Day 20 … all good things must come to an end

October 8, 2024

And so dawned the last day of our amazing Southern Africa adventure. We woke early ... what did you expect ... and after a shower and a final pack headed down to breakfast. 

Because time was short we opted out of a cooked breakfast, instead having yoghurt, toast, juice and coffee. They had a prepared egg salad which Ian used to make a lovely breakfast sandwich. Back to the room, luggage collected and deposited in the car, we then checked out and were on our way.

We headed first to an Engen Petrol Station as over breakfast I discovered that I had run out of data for my sim card. So with 3 hours of our final morning to go and an Ad Lab to get we called in at the MTC kiosk and purchased 500 mb of data ... at the grand price of $20 NAD  ($1.67). All loaded up we headed towards Walvis Bay ... our last stop.

The drive was just over 20 km and you drove along a road bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and endless lines of sand dunes on the other! Arriving in Walvis Bay we set about completing our Ad Lab which took us to some notable places  ... which to be honest weren't overly notable! A welcome sign, a coffee shop, a train engine, a church and the lagoon (which was the only notable one).

Walvis Bay is not a pretty town. Despite having a population of 100,000 it looks old and run down (especially when compared with the beautiful Swakopmund).The main attraction for the Bay is in fact the Pink Lake ... which was worth every single moment we spent there. It is a tidal lagoon that is filled with flamingos, pelicans, terns and many other water birds.

We spent over an hour sitting watching the birds. The flamingos are more of a  dusty peach colour and the pelicans are almost white and are huge! Watching the birds fly in and out ... doing the best you can to capture a decent photo! I have taken heaps from my camera ... and heaps also on my phone.  

And then it was time to go. We took one last drive in  our trusty car ... filled her with petrol and let the petrol station attendant clean the window (even though we didn't care anymore) and drove to the Walvis Bay International Airport.

Car dropped off (and incident report filled in for the cracked windscreen) we headed inside to get changed, do our final tidy up of hand luggage and swapped out clothes and checked in.

Walvis Bay International Airport is one terminal, one check in counter, one security scanner, one immigration counter and one arrival/departure gate. Today there are 3 incoming flights (total) and 3 outbound (returns to Cape Town and Jo’burg). So the entire departure process was super easy!!!

So now we wait for our plane to arrive from Johannesburg to take us to Johannesburg. We have 3 flights to get us home ... with Ian's 60th birthday happening amongst them!

There will be a final blog when we return home ... As always with a summary of our trip (who can correctly guess how many photos we took!) ... and our learnings.

Till then  ... much love from I and J ❤️