FLYWESTAIR DESTINATIONS

5 Cool Things To See FROM THE AIR

On a FlyWestair flight between Windhoek, Ondangwa, Oranjemund and Cape Town you get to see some stunning scenery from up high, ranging from expansive dune fields to famous Table Mountain and heaps of landmarks in between. Naming all the cool things to admire from above could probably fill an entire FlyWestair magazine. Here are five of them just to whet your appetite:

A HUGE PAN

On your way from Windhoek to Ondangwa that enormously large white thing you fly over just before landing is the Etosha Pan. At 130 km long and up to 50 km wide in places, it is Africa’s largest salt pan and can even be seen from space. The pan is also the main feature of Etosha National Park, which is home to 114 mammal and 340 bird species. Ready for a stop-over?

DESERT SAND

On the Windhoek to Oranjemund route you fly over some desert sand. Well, actually loads of sand. The Namib Desert is the oldest desert in the world and stretches for 1900 km along the Atlantic Coast, from Namibe in Angola all the way down to the Olifants River in the Western Cape in South Africa. The flight will take you over some extraordinary landscapes of black and blue mountains surrounded by red sand and dunes to the west.

AN ISLAND

One of the world’s most famous islands, which housed one of the world’s most famous prisoners, comes into view on the descent into Cape Town International Airport. Robben Island is best known as the place where former South African president Nelson Mandela was jailed for 18 of his 27 years as a political prisoner. The island is a South African National Heritage Site as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A RIVER

With a total length of 2 200 km, the Orange River is the longest river in South Africa. It originates in the Drakensberg Mountains of Lesotho, flows west through South Africa and ends at Alexander Bay in the Atlantic Ocean. Passengers on a FlyWestair flight can see the Orange River mouth which is a Ramsar site (a wetland of international importance). It supports a wide variety of plants and animals and is considered the sixth-richest wetland in southern Africa. Up to 26 000 birds have been counted there at the same time, including 14 rare or endangered species and 57 wetland species found nowhere else in the region. You can always get off at Oranjemund and see for yourself.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS

Okay, so this one might be cheating a bit but apart from the scheduled flights Westair Aviation also offers a wide range of air charter options across southern Africa. Operating a large fleet of different-sized aircraft that are capable of flying to even the remotest areas in Namibia and further afield, and landing on unimproved airstrips, means that you can get a bird’s eye view en route to any destination.

FlyWestair now offers flights from Eros Airport to Cape Town International, via Oranjemund. See our flight schedule on pg 9.

Le Roux van Schalkwyk