Text by Linda Baker & Ed Humphrey / Photographs by Paul van Schalkwyk 

A patchwork of small parks, conservancies and community forests, surrounded by densely populated villages with an elephant highway through it, is not an ideal mix for a conservation success story.  

Yet thousands of tourists are lured by Namibia’s enchanting north-eastern parks. Palm trees fringe exotic rivers, hippos grunt, elephants trumpet and a fish eagle calls overhead as a mokoro glides through a paradisiacal wilderness. While this is not the typical tourist image of Namibia, it does describe Namibia’s best-kept secret. 

Just twenty years ago, communities and authorities lived at loggerheads. Game numbers were critically low following the war for independence. Tourists were as rare as big game, and park facilities were in a dismal condition – if they existed at all. Residents faced poverty, joblessness and viewed wildlife as competing with them for valuable space and resources.

Parks were seen as playgrounds for the rich, benefiting Government and a few individuals.

North-eastern Namibia, an area once fraught with conflict, mistrust and poor management, has become a lucrative breadbasket for communities. Big game species are on the increase, ecosystems are protected, and tourism is flourishing. Authorities work hand-in-hand with park residents and neighbours to jointly manage contiguous landscapes.

How did this transformation come about?

Integrating management and development

The foresight of the Namibian Government, supported by Namibian-German development cooperation, has helped bring about this harmonisation. Through the Bwabwata-Mudumu-Mamili (BMM) Parks Project orchestrated by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET), a blend of meticulous integrated planning, development of new infrastructure and a focus on the needs of park staff, residents and neighbours has resulted in a winning recipe that provides inspiration for  parks across the continent. This is supported by the Federal Republic of Germany through the German Development Bank (KfW).

The project is also central to the ecological and economic development of the KAZA TFCA – the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.

Spread across the Kavango and Caprivi regions, the Bwabwata, Mudumu, Mamili and Khaudum national parks are part of ‘a new generation of parks’ that symbolise a fresh approach to conservation and development.

In tandem with the country’s award-winning Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Programme, the Namibian Government, through the MET, has formulated legislation and policies that enable local communities and other stakeholders to have a say in how parks and adjoining areas are managed.

Initiated in 2006, the BMM Parks Project has built a framework to effectively manage a mosaic of areas, turning them into larger, more sensible economic units that are creating jobs and helping to reduce poverty. The Project encourages authorities, neighbours, residents, NGOs and the private sector to work together.

Good plans make good parks

Sound planning has helped the BMM Project turn challenges into opportunities. The first step was to develop strategies that guide short and long-term park management.

Management plans set the policy framework to guide park management. Issues addressed include trans-boundary challenges, fire management, tourism operations, wildlife migrations and other such activities. The plans effectively provide staff with roadmaps for moving forward confidently.

Caprivi elephant sign. Photo ©Paul van Schalkwyk.

The plan builds on and extends existing MET planning procedures, while park-level management systems guide annual and monthly work activities, development plans and park zoning. Monitoring tools include the Incident Book System. Emphasis is placed on mentoring and training staff, with technical support from MET; BMM, its sister programme Strengthening the Protected Area Network (SPAN) Project; and other partners.

Business plans indicate the economic viability of conservation activities and planned developments. They recommend restructuring of the north-east parks budget and staff establishment.

Ironically, the very species that attract tourists to the area are the major culprits in causing conflict with people.

Within and alongside the Kavango and Kwando rivers lurk ever-growing numbers of hippo and crocodile, while lion, spotted hyaena, African wild dog and leopard roam the bushveld.

Growing numbers of elephants – known for destroying crop fields and occasionally killing people – criss-cross a mosaic of protected areas stretching across international borders.

It is an implicit guiding principle in the BMM Project that the communities that bear the brunt of conflicts with wildlife should benefit maximally from their presence.

A comprehensive tourism plan is aimed at turning wildlife such as elephants from a liability into a valuable economic resource. It seeks to optimise tourism while protecting important riverine and wetland habitats. Development opportunities are prioritised for award to neighbouring and resident communities. Lodges, campsites, trophy hunting and guided walks, drives and boat trips are some of the opportunities identified in the tourism plan.

