Lomography

Skeleton Coast - The Place Called Nowhere
written by disdis on July 10th, 2009 , 5 comments (4 votes)

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The Skeleton Coast is the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean coast of Namibia and south of Angola from the Kunene River south to the Swakop River, although the name is sometimes used to describe the entire Namib Desert coast. Many names have described this place, the Bushmen called it “The Land God Made in Anger”, Portuguese sailors once referred to it as “The Gates of Hell”. Both describes perfectly the place.

On the coast the upwelling of the cold Benguela current gives rise to dense ocean fogs for much of the year. The winds blow from land to sea, rain fall rarely exceeds 10mm annually and the climate is inhospitable as you can imagine.
The northern half of the park is a designated wilderness area.There are bleached whale and seal bones which cover the shore, as well as more than thousand skeletal shipwrecks. But it’s quite difficult to see them if you follow the rules. If you cross the line with your 4×4, your tracks will remain there for years. We checked people did’nt repect the rules and went into the desert or the beach with the car. I think it’s better not to do that in restricted areas. If you do that, you are changing the place. And this place should remain like it is with all its beauty.

You loose a great opportunity but you respect nature. What you can do (if you have money) is take an airplane and fly over the places with more vessels. Too expensive if you want to continue traveling. The coast is generally flat, occasionally relieved by rocky outcrops. The southern section consists of gravel plains, while north of Terrace Bay the landscape is dominated by high sand dunes.