Day 10: Walvis Bay

Monday 01 April 2019 | Distance travelled: 0km

Oh dear. Yawn. We're still in Walvis Bay. Yawn. Boy, this is getting tedious now. Yes, we are still busy. Yes, we not twiddling our thumbs, but we're really not seeing the whole spectrum of African life. In fact, we're seeing a very small selection of it, that is mostly European and mostly familiar. It's getting a bit Groundhog Day, but at least there's some pretty flamingoes and pelicans to looks at down in the lagoon.

Another day of preparations and actually it was well spent. We've finalised our insurance documents which is one of the big things that we need to have correct if we're stopped by the police or when we cross borders (if we indeed, ever cross a border). I've been in touch and spoke with a nice man called Latif, from Minet's Kenya. He's organised our insurance throughout the trip. There are two separate policies required, one for Material Damage (i.e. if we break something on the car) and one for Third Party Liability. The latter is compulsory across Africa and in every country save Namibia this will be plastered on our windscreen. The former is a single policy from Minets Kenya that should cover us all the way.

At dinner Isaac and Jason asked me about how I felt about the trip. Bored and frustrated, mainly. Despite the pile of work that we've done here - which arguably should have been done before we left - I can't help being annoyed that we're just sitting still. However, we have done work that couldn't really have been done much before now, because (a) we were forced to change our focus a few weeks before departure (I'll explain that more in a later post) and (b) the lab work only really started to pull together recently. So I should really feel more grateful.

Another frustration is time. We've been concertinared by JLR delivering us the car late and then needing to get finished by early May. When you add on another 7 days delay to the beginning of the trip, it just feels like wasted time. I'd rather be spending this down time later on in the trip, rather than here in Namibia, but that's life.

Unless there's a big problem, we should have the car tomorrow. I might blow a gasket if we don't! Ezra Byrne - a videographer - is joining us tomorrow for a few days and it'll be a real shame if he can't get some decent shots of us with the car, driving across the dunes and away from the coast.  It's been a bit of juggle trying to get him here, so I want to make sure he can get some decent footage.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.