Development opportunities are prioritised for award to neighbouring and resident communities. Lodges, campsites, trophy hunting and guided walks, drives and boat trips are some of the opportunities identified in the tourism plan.

Caprivi elephant. Photo ©Paul van Schalkwyk.

A trophy-hunting concession in Bwabwata National Park has already netted more than N$4 million for park residents. A new lodge bordering Mamili National Park has injected income into the local economy and provided jobs for many local people.

Properly managed, concessions could create up to 600 new permanent jobs with an annual wage bill of about N$25 million. Around N$13 million could be earned from concession fees, which could help to sustain conservation activities around parks while creating new jobs and reducing poverty.

Additional annual income of about N$2 million from park-entry fees will be added to state coffers, some of which will be redirected into conservation programmes. Through concession and park fees, wildlife is effectively paying its board and lodging for the land it inhabits.

Bwabwata, which encompasses the old Caprivi Game Park and Mahango Game Reserve, posed a significant challenge when it was proclaimed in 2007. The area had acted as a strategic base for the South African Defence Force during the War of Independence. Conservation officials had been banned from their own parks, and virtually no infrastructure remained after the departure of the army.

It also houses more than 5 500 people within its borders, most of whom are marginalised Khoe Bushmen. Decades ago, heavy-handed authorities would have forcibly removed residents and settled them somewhere far from their homes. But today’s the approach is to seek ways for people and wildlife to live side by side.

Known as landscape-level planning, partners develop holistic land management plans for extensive areas. They are helping to manage wildlife, fire, wildlife diseases and crime.

The BMM Project has forged strong partnerships with existing programmes and NGOs on the ground to support common objectives. Integrated planning forums help manage and develop various parks.

At regular Bwabwata Technical Committee meetings, stakeholders have a say in how wildlife and other resources are managed. A natural resource-management working group looks at issues inside the park.

Bwabwata’s integrated management approach is blazing a trail for national and regional environment and development management initiatives to follow.  

Several other collaborative forums exist, including the Mudumu North, Mudumu South and Khaudum North complexes. These involve communities in integrated park planning and development, and address matters of mutual concern. Notwithstanding teething problems in some areas, these forums allow stakeholders from various agencies to share information about their activities and prepare collaborative work plans for joint actions.

Local Caprivi community. Photo ©Paul van Schalkwyk.

Co-ordinated land-use practices encompass neighbouring conservancies and community forests to improve the resource base and provide new economic opportunities. Known as landscape-level planning, partners develop holistic land management plans for extensive areas. They are helping to manage wildlife, fire, wildlife diseases and crime.

Along with effective planning, the BMM Parks Project and MET have equipped parks with workable infrastructure and provided park managers and workers with the right management tools and equipment. They believe that investment into staff by improving infrastructure, supplying the right equipment, and providing training and mentorship gives incentive for staff to manage the parks better.

Offices and visitor facilities are being built and water, sewer and electricity provided. Staff who previously lived in ramshackle wooden structures have moved into spacious modern, eco-friendly houses, complete with recycled building material, bio-gas and solar energy. 

Mahango was the first model park station to be constructed. Similar stations are currently being built at Susuwe, in eastern Bwabwata and at Ngenda in Mudumu National Park.

Staff have received new vehicles and boats – these are invaluable for patrols and extension work.

Placing the north-eastern parks on the map also helps position them within KAZA, Africa’s largest conservation area. This is a joint initiative of the governments of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with support from the Federal Republic of Germany through KfW and internationally recognised NGOs like Peace Parks Foundation.

Despite containing iconic destinations such as the Victoria Falls, Okavango Delta, Tsodilo Hills, Chobe National Park and the Zambezi, Kavango, Kwando/ Linyanti and Chobe rivers, this ‘five-countries’ region is relatively underdeveloped.

KAZA is aimed at broadening the protected-area network, increasing biodiversity, expanding historical migration routes and attracting more tourists while providing opportunities for socioeconomic development. Cross-border dialogue and co-operation is vital for regional conservation and development.

Researchers and managers are focusing on essential ecological processes that maintain the biodiversity of the woodlands and other habitats that cross boundaries and borders. Under the microscope are wildlife dispersal, seasonal and longer-term elephant movements, rainfall and fire variability, water availability and variable vegetation structure. 

