Leaving Sossusvlei, we made our way to Swakopmund with a few stops along the way. Firstly we stopped at the tiny but pretty town of Solitaire for apple pie, then at the Tropic of Capricorn marker, which I was particularly pleased to see since my original inspiration for travelling to Southern Africa was the episode of the TV show 'Tropic of Capricorn' in which the presenter was in Namibia

As we neared Swakopmund we passed through Walvis Bay and stopped there for lunch. Apparently it is the second-biggest city in Namibia (after Windhoek) but it didn't seem particularly exciting, other than the fact it had big tarmac-ed roads and modern buildings - a few simple shops and restaurants, banks, etc.

Walking around Swakopmund itself you can't miss the strong German influence - although English appears to be the primary language, many people speak German to each other and many of the streets and buildings have German names. The town has styled itself as a tourist hotspot, offering all sorts of adventure activities.

I had a go at sandboarding, which is like snowboarding on the sand dunes. It was good fun though it was very hard work walking back up the dune after every run, carrying the board! It actually won me over to the idea to giving snowboarding a go some time (a shocking admission for a skier!), although I believe snowboarding is much more painful - it didn't hurt at all when I fell over in the sand.

I also did a skydive! The first time I went to the jump site, got kitted up and waited around for a while, the jump was called off due to high winds (so we hit the bar instead…). Then up early the next morning for the second ski-dive attempt - successful this time. The weather was perfect - sunny and calm. I was in the first plane to go up that morning, the plane was truly tiny - only two jumpers could go at a time plus their tandem masters (the guy that I was strapped to, who does all the hard work) and camera men. I went with Candice from my group (she's a nurse from Australia), Candice's tandem master was reeking of booze from a barbeque he'd had the night before - I was very glad to have my guy instead, Matthias, a German who's been living in Namibia for 35 years and has done about 6,000 jumps. It was a tight squeeze in the plane and about a 25 minute climb to reach 10,000 feet for jumping. The flight was nice and relaxed - enjoying the view and joking around with the cameramen. Then it all happened very quickly - the tandem masters asked us to sit up, clipped us onto them, opened the door (which was basically the whole side of the plane) and hopped out. I went after Candice and there's a hilarious moment in my video where you see my reaction having just watched Candice leave the plane. The first few seconds were terrifying, after that I just tried to enjoy the 30-second freefall to 5,000 feet, at which point Matthias pulled the parachute and there is a massive rush of relief as I slowed down and sat upright rather than parallel to the ground - then I could actually relax and enjoy the scenery. This section of the descent was fantastic - it actually felt like I was flying, my favourite part was when we did some twists and turns on the way down. The landing was much easier than I had expected, in fact the whole thing was very easy - I didn't have to do anything, hold anything or even actively jump from the plane - the tandem master does everything. Before I went up I expected to have the feeling in my stomach similar to being in a fast car or on a rollercoaster but it wasn't like that at all - more like a floating feeling. A couple of the other girls that jumped described having a real rush, a buzzing feeling afterwards, but I didn't have that - I think it was superseded by my relief at having survived it!

That afternoon I went on a guided tour of the townships in Swakopmund with Michael and Candice. We visited the leader of the Damara tribe - an 83-year old lady, Ouma ('Grandmother') Lena, who has lived through the times of German and South African rule (Namibia has only been independent since 1990). She lived in an ordinary little house like the others in the Mondesa township. One of her main tasks as head of the tribe was to sort out domestic disputes, such as marital problems or the execution of wills. She had nine children, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, the latter of which were running around the house screaming while we were there. Through a translator, she asked us all where we were from, what jobs we did and what family we had.

Then we visited a primary school - a grade 1 class. The children were very excited, all singing and high-fiving us. All the little girls wanted to touch my hair, they were fascinated. And they all wanted a hug, they were very cute.

We also visited an artist in the DRC township, Ernst Taniseb, who makes t-shirts among other things. His house was decorated with things he found in a rubbish dump and painted in bright colours.

Our guide tried to teach us the different clicks used in the tribal languages (the local tribes had four different clicks but apparently the San tribe have seven), it was difficult! The words for 'love' and 'kill' are the same with a different click at the beginning so it's quite important to get them right!

We went to see a herbalist who dealt in traditional medicines - she showed us various dried plants used for different ailments; elephant dung is used during childbirth and baboon dung is used for bad stomachs!

We went to a local bar, Back of the Moon, for a Windhoek beer. Then we enjoyed some traditional Oshivambo food, including a strange drink made from fermented sorghum, mopane worms (they didn't taste bad but the texture was awful - crunchy and gritty), some tasty beans, wild spinach and barbequed chicken and some fried fruit (which was difficult to eat). Some of the local girls put on a series of dances for us, while playing a drum and singing. They were cute and were telling us what they wanted to be when they grew up - everything from models and actresses to lawyers and doctors.

We had a welcome couple of nights' break from the tents as we stayed in bungalows in Swakopmund and we had the chance to go out to restaurants for dinner. The first night I had a 'game grill' with steaks of kudu, oryx and springbok (they had run out of zebra); the springbok was my favourite, the oryx was also very good but the kudu was too tough and chewy. This was the day that the US presidential election results were announced and Sonya in our group was celebrating Barack Obama's victory. However, she nearly started a fight with locals and other tourists in a bar when she insisted on switching over from the football match they're watching on TV to see the election coverage - and then it turned out the bar couldn't pick up any news channels so we had to make a hasty exit!

The second night we went to Ocean Basket - a seafood chain that we'd also seen in Cape Town - I didn't have high hopes for it but the dinner was in fact very tasty. Later went to a bar to play pool. We were joined by Seamus from Tipperary (who we'd met sandboarding) - he was travelling around Southern Africa with his aunt and uncle.

On the third day Ruth and I walked along the beach to the Lighthouse restaurant and spent the afternoon chilling, then in the evening the whole group went to a fancy restaurant.