Fish River Canyon

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Homeward bound

This was the homeward leg of the trip. We had planned a couple of relaxing nights in Hermanus to try and spot some whales before flying home, so that left us with 2 nights and 3 days to cover about 1000km and see some sights.

From the Desert Homestead we ventured early onto more gravel roads. We were getting quite used to these now and most of them went through amazing rocky landscapes. The plan was to head Keetmanshoop for a night and then on to Fish River Canyon for a few hours before driving to the South Africa border.

Keetmanshoop isn't really famous for anything, but it is the biggest place on the way back to South Africa. One attraction is a quiver tree forest, which are really beautiful trees that only grow in certain parts of Africa on rocky soil. They get their name from the indigenous people using the tree for arrows so we were told. There was also something called the giants playground there. This is a mass of square bolders that look like oversized lego bricks and they're stacked up only in this certain area. The best bit of getting here was the site of a tarmac road and we felt better that the polo wasn't taking such a beating!

The guesthouse owner here also kept rescued cheetahs in two big enclosures on his farm. They are supposedly semi tame, but at feeding time you wouldn't know by the way they hissed and stalked around. Anyway, Lynne got to stroke a cheetah while it fed on a big joint of meat. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough with the camera, so she wasn't best pleased. It felt like a "big carpet" says Lynne next to me.

The next morning it was another early start to get to Fish River Canyon. Back to gravel I'm afraid. Fish River is very impressive and really just like a slightly smaller Grand Canyon minus the tourists! It was nice to walk along the rim of sheer cliffs with very few other people in sight and pretty much silence. There aren't really many fences so it was a little unnerving at times. It was worth making the journey in any case. If you're that way inclined you can do a 5 day hike along 80km of the canyon, but that wasn't for me and certainly not for Lynne!

The rest of the day was spent driving on desolate Nambian roads back to SA. The sheer nothingness around us still astounded us, even though it'd been like this most of the way through SA, Botswana and Namibia. We stopped in a small guesthouse right on the border and had a really good chat with a South Africa couple on their views of SA. It is fasinating to talk to people who have lived through apartheid, but I suppose it is something we'll never really understand.

It was then time to do a massive drive all the way back from the border to Hermanus for a couple of nights. The idea was to have a relaxing couple of days before heading home, and hopefully see some whales. We scored on both accounts!

The trip has been fantastic. Each country has offered lots of different things. SA has a really complex and absorbing history and you can see the challenges the country faces everywhere. Botswana had amazing wildlife, really friendly people and a great relaxed vibe about it, and Nambia has some truely spectacular landscapes. Perhaps the overwhelming things are the size and space of everything; the lack of people; the lack of cars on the road; the wildlife; and the amazingly clear blue skies and intense sunsets.

It has been our first taste of "real" Africa and it has definitely given us the impetus to explore more!

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Photos

Polo power!
Lynne not looking too glam but it was v v v early in the morning!