Challenges for integrated park management

Finding long-term, sustainable solutions to human-wildlife conflict are a major challenge. So too is financing activities from translocations to collaborative forums and KAZA beyond the lifespan of the BMM Parks Project and other donor projects.

Hippo in the Zambezi. Photo ©Paul van Schalkwyk.

Maintaining management actions, a sense of ownership and empowerment at individual protected area level – which has been the foundation for successful CBNRM in Namibia – is another test for the approach. Increased collaboration at national and regional level must not be pursued at the expense of local-level action, but in addition to it.

Yet integrated park management clearly proves that when stakeholders work together to address common challenges, including poverty through local economic development, the conservation of important biodiversity and landscapes can be sustainably achieved. Thousands of empowered people actively conserve their environment and wildlife – and benefit from it. This has transformed the local economy and is helping Namibia to reach its development goals.

BMM Fact Box           

• BMM Parks Project receives financial assistance from the Federal Republic of Germany through KfW and is housed within the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
• Started in 2006, the project is in its second phase. A third phase will embrace development in and around the Khaudum National Park. 
• Bwabwata, Mamili and Mudumu are surrounded by 11 conservancies and three community forests.
• The BMM Project is a sister programme to the Strengthening the Protected Area Network (SPAN) Project.
• For further information visit:

http://www.met.gov.na/Directorates/Parks/Pages/BwabwataMudumu-Mamiliproject.aspx

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They seldom leave their home areas and maintain, even in their dress, a tradition of their own, on which other cultures have made little impression. For many centuries they have lived a relatively isolated existence and were not involved in the long struggle for pasturelands between the Nama and the Herero to any noteworthy extent.

The largest group of Kaokovelders is the Himba, semi-nomads who live in scattered settlements throughout the Kunene Region. Tall, slender and statuesque, they are characterised especially by their proud yet friendly bearing.

The women especially are noted for their unusual sculptural beauty, enhanced by intricate hairstyles and traditional adornments. They rub their bodies with red ochre, mixed with a myrrh resin from the commiphora plant (which they call omumbiri) and fat, a treatment that protects their skins against the harsh desert climate and gives their skin a hue of rich reds. 

Himba jewellery is made from iron or shell and are popular amongst western tourists who admire the integral artistry behind the body adornments displayed by Himba men and women. 

The homes of the Himba of Kaokoland are simple, cone-shaped structures of saplings, bound together with palm leaves, and plastered with mud and dung. The men build the structures, while the women mix the clay and do the plastering.

A fire burns in the headman’s hut day and night, to keep away insects and provide light and heat. A family may move from one home to another several times a year to seek grazing for their goats and cattle. 

The staple diet for Himbas in traditional villages consists mainly of porridge made from maize and milk. Meat is eaten, but it’s a precious commodity that stems from the main wealth of the Himba – their cattle. 

Several accommodations in the far north-west of Namibia and tour operators offer guests the chance to visit Himba villages in order to meet and experience this honourable group of people. 

For excursion ideas find it right here on TravelNewsNamibia.com

• Opuwo Country Hotel 
• The spirit of Epupa
• Grootberg Lodge
• Kunene Campsite Journal 
• Khowarib campsite 
• Discover the wonders of Kaokoland 

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It’s hard to believe that more than five centuries ago Portuguese sailors caught sight of the empty sands of Namibia’s coast and sailed away, never to return. Today visiting Europeans, who can’t find a single metre of beach at home that is not occupied by an oiled compatriot baking under a beach umbrella, will think they are either time travelling, already in heaven… or holidaying on Namibia’s Atlantic coast.

Flamingoes at Walvis Bay

From Lüderitz in the far south all the way north to the Skeleton Coast, Namibia’s Riviera is lined with endless sand beaches, punctuated by fascinating towns and settlements. Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, the largest of these, offer dozens of activities to visitors all year round. And, for a tempting respite after travelling in the Namib, the temperature on Namibia’s Riviera is much cooler than in the desert.

