The Skeleton Coast takes its name from the whale bones and wrecked ships that once lined its shores — the legacy of a coastline that defeated centuries of sailors and earned the name “The Gates of Hell” among early Portuguese navigators. The wrecks that remain are slowly being swallowed by the dunes, but the coast itself, its cold fogs, its Benguela swell and its utter isolation, tells you everything you need to know about why so many vessels came to grief here.

The cold, nutrient-rich Benguela Current supports one of the world’s largest Cape fur seal populations, with more than 100,000 animals at Cape Cross alone. The noise, the movement and the smell are genuinely overwhelming, and the predators that follow the colonies — black-backed jackal, brown hyena and occasional lion — make this as much a wildlife spectacle as a coastal one.

The northern Skeleton Coast is accessible only by chartered light aircraft, managed as one of the most exclusive wilderness areas in Africa. No roads connect to it; no public access is permitted. Desert-adapted lion and elephant live here in one of the continent’s most striking ecological relationships, with the lions known to hunt Cape fur seals directly on the beach — behaviour documented in fewer than a handful of places in the world.