The South Atlantic is a more turbulent stretch of water than its Northern cousin, abruptly striking the coastal desert of Namibia in a rage befitting this land's wilderness. Sheltered from this surge, the relatively placid inlet and unexpected wetland salt pans skirting the city of Walvis Bay are an ulterior oasis and a haven for birdlife from across Africa's driest landscapes.
Down the amicable sealed and tarred highway, hot enough to melt static tyres, one leaves the adventure port of Swakopmund and arrives in no time at all at Namibia's third largest city - a travel hub for visitors to the diverse Erongo region, separated from the mountainous greenery of the interior by the harsh flat rock and gravel wasteland of the Namib-Naukluft.
We were to head out across the Naukluft on a well-worn overland route heading south to the iconic red dunes and petrified trees of Sossusvlei, arguably Namibia's biggest attraction. Before we set off on that arduous journey we insisted on investigating the bizarre wetland reserves around Walvis Bay, for rumour had it that Greater and Lesser Flamingos flocked there in enormous numbers in the later summer.
Walvis Bay is a far more industrial city than Swakopmund, and has a starker realism to it. Having been out on a mission to find wildlife for the last few weeks, it was a jolt to return to a more down-to-earth place. A sudden reminder of our African surrounds came in the form of the northern townships that form a series of urban areas separated by blocks of desert heading into the city centre.
Namibian townships are safer by far than their South African counterparts, but the arresting sight of children walking barefooted in the scorching sand to play football with oil cans for goalposts, and a steady stream of the ubiquitous royal blue boilersuit-clad workers thumbing a lift at every intersection struck home a vision more reminiscent of urban South Africa than the Namibia we had encountered so far with its rural subsistence and game farming communities.
The government-issue cookie-cutter cinder block houses that have sprung up since the nineties, replete with a rusting Golf in the driveway, sparkling white washing on the lines outside and the corrugated aluminium shacks for the less fortunate perched precariously between them were a reminder that Namibia, for all its success of the last few decades, still plays host to grinding poverty. The country has been uplifted to some degree by the impressive booming tourism industry the nation has cultivated, but is still very much a work in progress.
As the focus of the desert salt, uranium and minerals trade, as well as a substantial fishing industry, Walvis Bay is a business centre in Namibia and local city players have gone out of their way to impress South African money flying in to make deals. We slid into town by a row of meticulously planted palms, conveniently hiding much of the bleaker township sprawl in a way one can only assume has been deliberate on behalf of trade-conscious local city planning, and in good time we were onto the compacted orange sand gridplan roads heading onto the seafront.
Parking up on a deserted quayside among expensive white-and-glass second homes, we were immediately treated to a fleet of circling Great White Pelicans moving in formation overhead. Below them, almost as white, we sighted the exotic dance of two Greater Flamingos chattering away at the shallow saltwater. The tide was out and the slick mud flats were causing difficulty for them as they attempted their iconic stride.
Crouching in the adhesive mud, we made the most of the telephoto range - a major problem photographing animals in the daytime in Namibia. The smooth surfaces of the expansive mud flats, salt pans and desert sands combined with the clear blue skies and intense heat are a recipe for potent mirages. The shimmer and air movement from even fifty metres away teases the camera's sensors in such a way that fully manual focusing and tracking becomes essential.
The severity of this effect is blunted most in the early morning, hence much of the commercial wildlife photography you will see from Southern Africa is shot in the very first or last light; the difficulty of photographing wildlife in this way in Namibia is an odd paradox given the abundance of light and relative ease of finding animals compared to other environments.
Frustrated with the aberrations of the light, we returned to the truck and began a slow crawl south out of town down to the eponymous lagoon, a protected calm body of water playing host to the exit of the Kuiseb River, which meanders across the country in a series of elaborate canyon formations. Beyond the lagoon lies the picturesque Sandwich Harbour, an adventure ground for off-road trucks where dunes cascade straight into the ocean.
The lagoon is dominated by shallow wetland reserve, immensely popular with local birdwatchers and a draw to those from further afield due to the highly endemic nature of the birds living there. Throughout the reserve tracks cross bridges between the multitude of muddy arms that surround the various water bodies. In among them trucks continuously move around servicing the salt processing plants established here.
Slight packed-mud walls fence off vast, shallow fields of drying seawater, tinted from white through pink and to a watery blood red - most with variously matured crusts formed on their surface. These salt cultivation pans are a vital industry in Walvis Bay, which supply some ninety percent of Southern Africa's salt for both domestic consumption and industrial processes.
Starting the car up I saw through the violent shimmer on the horizon a band of unfamiliar white and black - binoculars confirmed this was no mirage, but rather thousands of Greater Flamingos poised for take off from the water. Without a sound an enormous collective signal triggered a mass takeoff, flamingos flocking together and traveling south. We were agog, though the haze precluded any meaningful photography.
Pausing at a so-called safe zone, protected from the bustle of the giant salt trucks, we caught sight of several types of heron and a black-winged stilt picking through the mud. Turning back to the car I sighted one, five, twelve Lesser Flamingos wading in a roadside pond, rolling dunes behind them. Lessers are considerably rarer than their Greater cousins, but both flock to the Walvis lagoon. They performed their familiar dance before wading off.
Continuing along the road past a pile of salt, we rounded the bend and crossed a floating panel bridge (perhaps a bit too windy in hindsight), bringing us much closer to the remaining flamingos. Their fantastical appearance and rhythmic spinning are a beautiful spectacle, but the image that really sticks in my head is when these individuals took flight.