Namibia’s coast offers sunbathers, anglers, walkers and horse riders remote stretches of sand as well as beaches with services nearby. In Swakopmund, the public beaches are close to restaurants, swimming pool, hotels and shops, while the more isolated beach at Landstrand Holiday Resort, owned by the City of Walvis Bay, offers tidal pools and wide beaches with facilities on site.

Pelican.

North of Swakopmund dozens of kilometres of undisturbed beaches attract campers and anglers. Hotels on the rapidly developing north side of Swakopmund, and in the little town of Henties Bay and at Cape Cross, are ideal for those wanting to take long walks or go fishing in remote areas. Camping areas situated between Walvis Bay and the Skeleton Coast Park allow travellers to enjoy their own private stretch of beach.

The Namibian coast is a paradise for ecotourism.

Lüderitz, an isolated and mysterious coastal town in the south, is home to a variety of aquatic birds, seals, dolphins and some of the best seafood in Namibia. While its windy beaches and ocean are usually too cold for anyone other than the most intrepid of swimmers, they are unspoiled, with ever-changing colours and light patterns.

Hentiesbay coastline.

Sandwich Harbour, about 50 kilometres south of Walvis Bay, an unusual fresh-water lagoon, is a bird sanctuary overlooked by massive dunes. Legend has it that before silt cut off access to the sea, a treasure ship ran aground and lies buried somewhere in the mountains of sand. But nature lovers outnumber fortune hunters as the primary visitors to Sandwich Harbor. Access is only by four-wheel-drive vehicle and a permit is required.

Boat tours out of the port of Walvis Bay take visitors into the Walvis Bay lagoon, the most important wetland for coastal birds in Southern Africa. Often departing in dense morning fog, the boats cruise to view flamingos, dolphins, seals, and also the wonderful and eccentric Bird Island, a man-made guano atoll. Before returning to port, most boats put to anchor to offer fresh Namibian oysters and sparkling wine to sailors in glittering sunlight.

Seals

The Cape Cross Seal Reserve, 130 kilometres north of Swakopmund, is unparalleled on the coast of Southern Africa – up to 250 000 seals congregate on the rocky outcrop, diving in and out of the water to hunt for fish. Hundreds of birds fly overhead, while jackals on the hunt can be seen slipping in amongst the teeming mass. Visitors are able to get a close-up look at – and a whiff of the aroma of – this incredibly crowded animal colony as they fish, mate, give birth and sun themselves on the rocks.

The crown of Namibia’s shoreline is the Skeleton Coast Park, a 16 400-square-kilometre national park with controlled entry, known for its 500 kilometres of protected coastline, where visitors may see shipwrecks and soaring sand dunes, along with extraordinary animals and wildlife.

Park-managed accommodation includes a resort at windswept Terrace Bay and a camping ground at Torra Bay. The northern section of the Skeleton Coast Park is restricted to fly-in safaris.

Skeleton coast entrance gate

Swakopmund, founded more than a century ago by German settlers, is quaint and thriving. Shops and boutiques, restaurants, art galleries and an upmarket hotel with casino sit amid the green grass and palm trees of this coastal oasis. While original German architecture gives an incongruous feel to this African town, it is precisely the confluence of cultures that makes Swakopmund – and Namibia in general – so interesting.

From Swakopmund it’s possible to sign up for a camel or horse-back ride into the desert, take a beach buggy excursion to the beach, or set off on a safari. Quad-biking in the extraordinary dune belt between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay is not only great fun, but offers a memorable view of Namibia’s 1 100-kilometre coastline. Rossmund golf course, 10 kilometres inland from Swakopmund, is an 18-hole grass course within a desert setting, one of the most unusual in Southern Africa.

Shipwrecks off the Skeleton coast

Further south at Lüderitz, founded in 1883, there is world-class wind surfing, and also a challenging desert golf course that appeals especially to adventurous golfers. Distinctive German colonial buildings line the streets, perched on the rocks overlooking the bay, where penguins and seals can often be seen leaping in the waves. Ten kilometres inland is the strange and eerie ghost town of Kolmanskop, where the first diamonds were found in 1908. In the heyday of the town the citizens led sophisticated lives, enjoying pleasures such as French champagne chilled by ice shipped in from northern climes, until the diamond fields played out and the high life came to an end.

