Fish River Canyon

On one of the roads towards the Fish River Canyon we saw something standing in the road in front of us. We thought, through the heat haze that it was maybe a donkey - but it turned out to be an oryx - just in the middle of nowhere! From the car we also saw lots of ostrich and springbok. We got some petrol at the Canon Road House, and then drove to the canyon, paying our entrance fee at the gate. The gravel road to the canyon’s main view point was pretty rough and ropey. But the canyon…..it is huge. We only saw one small part of it. It was beautiful. If you have seen the Grand Canyon in USA it is not as red nor as wide (at the main view point where we were at least, maybe at sunrise or sunset it is - but we were there in the middle of the afternoon) - but the two things that I though it had over the GC was that we could easily see the Fish River flowing through the canyon, we had not been able to see the Colorado at the GC, and also there were never more than 5 cars the whole time we were there. At one stage we were the only people there - I loved that! That really was what we found in Namibia - it was so quiet and felt a lot more undiscovered than other places we have been to. We walked a little way along the edge and saw the switch back from a slightly different viewpoint. If you wanted to, from this point, you could literally sit on the edge of the canyon with your legs dangling over the side. I didn’t do that because I am not good with heights! Looking away from the canyon we could see for miles and miles - the landscape just stretched out for ever. We walked back to the main view point where we had parked the car, had a little picnic at the tables and benches provided in the shade. Then we drove to our accommodation - Canon Lodge. Wow - this was a great place. We stayed in a little thatched bungalow (a single storey dwelling) surrounded by kopjes. These are mounds of boulders some of which are huge, some are smaller. Our bungalow was on its own in front of many of the other bungalows, hidden behind a little kopje, so there was nothing to obstruct our view of the surrounding countryside. We enjoyed our two days at Canon Lodge, we did a couple of little tiny walks - it was pretty hot - and we lazed and enjoyed the view. I climbed a little way up one of the kopjes next to us for a view of the sunset. I loved how the grass seems to change as the sun almost reaches the horizon - it appears to merge into one soft smooth mass as the light fades - like a straw coloured blanket. Because we were basically in the middle of nowhere with very little light pollution, we used to get back to our bungalow after dinner, and sit out on the verandah and stare up at the night sky. It was fantastically littered with stars. David had never seen the Milky Way before, and you could see it soooo clearly. It was awe inspring and amazing and so vast.

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