Slept very late the next morning and went for a drive,
exploring the full available 8km and then sat on the Roof of Namakwa with a 360
degree view of the area discussing our plans for the day.
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| The Roof of Namakwa |
Springbok is really very central in the area as we had to
pass that again on our way to Port Nolloth via Steinkopf.
The road is long, straight and tedious, however, after
Steinkopf you really notice that you are moving towards the Namib desert. The sand turns far more white / grey than the
red we were used to seeing in the Kalahari and the plant life (such as it is)
became sparse.
The temperature in Namakwa was far more temperate and with a
breeze going on the hill very pleasant, however, driving through Steinkopf we
reached 39.5 degrees again.
We packed our water bottles in the freezer at Namakwa but
were not able to drink it as the water is strangely salty and has a strong
smell. Steinkopf is not more than 20
houses in the desert, no discernible shop or cafe to get cold drinks.
The road to Port Nolloth is a pass through the mountains
where the desert area really becomes noticeable.
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| View to the left |
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| View to the right |
There is nothing to see for miles, even crows that you see
everywhere does not bother to live near the road. You also do not see entrances to farms etc.
on the road as all the land belongs to Alexkor - the government owned Diamond
mining company.
The town itself is charming.
We stayed at Bedrock Lodge in the Grace room, it’s a lovely old
Scandenavian wooden house, with Yellow wood floors from Knysna. Very warm welcome and a hearty breakfast cooked up every morning.
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| Bedrock Lodge |
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| The view from our room |
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| The Grace room |
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| The Bathroom - its HUGE |
Had supper at Vespetti, the local Italian restaurant. You have to bring our own alcohol and they do
not charge corkage. Great lasagna and
Mexican Pizza.
International car companies often do Government approved
high speed testing in the area as the dry mountain area and hot conditions as
well as the coastal air lower down is ideal testing area. Fiat was in town when we were around so the
Restaurant was crowded with the drivers relaxing.
During breakfast the next morning, we discussed our upcoming
stay in Alexander Bay with the guys at the Bedrock. Had a tip-off that the self catering
accommodation may not be what we expected and as it is only 95Km from Port
Nolloth we decided on an early reconnaissance mission to investigate.
The road is in good repair and tarred. EVERYTHING belongs to Alexkor from there
on. All the fences next to the road have
warning boards and as you drive into down a boom-gate bars access to the bay
area. This is where the Orange River
meets the Atlantic Ocean and after travelling through near desert for the past
2 days it was like meeting an old friend.
The river is sluggish this far and a more blue colour than inland.
The rondawels we had booked is not in the bay area, we were
to discover, but some 20km out of “town” on a dirt road.
This at last, was the desert sand dunes of my imagination. The sand is near white in colour with a strange green tinge in areas, huge dunes around the road and it feels like just the loneliest place on the planet.
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| A stop on the way to Alexander Bay |
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| Police college - we did not stay |
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| Proper sand dunes! |
Our “informer” turned out to be correct. The accommodation is very old (about 1960)
in, officially, the middle of nowhere with no network coverage and little
comfort facilities, no shops etc. While
our goal was to live in far off, small, deserted places on our trip, Neville
was adamant that this reminded him far too much of police college so we
promptly cancelled our booking and decided on a 3rd night in Port
Nolloth.
As we were only planning on 1 night in Port Nolloth we did
not do too much research on tourist attractions in the area so spend Saturday
and Sunday being excessively lazy.
Driving around the area exploring, reading, making up sleep debt and
walking around the town and beach.
Diamonds drive everything remaining in Port Nolloth. De Beers and Trans Hex has diamond dredging
facilities and you can see the dredges from the beach.
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| One of the dredges on the beach, being re vamped |
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| 6 of them were out this morning - vacuuming up the seabed |
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| A dredge out vacuuming - the pipe at the back is used by the diver to vacuum the sand from the seabed. They are out there for up to 8 hours a day - it is very cold, between 12 and 15 degrees |
Illegal Diamond buying and trade in uncut (rough) stones used
to be rife during the early 2000/1 period and apparently there were more
Mercedes Benz and BMW’s per capita in Port Nolloth than in the rest of South
Africa. Eventually the Police did a raid
in the Mc Dougal’s bay area and found people with no jobs but thousand in US
Dollars under the mattress. Lots of
property available on the market now.
Interesting town with lots of gossip if you are willing to
sit and listen to the locals. Plenty of
characters in the area, especially the Kotze family that seems to own
everything in town and, depending on the source and story, is a mixture between
the Mafia and the Broeder-bond!
We had supper at the Scotia Hotel on Saturday. Fantastic Prawns, very reasonably
priced. The Scotia Hotel is right near
the dredging facilities, and this is where the Divers converge early morning
and wait for favourable weather conditions to go out and “vacuum” up diamonds
from the bottom of the ocean.