No matter where on Namibia’s Riviera you travel, there is something extraordinary to experience. Don’t miss it. 

This article was originally published in the Flamingo December 2007 magazine. 

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Wind: Fresh northerly to northwesterly at times over the southern half.

Coast: Partly cloudy and mild with morning fog patches, but fine and hot in the south becoming cloudy in the evening.

Wind: Moderate northwesterly to southwesterly, but fresh northeasterly to westerly at times in the south.

Tides at Walvis Bay:

H: 10H08       L : 16H05       H :22H18

Sunrise in Windhoek: 06H30  Sunset in Windhoek: 17H16

Source: Namibia Meteorological Service 

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‘The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.’

Mark Twain

Boyhood memories of family holidays often involve Dad and fishing. But as you travel back to all the times in your life you’ve stood with rod in hand, a collection of good feelings present themselves. Blue skies, warm sun, shining water, the feeling of standing with the sea crashing nearby, a finger on the line in the water, feeling for a bite. You feel the movement of the waves and are connected to the huge ocean world. The lucky catch is only part of the experience; it’s also about being out there in nature where the sea, space and planet work their magic.

Namibia is a popular fishing destination. The Benguela ecosystem, rich in plankton, offers prime fishing for cold-water fish. There is the option to fish from the beach or from a boat. Fishing for the coppershark, referred to informally as bronzy, is a popular option by boat, giving the angler the thrill of fighting for a catch and the elation of release. Namibian regulars, kabeljou, steenbras, blacktail and galjoen can be caught, and when the season is right, also snoek. Shore fishing depends on currents, tides and temperatures. Casting out further, the fish have more of a chance to nibble bait and swim your line into underwater rock gardens.

Driving from Swakopmund to the beaches north of Wlotskasbaken, a settlement of simple houses with water tanks dotting the desert sand, we drove through flat land with lichen fields and salt bushes. The guide from Ocean Adventures and Angling Tours, a family-run outfit based in Swakopmund, was equipped with rods and different kinds of bait appealing to the various fish appetites, from mussels to mackerel, and coolboxes and lunchpacks for the land animals. The only requirement for guests is hats, sun cream, a good sense of adventure and humour, the latter always an advantage.

Photo ©Ron Swilling

I took my shoes off and dug my toes into the burgundy-and-black pigmented sand, rich with minerals glittering in the sun. We baited our rods with mussels to attract galjoen, blacktail and steenbras, the second hook with sardines for kabeljou, and cast our lines, travelling from gully to gully down the beach. First catch was an undersized galjoen, quickly thrown back as required by the fishing regulations pertaining to minimum and maximum size. Permits allow the angler to catch a quota of ten fish per person per day of a particular size, but only two of a species if exceeding a maximum size, so as not to deplete the breeding stock.

Next catch was a good size kabeljou, considered the tastiest eating fish of all and kept for an essence-of-the-sea supper over coals. The sea crashed and the mysterious underwater world became more and more enthralling. Although the bait is selected to lure a certain fish, lady luck and chance work together, invoking the excitement of a gambler about to turn over his cards.

Photo ©Ron Swilling

With rods well-balanced and swaying in the current, I relaxed, taking deep breaths of fresh salty sea air. I focused on the here and now: kelp gulls watching for opportune moments, mussel inners shining iridescent against the purple colours of the shell, miles of beach decorated with bird and black-backed jackal tracks, stray feathers and seaweed strands like long knotted hair twisted on the sand. The thick mist bank on the horizon above the sea swayed in a dance, vacillating between whether to retreat or advance into the day, gulls cried and the sea symphony encompassed all with its enduring music. The sun shone down, supper was in the cooler and life felt good.

My rod jerked and pulled, the two worlds of air and water meeting through nylon and steel. Reeling in, a blacktail glittered, surprised at the world above and its unexpected fate. The guide looked at me and enquired whether I would like to keep or release the fish. I said release, and he deposited it back into the waves on the water’s edge. It hesitated, righted itself, the sun catching its scales, and in a flash of flight disappeared into the sea.

As I watched it zip through the water, free and alive against all odds, I felt satisfied. It was a fitting ending for a day of good hours spent fishing and communing with nature.