Airborne flamingos are a truly eyecatching sight - their spindly legs trailing as far back as their ridiculous necks protrude forward. The result is a breathtakingly graceful and aerodynamic flight, revealing the sharp black banding on their wings. An excellent opportunity to practice panning photography, which is a personal challenge I have set myself. I tracked them for as long as I could before they headed offshore to join the others.
Often thought of as a tropical animal, flamingos are in fact found the world over in shallow salty environments - surprisingly cold in some cases if you consider the large numbers populating the Sub-Antarctic coast of Chile and Argentina. Africa plays host to just these two species but they are found across the Sub-Saharan, from the classic flocks over the Great Lakes, up to the Sudan and down to the Cape coast.
Lesser Flamingos are at greater risk. Heavy metal poisoning of their breeding grounds in East Africa, combined with habitat loss in South-Central Africa and predation by an ever-expanding population of predators from baboons and big cats through to Marabou storks and snakes, has piled pressure on this species in a relatively short space of time. Wetland conservation programs in East Africa in particularly are desperately needed to protect this vulnerable and wide-ranging animal.
This highlights the problems of conserving animals spread widely over continents - seeing them thriving in a small pond in Walvis Bay gives the misleading impression they're doing well; but flamingos should flock in droves all over Africa's wetlands and their absence in other locations indicates a severe decline and problem for the species. Greaters fare much better but a threat to their survival in a similar fashion is entirely conceivable.
Sighting a few shovelers, herons and another family of black-winged stilts, we turned the truck around and began the slow crawl back through the wetland, hampered time and again by bird sightings and efforts to capture the eerie red water of the passing salt pans. White pelicans dominated the roadside again, though the severity of the sun had by this time brought the mirage issues to full bear.
We made a quick pre-desert stop at one of the many everyfood cafes found in Namibia, leaving with the obligatory meat pie, cold coke and an assortment of wooden animal trinkets. A doormat in the shape of Africa struck a chord; a heart emblazoned over the Southern tip reminded me of our place in the world and the love this land generates despite all the many problems of its story - past and present. As we sat another squadron of pelicans circled over a nearby golf course - wildlife is intertwined with the urban day to day in all places.
Returning to the weather-beaten grey and red concrete outposts of the city's suburbs, we broke away from the punitive urban speed limits and hit a glorious paved highway at full speed heading precisely east back into the dry wilds and the vastness of the Naukluft desert. The temperature soared - air conditioning is a luxury in the car, and absolutely appreciated upon returning back into the vehicle after I had to get out briefly to secure the rear step.
Almost synchronised to the moment the asphalt ran out and we hit the boulder strewn gravel of the desert road, I dabbed the radio tuner and instantly the car was filled with oviritjie ("of-ricky") - pounding, homegrown music exclusive to Namibia. I later learned the track is the song guaranteed to get everyone's nostalgia up and dancing at a Namibian nightclub or wedding - an effect understood the world over it seems.
I have a love of many Southern African styles - this predominantly Otjiherero and Oshiwambo language style of music is an instantly recognisable blend of keyboard demo, ultra-synthesised vocals, classic gospel instrumentation and an inherited squeezebox rhythm that is thoroughly Afrikaans in origin. The sound is unfamiliar, repetitive, bass-heavy at first but definitely at home blasting out on the long straight roads of the Naukluft.
We passed the permit-only entrances to Rooibank tribal lands and the Gobabeb - home to an astronomical field station making use of Namibia's incredible dark sky. The country has a quiet reputation as a mecca for celestial observation and protection of these unpolluted skies is a serious undertaking for a number of official bodies in the land.
Onward across the blazing Naukluft and its white rock formations. As the car chews up the miles it's easy to feel you're in some old episode of a sci-fi show, having landed and being the first explorer on the planet's surface. Not unreasonable as many shows are filmed out in this desert - a thought broken by watching an inbound safari truck whizz past in the opposite direction followed by a pall of white dust.
We hit the formations of the Kuiseb Canyon, an inland delta of erratically carved valleys, populated with a few trees and bushes and winding perilous gravel roads sharply falling and rising to and from the dry riverbeds below. We hoped to sight klipspringers and zebras, or even elephants, making the most of the canyon vegetation, but we had no such luck.
After what seemed an age we rose out of the final valley and, crossing into Khomas region, hit the Tropic of Capricorn. After the inevitable boundary-straddling photo next to the official sign (decorated, of course, with a bewildering array of foreign and nonsensical stickers and graffiti), we turned a sharp left near Cha Re through the gates of our stop for the night.
We were confronted with the sunset orange fighting blue-black shadows on distant peaks as the desert sand in front of us burnished into a furious red. Heading up to the hidden mud lodge at the curious half-way point of Rostock Ritz, we stopped suddenly in the sand to view a pair of Mountain Zebra crossing the path.
An unusual sight in the red dust, they picked fruitlessly through the rocks before heading off in a trot and we were left to pitch up for the night, sighting a pair of errant Korhaans and the dying last of Namibia's inimitable sunset spectacle from the rocks we were sleeping in the shadow of. It amazes me how much art this canvas of a landscape can do with so little. Our next stop was to take the ingredients of the land and create a true masterpiece.
All photography © Chris Milligan Photo. All views are my own. Seek local recommendations before photographing or approaching any wildlife.
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