Sun 17th May. Day 7

We had to leave Camp Agama at 6.30am this morning to drive to our next destination, Swakopmund. We stopped at the Tropic of Capricorn sign for a quick photo and paid a visit to the "Valley of the Moon", a series of hills which was once a shallow sea-floor when Africa was joined to Australia. It didn't look much like the moon to me.

Swakopmund is a beach resort on the northwest coast of Namibia. It was founded in 1892 as the main harbour for German South-West Africa and many of the buildings display German colonial architecture. Tourism forms a major part of the town's economy, and the town is known for extreme sports, many in the surrounding sand dunes. The world's largest open-cast uranium mine was also developed nearby which led to the town becoming one of Namibia's most modern.

After arriving in town just before lunchtime, we headed first to "Desert Explorers" where we could sign up for any activities we wanted to do. After watching a promotional video, I decided to sign up for quad-biking and a tandem skydive. I'm not sure why I wanted to do the latter as I'm afraid of heights, and I was sober at the time so I couldn't explain it! We then checked into Amunpuri Traveller's Lodge, a proper bed for the next two nights, heaven! We had the rest of the afternoon free so I wandered into town for a look around. Since it was Sunday, most places were shut, but the German-styled architecture was nice to look at. It was very strange walking around town because you didn't see that many people out and about, some streets were practically deserted. The majority of streets were extremely wide and many of these had barely any traffic on them.

We all went back into town at 5.30pm and had a meal at a restaurant. I had springbok goulash and spatzle (some type of German noodles), which was ok but the meat was a bit fatty. We couldn't find a bar that was open so headed back to the hotel bar. This turned out to be a bad move when we saw the near-empty fridge!

Mon 18th May. Day 8

Today was adventure day! After a bacon and eggs breakfast, we were picked up at the hotel and taken to Desert Explorers. First off was quad-biking. We picked up our gear and were given ten minutes training. We all chose fully automatic bikes, just gas and front/rear brakes, although we were advised to use the rear brakes only unless we wanted to flip over.

The biking was pretty easy on flat sand, but not so easy on the dunes, especially going up and down the steep dunes. We did a lot of going up and down one side of the steep dunes, which tended to make you feel like the bike was going to tip over. We did all sorts of other manoeuvres with fancy names such as rollercoasters and spirals. After about 15 minutes, my thumbs had gone numb, probably due to the cold or gripping the handlebars too tight. We spent about 2 hours altogether out on the dunes, it seemed like ages. It was quite enjoyable, but having tried it now, I'm not sure I'd become a fan.

After the quad-biking, me, Doug and Soo were driven to the airstrip for our skydive. We had a safety briefing and then annoyingly had to wait around for over 2 hours since another group wanted to do some extra skydives. Soo and Doug went first but landed at the airport so I didn't get to see them again, then it was my turn! I was strapped up and got into the plane with the tandem instructor and the cameraman I'd paid to take a video of me during the dive. I didn't like heights and was pretty nervous, as could be seen from the expression on my face as we got closer to the exit point. At 10,000 ft, the door opened and the cameraman exited the plane, hanging onto the rear wing to film our exit. I was then strapped to the front of the tandem instructor and we edged towards the door. I was manoeuvred into a position so I was outside the plane with my feet underneath the plane and hands across my chest. No going back now! The tandem instructor then jumped. The first few seconds were crazy as we tumbled through the air and it was completely disorientating. When stable, with the instructor above me, we freefalled for about 30 seconds which was absolutely amazing, at speeds of ~220kph. Not having done it before, it was a struggle to hold your hands out in front of you, although the instructor was obviously used to it and could make thumbs up and other hand signals. The cameraman was filming slightly ahead of us. When the parachute opened, we were decelerated from 220kph to what then appeared to be virtually stationary with a massive whiplash action. It actually felt like you were suspended in mid-air when going down with the parachute open. The instructor gave me the "reins" and said that by pulling on either the left or right one, I could make the parachute swing in either direction. Obviously, for someone who had done a lot of skydives, it would get a bit boring just going straight down. However, when I tried swinging the parachute, the action was like a rollercoaster and started to make me feel like I was going to be sick so I soon stopped that. The landing was pretty easy and all I had to do was lift my legs when we came in to land. A short while later, we were on terra firm and after a great big whoop, it was all over! What a great thrill ride!

In the afternoon, I went into town and got a chicken and mushroom pie and chips. Then I went and did some shopping (another pair of sunglasses, which were rather pricey but that was all I could find) and found an internet cafe.

We went for an evening meal at the Neapolitan restaurant. We were warned that the meals would be huge and they were right, they were absolutely massive! I luckily only had a medium pizza and just about finished it. Looking around, most other people seemed to have half their meals left when they'd finished - it seemed wrong that so much food was being wasted in a country where so many people had so little.