This article was originally published in the December 2007 Flamingo magazine. 

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A flurry of tiny sparkling wings laces the air as nuptial dancers are buoyed by the earthy dank vapour rising from the rain-soaked Namib plains. Honeymooners start small, digging tiny holes in the ground. Over time, their families grow and establish open circular dance floors. Here they dance incognito until, one day, they encountered He who Dances with Fairies.

As every Namib toktokkie knows, the fairies are tiny, dainty sand termites, Psammotermes allocerus, which build fairy circles. Their aerial nuptial dances are real enough, but the bare patches, fairy circles, which they create on the ground around their nests, are not dance floors, but farms. The termites eat grass roots, which kills the grass and clears a bare patch, which gradually gets bigger over the course of years.

Fairy circles by Carmen Begley

When it rains – the little that it does – all rainwater falling onto the bare circles infiltrates deep and becomes storage of water for the termites themselves. This is different outside the bare circles, where the rapid germination and growth of grass quickly uses up most water. At the edges of circles, the stored water is also accessed by deep-rooted grass, and where otherwise only short-lived ephemeral grass would have grown, the grass can now continue to grow perennially, year after year. The termites continue to nibble on the fresh grass roots of a belt of sturdy grass right next to the bare patch. Thus, the termite colonies have secured water and food for themselves. Good farming!

Sand termites are what scientists call allogenic ecosystem engineers. They change materials and structures in their environment in such a way that the ecosystem functions differently, affecting not only many other species, but processes across entire landscapes. Termites live in colonies of vast numbers, and they make circles across landscapes in vast numbers. Where fairy circles occur, what would otherwise be ephemeral desert grassland, now contains many patches of green perennial grass.

This is also food for many, such as springbok, gemsbok, livestock, and small herbivores. Other animals come for the termites themselves or their stored water, such as golden moles, aardvark, aardwolf, jackals, foxes, geckos, spiders, scorpions, sun-spiders, giant velvet mites, and plenty of different ants that raid the termite colonies. Not to forget, Toktokkie, gets seeds that drop from the rich belt of grass tufts at the circle edges. Toktokkie larvae thrive in the moist sand, thanks to the termites.

Fairy circles have in the past inspired numerous explanations, everything as wondrous as fairy tales, indeed, becoming ever curious and curiouser, though meant to be serious and factual. Scientists have, for decades, been staring holes in the ground in their efforts to find the solution. It took many years of patient, meticulous and astute observations by Norbert Jürgens to see through the fairies’ cryptic ploy.

Zophosis moralesi is awed by our real-world termite fairies, tiny creatures transforming vast tracts of land for the benefit of so many, let alone giving us the unimaginable privilege of being able to dance with fairies.

©Joh Henschel, EnviroMEND, joh.henschel@mweb.com.na, June 2013

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Wind: Fresh northeasterly at times over the western half.

Coast: Partly cloudy and mild with morning fog patches, but fine and hot in the south.

Wind: Moderate northwesterly to southwesterly, but fresh northeasterly to southerly in the south

Tides at Walvis Bay:

H: 09H07       L : 14H54       H :21H15

Sunrise in Windhoek: 06H30  Sunset in Windhoek: 17H15

Source: Namibia Meteorological Service 

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Sophia Dale Basecamp, located next to the Swakop River 12 km east of Swakopmund beyond the dreaded mist belt, is where you will feel completely at home with the Lütz family.

After falling in love with the uncomplicated lifestyle Namibia offers (having travelled only 25 km along the route to Boshua Pass), the Lütz family bought the Sophia Dale Basecamp, packed up their life in Germany, and moved to Namibia.

They added a luxury B&B section, restaurant and beer garden to the existing package, did extensive revamps of the self-catering rondawels – The Royal House – and expanded the facilities to include a spacious campsite and canopied parking spots for mobile homes. “We’ll make sure you feel well taken care of – regardless of the accommodation you choose. We strive to provide our guests with just the right mix of hospitality and service in our endeavours to make visitors feel not only at home, but also that they are right where they belong.”

The kitchen is where Manfred blooms – he calls it his dance floor – while wife Michaela adds the soft side to the business.

