You eat at Goanikontes Restaurant on the veranda of an original farmhouse built in 1903, looking out over the Swakop River and Namibia's moon-like landscape. The kitchen serves breakfast and lunch in the farmhouse that once belonged to the land's first owner, with coffee still poured strong as it was a century ago.

The restaurant is part of Goanikontes Oasis, a rest camp fifty meters from the riverbed where water flows during the rainy season. The surrounding terrain belongs to the Namib-Naukluft and Dorob National Parks, a stretch of desert where thousand-year-old welwitschia plants grow among the rocks.

Tables on the veranda place you where the farm's first owner once stood, watching the same river that now draws birds to the oasis. The kitchen bakes fresh bread daily, and the menu leans toward straightforward meals suited to the desert climate.

The camp itself offers nine bungalows and twelve shaded campsites, all with braai facilities, but the restaurant stands apart as the original structure. It takes thirty minutes to drive here from Swakopmund, far enough to leave the coastal fog behind.