Day 109 Delwerskamp Campsite No 1, Namaqua Coastal Park

 Our next campsite is on the coast about 150 km further south. We headed off along the coastal 4x4 route, first passing Kleinsee, and then a gravel road down to a tired little diamond mining town, Koingnaas.  The coast here is known as the diamond coast with lots of evidence of previous mining operations and the land on both sides fenced off.  On the positive side it has meant that the majority of the landscape has remained unscathed and has been left in its natural state with a myriad of succulent plants growing in the sandy gravel terrain.

Somehow we managed to find the Caracal 4x4 route which winds its way through the Namaqua National Park down to the Coastal Park.  Quite a lots of succulents and plants were in flower so we can only imagine how amazing the landscape must look like if you come in flower season (July/August). 

  On entering the Namaqua Coastal Park, we managed to get a useful map of the area (we have not got a guidebook for SA!) and realised that there were lots of highlights that we could easily have missed.  The guys at the gate told us it would take 2 hours to reach our campsite but if we hadn’t arrived in 3 hours (6.50 pm), someone would come to find us in case we were stuck in deep sand.  Our map indicated there was a seal colony but it wasn’t clear exactly where the colony was so we spent a good half an hour heading down sandy tracks in search of them – lots of fab views of the Atlantic but no seals.  Finally we had given up and were heading back to the main drag when we smelt the definitive smell of a colony of seals – having been to Cape Cross a few years ago in Namibia we knew the smell!!  The colony was not a large as at Cape Cross but was still pretty sizeable and lots of pups.

We were now late and in danger of having a rescue mission sent out for us and we still had miles of deep sand to drive through.  For once we actually let the tyres down as the last thing we needed was to get stuck and have the embarrassment of being towed out.  We eventually arrived at 7 pm and a couple of minutes later the ranger came past in his truck (with a large tow rope on the back – so clearly he does frequently have to tow folk out) so any later we would have had the ranger looking for us.

Our campsite is set on the rocks above the Atlantic with the sound of the rollers breaking on the rocks below – another stunning location to camp and fab views of the stars again.