I have written several articles, travel essays and short stories about Namibia - here is an edited extract from a published article about the Skeleton Coast:
Our journey continued to the Skeleton Coast Terrace Bay ,
the most northerly point visitors can drive to on the Skeleton Coast
The
first thing you notice as you near the coast is the cloud bank. The second is the sand dunes rolling into
infinity. We arrived at the stark
t-junction. If we turned south we'd
eventually reach towns with restaurants and comfortable hotels. Four vultures crouching by the roadside
watched us. We turned north.
The
air was damp, the sky overcast, the terrain forbidding. Purple streaked sand dunes loomed on our
right and the cold crashing waves of the Atlantic
flanked us on our left. We didn't
encounter a single vehicle.
My husband spotted gulls landing on
the shore, behind a ridge. We decided to
investigate. Black-backed jackal and
brown hyena (known as strandwolves) patrol the beaches here and we found their
prints everywhere. Perhaps we'd see a
hyena on a kill.
Shivering
in the chill wind, we cautiously topped the ridge, but there were no
animals. What we found instead were bones. Hundreds of them. The whale bones were the easiest to identify
and we found an almost intact skeleton of a seal. Along with the bones were millions of shells.
Even the ocean was conquered at this spot. Sludgy olive green waves fought their way through a carpet of glutinous kelp, to bubble weakly onto the shore.
It felt like the most desolate place on earth, but possessed an eerie beauty.
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You can read one of my stories which was inspired by this experience HERE
I hope you enjoyed this week's post. See you next week for more On the Road Surprises.
