Staying with Pat and Achim Lorenz, Swakopmund
Distance 11454
Total from Amsterdam 16854

Got our foster kids fed and made sure they were all ok before we left for our jaunt to Walvis Bay. It was misty when we left but the weather promised and delivered us a wind free day. Rasco hates the gardener, he happened to be here today so we kept Rasco inside and closed the curtains at the kitchen sliding doors. When the gardener has cut the lawn then Rasco spends time on that side of the house so that the gardener can do his thing on the other side … it’s a bit like musical chairs. Rasco has charged the sliding door and pushed out the glass so don’t want this to happen on ‘our watch’. Selma, the cleaning lady knows what to do so we felt ok leaving him in her capable hands. Halfway to Walvis Bay we drove past a village called ‘Lang Strand’ … Long Beach. This village of houses, a petrol station and maybe a shop or two is build on beach sand, we saw one or two tarred roads. I can imagine what the roads look like after a huge sand storm. At the start of Henties Bay town is an avenue of palm trees  on either side of the road, all 666 of them planted by Achim and his team ????. I’ll have to ask him how long it took to plant the palms. Henties Bay, like Swakop, has grown huge over the past 10 years. The only difference to our last visit is that this time we saw thousands of flamingos.

In 2008 there wasn’t a flamingo in sight and we were so disappointed. They migrate to Etosha Pan, a game reserve in Namibia but I don’t know what time if the year this happens. We drove right down to the salt pans then found a parking lot really close to where a huge flock of flamingos were feeding. The tide was out and the flamingos were moving in groups coming really close to where we stood and when a guy jogged past they moved away … doing this often. It’s hard to explain but it’s a bit like water ebbing out then flowing in again, all in slow motion. We did a short walk along the walkway but kept the bakkie in sight … yesterday a vehicle parked there was broken into. There were two seals frolicking fairly close to the flamingos in the water, close to the shore, sticking a fin out of the water as we have seen them so often do. We drove a short distance in the direction of the harbour and watched pelicans drying their wings, all stretched out, their wingspan, according to Google measures between 226 to 360 cm. They take off in the shallow water, their wings flapping like crazy, and as they gain momentum their feet, in unison, dig into the water helping their huge bodies to propel them forward and they finally get ‘lift off’ after doing this over a short distance. From the pelicans we went in search of the fish shop Achim told Peter about, found it and bought lovely fresh hake which we’ll have for supper tomorrow night. I made another batch of soup yesterday but didnt have enough tomato paste so before going home today we bought more tomato paste and supper tonight is lovely spicey Turkish soup. The boys have been fed and they’re on their comfy cushions so we’ll watch a movie while they snooze. Pat and Achim have wifi for another 30 minutes or so and I’d like to get this off … so that’s it for today ????
PS  It’s worthwhile googling …
Etosha Pan the trek of the flamingos
www.travelnewsnamibia.com
Also click on Hu Berry’s name and read about him

– Lang Strand village built halfway between Swakop and Henties

– All 666 of these palm trees were planted by Achim Lorenz. He is known in Swakop as the ‘Palm Tree Man’ ??

– Beautiful flamingos by the thousands and some gracious pelicans too