Skeleton Coast Camp

The Skeleton Coast Camp is one of the most remote in Africa, located in the heart of the six hundred thousand acre Skeleton Coast Park which runs south from the Angolan border down the Atlantic coastline. The camp comprises of seven spacious tented rooms with proper beds, furniture and en-suite bathroom set on an” island” in a beautiful dry river bed. A huge leadwood tree has been used as part of an open air dining room, and the landscape around the camp is typical of the wilderness of the area surrounded by great white dunes. There is a spacious lounge/dining room with a library, big armchairs, historic photographs and a single dining table where guests dine with the guides, recounting the day’s adventures.

The Skeleton Coast was an area much feared by seafarers who were regularly driven onto the shore by the onshore winds, confused by the dense fogs caused by the cold Antarctic current, and as you stand on the utterly deserted coastline as the Atlantic breakers crash in, you can imagine the sense of desolation they must have felt, and can still see the remains of the shipwrecks littering the coastline, together with huge seal colonies. One such colony, at Cape Frio, has 30,000 seals, which line the shore as far as the eye can see.

Although the landscape is utterly remote, the temperatures are consistently between 25 and 30ºC – very pleasant, and as you explore the rich and diverse desert scenery your expert guides uncover a wealth of natural history.

Each day you will spend most of the day exploring the National Park, on one day travelling north towards the Angola border and on another, for example, travelling almost the entire length of the spectacular Hoarusib River canyon. The scenery is by some margin, the most spectacularly beautiful in Namibia and every hour you encounter some new scenic marvel. Most of the time you will be travelling inland, passing giant mountain ranges, and at other times being driven across multi-coloured sweeping dunescapes where the different rock minerals have created sands of starkly varying colours at times resembling a “giant whipped cream dessert”.

Part of your time will spent travelling down the Hoarusib River Gorge with its amazing geology causing dramatic near vertical fault lines, partially covered in bright yellow sand fringed with vegetation which clings to life brought by the tiny amount of river water.

The sight of majestic desert elephant, giraffe or oryx in this starkly beautiful desert environment seems incongruous and your first thought will be why animals should even attempt to live in such a difficult environment. However, they are in excellent condition and over the centuries have learnt to thrive. Part way down the Hoarusib gorge you encounter astonishing “clay castles” towering clay deposits which resemble in their shapes and height, cathedrals eroded a tiny bit at a time over the millennia by the 5mm of rain which falls each year.

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