Blogs from Fish River Canyon, Namibia, Africa - page 4

Day 8 (Tuesday 28-Apr-09, JRJ) Awake 6am for breakfast. Packed everything away and then went on a Canoe trip down the Orange River. There were about 10 canoes, each with 2 people in. Me and Nat shared, but guess who did most of the paddling? She was, however, determined that this 2 and half hour exercise would eliminate the bingo wings for the wedding, so a token effort was made. The trip down the river was beautiful and lots of fun. We saw many different birds such as herons, cormorants and the odd hawk. We even went down a few rapids on the way, both in the canoe and out. This was also the first test of our new waterproof, shockproof, freezeproof camera. It still works! The trip ended around midday and lunch was ready for ... read more

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Namib Naukluft Park The park is the fourth largest nature conservation area in the world. It lies within the namib desert which stretches from the southern border of South Africa up into Angola. Contained with in it is the striking Sossuviei which is a dusty clay pan overlooked by hundreds of vast sand dunes. Although they move they all have a distinct number, one of the most famous dunes being 'dune 45'. We took a tour around one of the Sossuviei to see the many plants and animals that can survive in the dry environment. The tour was led by a japaneze woman that had left the commercial world of Japan to conduct a very basic exsistance as she believed that where ever peole live they all do the same three basic things every day......she is ... read more

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 ... read more

I am on honeymoon! No, I have not got married that was Laura. I just decided to tag along! We have been touring Namibia which has been fun. We started in the capital Windhoek before heading north to Waterberg Plateau. After that it was off to Etosha for some wildlife spotting. We saw lots and of animals including lions and rhino. We took note of Tanja's advice and stayed in the car at all times hence the fact that none of us got eaten! Our next big wildlife spotting was at Cape Cross where we saw 200,000 seals! It was amazing to see so many together but they were very smelly! After that we seemed to focus on sand and went to see the tallest dunes in the world at sossusvlei. Laura climbed up and ran ... read more