Located roughly 50 kilometres from Walvis Bay, Sandwich Harbour is a natural lagoon framed by sand dunes on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. It is a prime angling and bird-watching site, with countless sea birds coming to feed on the rich fish population, including rare white pelican and vivid flocks of pink flamingos. The harbour was founded in 1486 already by Portuguese sailors. It is not known what importance the harbour had at that time. There are sources that claim that there was a moderately sized commercial port based around whaling and small scale fishing during the 19th century. In 1884 the hard to reach harbour gained more importance as a supply harbour for the colony German South-West-Africa. This only lasted a few years as it was replaced by the harbour in Swakopmund. Today Sandwich Harbour is of touristic interest and does not refer to the forgotten harbour, but solely to the lagoon. The lagoon used to be an oceanic bay and was reachable from the coast. As the bay silted up the 10 km long lagoon is now surrounded completely by sand and reeds. The main attraction of the lagoon is the incredible abundance of birdlife and the attractive landscape of contrasting sea and dunes. The huge bird colony is home to some 200,000 birds mainly terns, flamingos, cormorants and pelicans. Many tour operators offer trips to Sandwich Harbour. It is only reachable by 4x4 from Walvis Bay. Access to the lagoon can be further hampered by high tide, which means that not all scheduled tours are able to reach the lagoon or that guests have to walk the last stretch