pool with a nice cold drink since it was hot, and then headed back to our favorite campsite

July 10th: We left Mowani with a bit of sadness on my part, heading towards Brandberg (180 km) to see the White Lady. We’ll be staying at the campsite of Brandberg White Lady Lodge. We arrived at the lodge late in the morning, had lunch there, and set off immediately afterward for the site. We knew there was a 2–3 hour hike to reach the engraving with a mandatory guide. We also wanted to see other engravings, knowing they were nearby, but the woman who sold us the tickets strongly insisted we shouldn’t go, saying it would take another hour of walking and that it was already 2 p.m. You get it... They just didn’t feel like it. We didn’t push it—it wouldn’t have changed anything that day.



The "rock" with these paintings is, in my opinion, more beautiful than the engravings from the day before, and I can confirm you need a guide to get there because the path is tricky. Too bad we couldn’t see the others.



A little meerkat lives at the lodge. It’s adorable.

Gorgeous landscapes 🙂 How much time should we allow for the hike? Thanks!

The hike at Mowani? We took our time, got a bit lost, and I think it took us between 2 and 3 hours. The hike itself isn’t very long, but we enjoyed the scenery 😊 If it’s the White Lady one, we must’ve taken 3 hours total with the guide (explanations included)

Thanks Mathilde! I saw that you loved the petrified forest, so I’m adding it back to the list of things to see (not many positive reviews so far).

July 11th: 150 km separates us from our next stop, Spitzkoppe. What's great from the Khowareb Lodge campsite is that the distance between two points is quite short. This lets us set off early in the morning, arrive early at the next spot, and enjoy the whole afternoon doing whatever we want. That day, we’ll arrive early enough to choose the campsite at Rock Pools (no reservations here: first come, first served). We’ll be right near the arch. After the meal, we head out for a walk. We check out Little Bushman (another painting). It doesn’t take long, and the walk is nice. Then we head toward the arch, which is really stunning. My kids also have fun climbing. In short, we make the most of the place because it’s absolutely gorgeous.

I was talking about the hike at Mowani. This reinforces my idea that you shouldn’t overload your days in the itinerary to really enjoy these amazing sites. Reading the travel journal, I mistakenly thought you had hiked in the afternoon at the Twyfelfontein site.

Hi Mathilde,

How lucky to have spotted a brown hyena! 😮👀

What a beautiful travel journal, Mathilde, about my favorite country, Namibia! You were lucky to see a brown hyena—such a rare animal. We had that same luck once at Pilanesberg Park in South Africa. We’ll be heading back to Namibia for the 4th time this coming September, but I’ll save that for a future post. Anyway, I’ll keep following this lovely journal. Loïc

Yeah, I really enjoyed the tour. It’s not really long to do, and it’s not essential to the whole trip either (if we’d had to cut something from our trip, it would’ve been this), but personally, I liked the explanations 😛 and it was a nice change...

Yes, it's important to keep some time to enjoy the places where we stop. There are still quite a few of us in the car, so when we can experience things differently, we make sure to do so, especially at sites like this one. 😏

Hi Nathalie,

Oh wow, what an incredible stroke of luck—especially since it didn’t stay long at all! I’ve read so many of your travel journals (I’m a huge fan of your photos and adventures), and I think you’ve seen one too 😉

Hi Loïc,

Thanks for the compliment! 🙂 Yeah, we were really lucky that morning with the hyena—it was super fleeting, and I totally agree with you... Namibia is an amazing country!

July 12: We hit the road again for Cape Cross and the largest colony of seals in Namibia. Here we are by the sea. It's 160 km to these animals and our accommodation, the Cap Cross Lodge. We'll leave our rooftop tents for a few nights because the coast is too humid to sleep in them.

So, if we were to redo this part of the trip, I think we wouldn’t stay here despite it being a really nice lodge in a great spot. We’d head straight to Swakopmund instead. The landscapes are different, a bit misty. But before getting a real bed, we witness a stunning sunrise, as often happens in Africa.







Different landscape

The colony has thousands of animals. It's impressive, really noisy, and it stinks a lot 🤪





The view from our room

July 13th: heading to Swakopmund, 120 km away. We’ll spend 2 nights at See Breeze Guesthouse. This guesthouse serves breakfast but not lunch or dinner. The owners are friendly and full of great tips. They’ll book us 2 excellent restaurants for the 2 evenings we’re staying with them. Since we arrive in the morning, we’ll check into our rooms and take a little stroll along the seafront to get our bearings. We’ll grab a quick bite to eat because at 2 PM, we have a meet-up with a guide for the Moon Landscape/Welwitschias Tour with Charly Desert Tours. I really loved this activity. We saw stunning landscapes, canyons, surprising plants, and got tons of explanations about everything. A really interesting visit.





Madame Welwitschias

Monsieur Welwitschias

Both plants need to be close to each other for these plants to "reproduce." They’re several hundred years old. They’re so surprising!

July 14th: Today we have a morning sea kayaking session with an extension to Sandwich Harbour. We meet up at 8 AM in Walvis Bay. We leave Swakopmund at 7 AM—there’s a lot of fog, so we can’t see anything and aren’t driving fast. On site, we join a group and set off with three cars loaded with kayaks. The drive to the starting point is pretty long. We cross salt pans and follow the coast all the way to Pelican Point.



The activity is awesome. My kids and I loved it, my husband less so. He didn’t appreciate the little critters that climbed onto the boat uninvited, while the kids, as they say, *really* enjoyed it. Still, we paddled among hundreds of playful seals for about an hour, and it was amazing. After that time in the water with them, we got a little meal. The tour is perfectly organized. Waterproof gear is provided—it’s great.



Just wish there’d been a bit more sun. The weather cleared up, but only by late morning.



After the morning kayaking, the group splits in two. We continue our adventure with another group. We switch cars, pass by the salt pans again, but this time we stop.



Then we head to Sandwich Harbour. We manage to drive along the shore before the tide comes in, then we gain some elevation to see the dunes meeting the water. It’s really windy and cold, but wow, it’s beautiful. Driving up and down the dunes in a 4x4 is just incredible and breathtaking.

I'm off... It's magnificent, it's aesthetic, it's magical, and it's a feast for the eyes!

Welcome to Manu’s car! Agreed, it’s a jaw-dropping experience—not just for the eyes ;)