Diamonds and Sands through the Ghost Towns.

 

 

21st and 22nd of August 2018

After an eventful couple of days in Aus we traveled further west to the town of Luderitz which is sandwiched between the barren Namibia Desert and the windswept Atlantic coast. It is a lovely town with many heritage buildings painted in all sorts of pastel colours.

We spent half a day just wandering around the town having a look at all the beautiful buildings and also the busy waterfront.

We also drove out to Agate beach and on the way went past a lake full of flamingos, some with bright pink plumage and others with just plain white plumage.

Luderitz was settled in around 1906 when diamonds were found on an island just off shore and as time went on more diamonds were discovered in land as well. The population swelled rapidly with many people chasing the allure of diamonds. A diamond mining town was set up not far inland from Luderitz called Kolmanskop and it was originally constructed as the Consolidated Diamond Mines headquarters.

It was a booming town and boasted among other things a casino, bowling alley, a hospital and a theatre with fine acoustics.

However after the slump in diamond sales after WW1 it’s heyday came to an end and by 1956 it was a ghost town and left to the mercy of the shifting desert sands. However due in the main part to the very low annual rainfall of around 20 millimetres there has been very little degeneration of the buildings so it is an absolute must to visit the old town. The old recreation hall is still in exceptional condition and houses a museum and cafe.

I really enjoyed looking around the town and we spent around four hours doing so.

On the way back to Aus we dropped in to an area where they are feeding out hay to feral horses due to the ongoing drought. They were all looking a bit light on and there seemed to be many stallions which were all sporting wounds from fighting over the few mares! Then it was back to Aus where we secured a camp site at Klein-Aus Vista for two nights while we marked time waiting to be able to get a camp site at Sesriem which is the jump off point for the 60 kilometre drive down to the Sossusvlei area.