Here homemade German-speciality sausages and game meats are king, forming part of the breakfast option, and are for sale. Manfred learned the tricks of the meat-producing trade from his father, who also taught him to make ‘the German answer to Namibian droëwors’, a dried meat speciality of game and pork cuts with beef and pork fat and just the right amount of special spice. “My version doesn’t stick to your palate,” he boasts. He is also a qualified Master Butcher.

Think salami, fleischwurst, jagdwurst, blut wurst, leberwurst, sülse, meatloaf, leberkäse, cabanossi, bierknacker, wieners, meatballs… Have a German-food fantasy! Manfred will bring it to life.

Don’t forget to ask about the Padkos options and sample the all-time favourite: filet steak with garlic butter, fresh Swakopmund asparagus and crispy chips! As Manfred says, “Fresh from the field, through the oven, and straight onto your plate!”

Also, every Thursday, Sophia Dale hosts the local German Club’s food evening, with local food fundis coming over from neighbouring farms to enjoy a range of German delicatessen and specialities. Visitors in the self-catering facilities can order fresh rolls and hot filter coffee in a flask the night before, and enjoy a pleasant wake-up call the next morning. Or buy some sausages to take along on the rest of your journey – vacuum-sealed and perfect for camping. Manfred also concocts a well-flavoured goulash soup – also sealed and packaged for your convenience in the form of a large plastic sausage.

The Lütz family feels at home in Namibia. The feeling is infectious – join in and make Sophia Dale your home for a night, a week, or for however long you want!

www.sophiadale.org

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First, there were teeming whales until droves of whalers came. Then it went quiet. A century later, whales slowly began to come back. No whalers. Does the recent arrival of a gray whale at Walvis Bay indicate that whales are again having a whale of a time?

As every Namib toktokkie knows, the Benguela Current is very productive, and supports extraordinarily high biodiversity, a complexity covering the range from bacteria to whales. Speaking of the latter, Walvis Bay is not only known as whale bay for historic reasons. Today, the bay is still very important for cetaceans (whales and dolphins). Bottlenose dolphins frequent almost the entire bay and Heaviside dolphins favour the waters beyond the tip of Pelican Point.

Photo ©John Paterson

Of the baleen whales, humpback and southern right seasonally frequent the bay, and various other cetaceans come from time to time. This is the last station in life for some stranded, injured, traumatised or ill individuals, though some recover in this haven and can again have a whale of a time. Thanks to diligent monitoring by the Namibian Dolphin Project and the Walvis Bay Strandings Network, our knowledge of cetaceans and ability to improve their conservation is improving.

Now, along comes this one gray whale. Until the end of the 17th century, this species used to occur in the North Atlantic Ocean. Then, whaling drove the Atlantic population to extinction, and only one individual was seen there since (in the Mediterranean in 2010). Populations still persist in the North Pacific. Gray whales are masters of migration, their annual movements from Alaska to Mexico and back again amounting to some 20 000 km. That total distance, but one-way, is about as far as it is from the gray’s Pacific range to Walvis Bay, by whatever route.

Photo ©John Paterson

Not only is the distance an amazing feat, imagine the many risks it has somehow skirted, including risks of entanglement and fatal injuries from fishing gear, collisions with boats and ships, and ingestion of polluted mud in unfamiliar feeding grounds. Gray whales feed on small benthic creatures, such as amphipods and polychaete worms, which they filter from the mud of shallow seas. Our gray whale is rather skinny. Hopefully it can feed from the sulphurous mud.

But it may be cut off from its kind. Gray whales emit low-frequency grunts, rumbles, moans, croaks, and loud clicks and bangs to communicate. The oceans have, however, become so terribly noisy that it is difficult for whales to communicate. In particular, seismic and sonar blasts for mineral prospecting and other nautical purposes can damage whale hearing and drive them away. Individuals may disperse to remote havens where they while their days away alone and isolated from their population. Our gray whale’s story is, however, not yet over. We can only hope that it will somehow reconnect with companions.

Zophosis moralesi is delighted that here is a haven for cetaceans to have a whale of a time. Let’s foster Walvis Bay, true to its name.

©Joh Henschel, EnviroMEND, joh.henschel@mweb.com.na 

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