Safaris and Wilderness Travel
Call us on: +44 1747 898 104
The Skeleton Coast Flying Safari is one of those memorable life experiences that you wish you could bottle, to pop open when the hustle and cacophony of civilisation gets too much – just to feel what silence and space feels like again. Each hour presents new surprises, and with the special interpretation provided by your guide, a member of the Schoeman family, the place comes to life.
It’s hard to sum up the Skeleton Coast succinctly. In general it is vast and breath-takingly empty. From the air, it possesses a whole new dimension. Ancient watercourses become striking patterns, like lace, spread beneath you. Rock formations created millions of years ago, are flung into relief in the late afternoon sun to resemble a sheaf of paper rippling across the earth. The bright stretches of ochre sand, the reds and purples of basalt mountains are all quite astonishing when you are seeing them with your own eyes. Photographs just can’t do it justice.
Sounding like something out of a pirate movie, the Skeleton Coast is indeed littered with the carapaces of ships that didn’t make a clean passage along this treacherous length of Africa’s Altantic coastline. Half-buried under sand, gnawed by rust and wind, the sculptured hulls have somehow become an apt memorial to man’s inability to tame the elements. Indeed, it’s not only the ships that give the place its name; human skeletons of those that failed to launch their boats back into the pounding surf have also been found here to add to the bones of whales and seals from commercial whaling and the fur-trade. Read more?
Sossusvlei is one of the best known areas of the Namib Desert. It is a large flat pan where the Tsauchab River is thwarted in its bid to reach the sea, by a swathe of red dunes. On good rain years, the river still follows this course and for a short while, visitors here will be met by the incongruous sight of a pool of water at the base of some of the world's highest dunes. But for most of the year, this is very much a desert. Huge dunes tower against the cobalt blue of the sky and from the top, views of the wave-like formation of sand extend to the horizon. Read more?
Catherine's long experience of, and enthusiasm for Africa, makes her a mine of travel information. Add to the mix her vivacious character and inscrutable attention to detail and there are few people you'd rather have plan your holiday.
