Swakopmond

What a change. Swakopmond is a microcosm of a Germanic township transhipped to Africa.  There is as much German spoken here as English. There were white faces of both tourists and locals in the streets. The streets are neat, tidy and have trees, flowers and grass in the central vegetations. There are modern individual houses surrounded by manicured gardens with trees and palms for shade. They had garages and cars were mostly parked in garages and the driveways and streets opposite the houses are free of parked vehicles. There were street lamps. The streets were clean and free of litter and of dust despite being in a desert area. The cars were modern recent designs, clean, shiny with recently waxed surfaces sparkling in the sun.

There was industry and commerce areas arranged in neat industrial estates. There are clean logoed delivery vehicles dropping off goods. The people were well dressed and would not look out of place on any European city street. Workers wear company logoed uniforms or overalls. People have shoes and none of the clothes were dirty, threadbare or torn.

The buildings were all neatly painted and well maintained. The roads are set out in an orderly grid pattern and all had their names on signs at every corner, something that I realised that I had not seen in Africa over the previous four months of travel. Despite being largely of modern designs, there was a distinct Bavarian or Germanic feel. Most of the city is single or two storey with just a few buildings in the central business district being three stories. There were several church spires of Catholic and Lutheran churches. Except for a few street names of famous local African celebrities, you might think that you were in an Bavarian Alpine town.

A street scene.

 The Otavi railway station, now a vegetarian restaurant and garden centre.

 Another view of the former station with some railway paraphernalia.

Another of the buildings on site, the Omeg Hall. The railway was completed in 1902 and connected the harbour at Swakopmond to the mines operated by Otavi Mineral Exploration Gesellschaft.

 I visited the local museum down by the harbour which was fascinating. I took this picture of a stuffed pangolin as most people have never seen one and some of you have emailed me about it.

 This is the former main station, now a four star hotel.

The reception area of the hotel which is as it was when it was a railway station.

 The bar in the hotel and again it is as it was when it was built.

 This is the replacement station built when the hotel bought the original station. But this is now not used as the tracks have been realigned and now do not even reach this station. The new station is still being built and is currently just a concrete base and work has been stopped as there are no plans to reintroduce any passenger services.

And despite seeing a lot of tracks and being in Namibia for over a week, this to date is the only rolling stock that I have seen.