Dan's Adventure

Following on from sandboarding I decided to go on a quad biking adventure the same afternoon. Three bikes were on offer, a fully manual, a semi automatic which didn’t require the use of a clutch and an automatic. The engine size of the automatic was half that of the manual and semi automatics, so obviously wouldn’t be able to go as fast, I therefore ruled it out straight away. Having never ridden a motorbike before I was not familiar with how to change gears, so the semi automatic seemed like the best option for me. Setting off towards the dunes myself and two others had some problems with gear changes, so a few stalls later we had been relegated from the fast group into the mid speed group. In truth, this suited me fine as I didn’t feel all the comfortable on the bike at all.

We spent the afternoon racing up and down dunes, going high up one side and turning back down the face. At times it felt as though I had lost control of the bike as the tail flipped from side to side in the loose sand, at others I thought I was going to roll back down the dune after getting stuck half way up due to lack of speed, it was a real adrenaline rush all the way. We covered a total distance of around 60km on the quad bikes, a circuit that started at the edge of Swakopmund and went out into the dunes, before coming back along the coast line. I still find it hard to believe that a town such as Swakopmund exists in such close proximity to the dunes, they just seem to stop as you get close to the town.