WeLoveTravelling: Namibia Day 6 - Ghost Towns and Windswept Beaches

Woke up early to watch the sun rise over Luderitz. Walked up the hill from Zum Anker to the rusted old water tanks along the pipeline. The wind was already blowing a gale and it was chilly. Down in the bay below some fisherman were already at work checking the mussel nets. The sun rose and cast a beautiful pale light over the town.

Roused the rest of the troops and got breakfast on the go. Soon we were sitting down and enjoying poached eggs benedict and making plans for the day, to visit Kolmanskop and Diaz cross. As soon as we were ready we headed out for Kolmanskop on the road back to Aus. On arrival we paid the entrance fee N$75 which included the tour. The wind was getting stronger and it was an effort to simply get out the car without getting sand blown everywhere. We drove up to the town hall and hurried inside to join the rest of the tourists. Inside was a shop and cafe, and beyond the hall which included a stage and mezzanine level. At the back of the hall was a huge electrical switchboard, thank heavens these have got smaller with time! The walls were decorated with old photos of the townsfolk and important people. Around 9:30pm an effeminate man sporting a beard addressed us, he sounded exactly like Nataniel. He introduced himself, welcomed us and proceeded to play the piano and sing a song which was actually quite beautiful. He then split us into two tour groups and we joined Hariett for the English speaking tour.

She led us out of the town hall and past a line of buildings down an alleyway and into the shopkeepers home. This is one of the only buildings with any furniture in it, intended to give visitors a sense of how people lived. The tour group was huge and the room filled up completely. Hariett explained the origins of the town's name, named after a man named Kolman whose transport wagon broke down in the area. Diamonds were found in 1908 simply lying on the ground ready to be picked up, overnight Luderitz became a ghost town as the diamond rush kicked off. The town developed rapidly, becoming the most modern in Southern Africa at the time, but then an even richer trove of diamonds was found at the orange river mouth and the miners moved operations. A handful of remaining families maintained the town before finally abandoning the place to the elements.

The tour moved on to the building next door, the ice factory. Sea water (salt water has a higher freezing point than fresh water) was pumped all the way from the Atlantic to the town, where it was frozen by making use of ammonia gas. The ice was transported via a railway cart that ran through the town. The railway cart doubled as a taxi for the townsfolk. Not much remains of the ice factory apart from some rusted equipment.

Next door is the butchery, which included a walk in fridge cooled by the ice factory next door. Towards the back of the butchery are three ovens used for smoking and preparing sausages. The story goes that bowlers from the nearby bowling alley would get a bit peckish after a round of two of drinks, and raid the butchery for sausages. The butcher, a shrewd man, instead of berating the perpetrators, would simply make a note of what was taken and issue an invoice the following day to the guilty parties who would always pay without a question.

Hariett led us out of the butchery and round the back of the town hall and into the museum for shelter from the wind. Though the windows she pointed out some houses on the the hill above, belonging to the engineer, the quartermaster, the accountant, the architect, the mine manager, the headmaster. There were also dormitories for housing the single workers. The museum itself contains rows of picture boards, showing mining equipment, workers, scenes of life in the town. The museum used to serve as a dinning room. We filed into the hall once more and Harriet showed off the gym equipment filling the middle of the room. The hall was the center of social life in the town, and would have been used for movies, plays and shows. A kitchen, with original tiles and ovens, at the back of the hall prepared the sumptuous feasts for banquets. This concluded the official tour and we were free to explore the rest of the town.

We headed up to the top of the hill and eventually reached the derelict swimming pool. The diving board was still set up but only sand filled the pool now. It was huge, at least 30 meters by 30 meters, 3 meters deep. We spent some time posing on the diving board, snapping pictures, and trying to avoid being blown over by the fierce wind. Next we made our way back down the hill and visited the first of the houses.

Inside the house is in remarkably good condition, aside from some missing floorboards, no glass window panes, and some faded paint. Sand fills the rooms, piled up in the corners. There is no shortage of photographic opportunity here and we all spent time trying to capture the perfect picture. We gingerly climbed the stairs to the first floor, the wooden staircase is still intact. The emptiness of the house leads one to imagine the lives that played out here in Kolmanskop. We wandered outside taking in the scenes.

Working our way back to the town hall we encountered a bath tub standing forsaken out in the open, the white enamel glaring harshly in the desert sun. It symbolized perfectly the lost opulence of the town, the abundance of water that it once held now lost forever to the thirsty desert.

We ventured into some more of the houses, filled to varying degrees with sand, in some rooms we had to crawl through the doorways to get between the rooms. The long line of dormitory rooms are particularly interesting, a maze of interconnected chambers filled with the fine sand. One of the rooms contains some graffiti of "miss Kolmanskop", a voluptuous diva posing by the seaside, the longings of some poor bachelor. Finally we stopped in at the bowling alley, still in mint condition, the skittles lined up for a strike.

Some of the group got a milkshake and others checked out the museum or took more photos. Eventually we got tired of the wind and made our way back to Luderitz for lunch.

Mid afternoon we headed out for Diaz cross south of Luderitz. The cross was planted by Diaz when he arrived in Luderitz in the 1400s on his way to the east in search of a trade route via tip of Africa. By the time we got there the wind had only got stronger. We only just managed to cross the wooden walkway to the rocky outcrop and scrambled up to the towering black stone cross without getting physically blown over. The views from the rocky outcrop were worth it.

Moving on we visited a few more bays in the area, including grossebucht, spotting flamingoes, springbuck & gulls.

As it started to get late we headed back into Luderitz and tried the fish shop one more time. Finally they had something fresh - angelfish, and we decided to buy some. At R24 for over a kilo, we couldn't go far wrong... On the way home we stopped in at the oyster bar for starters. The selection of oysters was fantastic, we tried fresh oysters, as well as grilled with bacon and blue cheese; Parmesan, lemon and herb; and garlic and cheese - everyone really enjoyed the experience.