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Something large and ungainly was lying just above the high-water mark on a beach in Skeleton National Park. Some vehicles had driven past, probably because the brown lump looked like one of the many tree trunks that get deposited on the beaches. But then the ‘trunk’ turned out to be a young bull southern elephant seal. The bulky marine mammal seemed unperturbed by the people around him.

The year started with various groups of Gondwana Employees making their way to the Kalahari Farmhouse for the 2018 Gondwana Training Academy. The Lodge Group invites promising employees from all over the country. A total of 220 of Gondwana’s 850 employees will participate in the Academy this year.

Visitors to the coast sometimes find penguins on the beach that seem to be sick and try to put them back into the water. When the little fellows look scruffy and unhappy they are not sick but in moult. A number of these flightless birds are sometimes brought to Swakopmund or Walvis Bay where they eventually make it to Dr Sandra Dantu and in Lüderitz to the rehabilitation centre of the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

Remarkable sound effects were emanating from the grounds of the Gondwana Travel Centre in Windhoek on Friday, 19 January. The noise of hammering and sawing mingled with peals of laughter as some 70 staffers deserted their desks and rolled up their sleeves for some manual work. It was an afternoon of teambuilding, the highlight of the entertaining exercise was a group project to construct small, portable vegetable gardens. All the effort was for a good cause: the little vegetable gardens were handed to the Mammadù Trust.

Aus is situated 125 km east of Lüderitz on the fringe of the Huib Plateau in the Namib Desert. If you make time for a closer look at this little village of 1,200 inhabitants (in 2011) you will discover a memorial stone at the riverbank next to the old railway station from German colonial times. The stone is a good two metres high, but there is no commemorative plaque... In whose honour was this monument erected? 

Leave it or go for it? When it comes to planning a trip and deciding on accommodation, TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel site is a popular source of information. Four of our lodges received the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for the excellent reviews posted in 2017: Kalahari Farmhouse, The Delight Swakopmund, Namib Dune Star Camp and Eagle's Nest Chalets of our marketing partner Klein-Aus Vista.

The Gondwana Collection Namibia is gobsmacked by how many people have viewed its cheeky video clip on ‘shithole’ Namibia. In just ten days it has reached more than 670 million people all over the world – a prime example for the power of the internet and social media! And one of the most successful destination marketing campaigns for Namibia since independence in 1990.