Last bulletin from the light continent

It's now Tuesday and I am down in Walvis Bay, the real journey's end. I cycled the 30 something kms from Swakopmund yesterday.

Etymological aside: Walvis Bay is a corruption of 'Whalefish' Bay. Swakupmund is also Germanic and means the mouth of the river Swakup, a dried up sandy riverbed at this time of year. I'm passing on 'Swakup' itself.

It's a busy but unusual road. It runs between a few yards and a few hundred yards from the sea. Immediately inland are some of the biggest sand dunes in the world. They look like the way you imagine a desert when you are a kid: graceful drifts and peaks of pure sand.

You can go on sand dune safaris but I settled for the view from the road.. Also, unusually, it was a grey day. Today was another one to begin with - the sun is out now  - and it even drizzled a bit this morning  which is most rare for the Skeleton Coast. It's breezy and cool (for here); maybe 18 degrees C. It's almost as if I'm being reacclimatized for the UK. It's certainly not tropical.

Walvis Bay is a bit like Hull with flamingos. Basically it's a large port with all the grotty stuff that goes with a port: lorries, cranes, piles of containers, warehouses, seedy bars etc. It does have a nice side though,overlooking a lagoon where there the thousands of flamingos hang out. Adjacent to this was the original settlement. The oldest building is a small church, prefabricated in Hamburg, and erected here in about 1880.

Last night I got talking to John, father of two small kids, from Durban. He has come to Walvis Bay to ride The Donkey. Eh? Yes, I was puzzled too. He is a keen surfer and, at certain times of year, thanks to disturbances thousands of miles away in the Atlantic, powerful waves are driven ashore off Donkey Point, the far tip of the lagoon, which is just visible from town. Apparently the big waves I saw on Sunday were part of it.There is a lull at the moment but there are more rollers due tomorrow and the surfers are biding their time. Four of John's mates turned up ( another John, Gigs, Paul and Naude) and they whisked me off to Rafters Bar in their Land rover. Rafters Bar is a funny wooden building perched on stilts out on the lagoon. You get to it via a rickety walkway over the water. There was much mysterious talk of tubes and wipe-outs.....A friendly bunch though who love their hobby.

Today I've been shopping for a "tarp" to wrap my bike in and 50m of duct tape. The plan is, to cycle to the airport tomorrow morning, gift wrap my bike for South African Airways, tie my panniers together to make fewer items of luggage, then sit around and wait for my plane at 2 pm. From there it's a hop over Botswana to Jo'burg. A couple of hours later my flight leaves for Heathrow. As they say in Bruges, what could possibly go wrong?

So that's it, journey's end. It's been a wonderful trip for many reasons, most of which you will have read about. But mainly due to the kindness of many, many Africans of various hues, nationalities and languages, most of whom will never read this. But thanks anyway.

I'm relieved it's gone well and ready for home. I'm trying to imagine the relief of Fran Sandham when he got to the end of his year-long walk of the same route.

Even less can I guess how John Rolands (Henry Morton Stanley) felt when, after 999 days, his starving party of 77 people - all native Africans bar Stanley himself, the only other 2 whites having died - staggered into a tiny Portuguese outpost near the mouth of the Congo, having crossed the continent.

He had no maps, no communication with the outside world, no internet, no roads, no mechanical transport, no bottled water, no malaria tablets and no idea what he would find after the first few hundred miles. And then 10 years later he repeated the feat in the opposite direction and by a different route, taking  another 3 years.

John Rolands, workhouse lad from North Wales, I salute you. You were one of the greatest explorers.

Not quite done

I've decided blogging is good fun.

So, coming to a computer near you soon.....a new blog: SHALLOW THOUGHTS OF A YORKSHIRE WINDOW CLEANER.

Anyway, this one is not quite finished. Don't miss the epilogue. I also hope to throw in some photos with a little help from someone with more technical savvy. Thanks for reading.