A lovely late start as our route to Fish River Canyon was only 160 kms, with the fist 50 kms on tarmac and the remainder on good fast gravel to the Fish River Canyon.
Along the road, in the telegraph poles, weaver birds had constructed their giant communal nests. It made an interesting sight and I was left wondering how they manage to fix the first few bits of straw to the pole.
Along the road, in the telegraph poles, weaver birds had constructed their giant communal nests. It made an interesting sight and I was left wondering how they manage to fix the first few bits of straw to the pole.
Weaver bird nest in telegraph pole
At the park entrance we paid the entrance fee of 170 Namibian dollars, equivalent to fifteen pounds, and drove the final 10 kms to the viewing point overlooking the canyon.
You have to go right up to the edge of the canyon before you can look down to the river. The sudden sight of this truly massive chasm, that snakes its way across the dry barren landscape, is very impressive. The canyon is up to 500 metres deep and 25 kms wide. The rive snakes its way around large rock pinnacles in a series of meanders. At this time of year the volume of water is a fraction of that after the summer rains.
Fish River Canyon, with the river 500 metres below usWe spent several hours at the canyon, viewing it from different points on the canyon rim. We then drove back to a small restaurant just outside the park entrance for a light lunch. When we got there we met up again with some of the group who had stayed the previous night in Luderitz. We exchanged news about the two different routes we had taken before driving back to our hotel in Keetmanshoop. In the car park of the restaurant was this old wreck. I liked the cactus growing out of the engine space!
On the way we overtook a cart with half a dozen local people, being pulled by two donkeys. With only a few days left of the tour we had been wondering what to do with our emergency rations of food - cans of baked beans, tinned fruit, packets of soups etc. Seeing these Namibians on the cart, it suddenly occurred to us that this was the ideal opportunity to find a good home for our food supplies. The look of astonishment on their faces as we gave them all our rations, was priceless.
We arrived back at our hotel around 5pm. Just before going to supper I decided to check the car and found that we had another puncture, the third of the tour. Two other cars also suffered from punctures today. The gravel roads are not the best surface for tyres, even when you have the tough 'all terrain' type that we use. I changed the wheel for one of the two spares that we carry and decided to have it repaired in the morning before driving the 800 kms to Vredendal, a town in the wine growing region of Western Cape just 300kms north of Cape Town
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