Spitzkoppe - between Swakopmund and Usakos

Traveling between Usakos and Swakopmund, in the Erongo Region of Namibia, there is not much to see besides a long tar road and desert, desert and more desert. About 30 kilometers outside of Usakos heading in the direction of Swakopmund, while peering out of the driver’s side windows, one can get a glimpse of The Spitzkoppe, raising out of the desert sands. Spitzkoppe from the air Formation The Spitzkoppe, forming part of the Erongo Mountains, are approximately 700 million years old. Like many of the natural rock formations and mountains in Namibia, The Spitzkoppe were formed by violent volcanic activities that were so regular and typical of the area so many million years ago.

It was during the separation of the ancient continent Gondwana, a time when South America and Africa were formed, that magma intrusions, which were to become known as the Damaraland Rock Complex, thrust it way through the older Damaraland Sequence, which had formed around 460 - 700 million years ago and subsequently cooled within the surrounding rock. Unlike the Brukkaros Mountain of the Karros Region in Namibia, which was formed completely above ground level, the peaks of The Spitzkoppe were formed below the surface of the ground and it has been the erosion of the surrounding areas over the last 130 million years that have left behind present day ground levels, with The Spitzkoppe towering over them. This process has become known as Inselberg Formations.

Cape Town to Walvis by Car

On our trip last year we decided that instead of taking the 2 hour flight up to Walvis Bay, we were going to drive up. Man talk about a long trip. Our trip started in Cape Town at about 4 in the morning and ended in Walvis the next day. We had a stop over in Okahandja! If we had driven through it would have been something like 20 hours in the car. (I'll take you through the trip as we venture along through this blog.) 

Its a long long long trip by car but it's worth doing at least once.. The scenery along the road was so beautiful and one can get a true sense of the vastness of the country when driving along the B1 highway. There's nothing but sandy gravel plains as far ass you can see and hardly a car on the road, (granted we were travelling up on the 27 December when most sane people are at home recovering from Christmas...)

I look back on that trip now as the point at which I realized exactly how naive and ignorant I was about the Country of Namibia. For me when ever i heard about living in Namibia images of camels and oasis came to mind... Sad to say, I though the same way as most foreign tourist think about South Africa. But I'm happy to say i was pleasantly surprised.


Walvis Bay was magically and climbing Dune 7 was one of the highlights of the trip.

Dune 7 from the parking area