WEATHER: Cold at 6C in the morning and the coldest so far up to 31C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing cheetahs 3m away
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Nearly getting lost in the Giants Playground
BUYS OF THE DAY: A magnet of a Helmut GF
WORD OF THE DAY: Fuck that
CAMP SITE RANKING: Hot showers, flushing toilets, no phone reception and benches for chairs 5 out of 5 stars
How cold is it this morning. It is FREEZING! Up at 5.45am, for a 7am breakfast and a 7.30am departure. Our destination is Fish River Canyon this afternoon. But we also have a busy day of stops as well which will be nice to break up the day in the truck.
Our first glimpse was crossing Fish River, which is 650 km long. The flow of the river is seasonal; in winter the river can dry up completely. The outflow of the Fish River joins the Orange River at the border with South Africa about 100 km from the Atlantic Ocean. We got a quick photo stop here before continuing onto a town an hour away called Keetmanshoop. Once again it was a stop for Si to get some groceries, so we got a chance to stock up again on supplies which I don’t really need at the moment. My schnack bag is just about over flowing, but you just never know what you are going to feel like, so I always buy something. Dave and I have had inkling for pies at the moment, so there is nothing like a fresh pie at 10.30am for smoko to keep the stomach at bay till lunch time. There was also a B&B sign here, Bernice’s Beds, so I got a photo with that, pretty random, in the middle of Namibia there is my name plastered on a few signs!
Our next stop was only a 15 minute drive away to the Quiver Tree Forest, Giants Playground and to some Cheetahs that are kept in the Quiver Tree premises. The cheetahs were the first off the rank. You can normally pat these rare and hard to find animals, but the female had 2 cubs last year and she is now quite territorial, so there was no patting of them today for us. But we had only driven into the fenced area for like 5 minutes and we spotted one sitting under a tree and then we saw the male walking up the fence and then the find of the day, we spotted the other 2 sitting under a tree only 3m away from the road, so with the truck engines off we got to observe these magnificent creatures for about 40 minutes. They weren’t to perturbed that we were there snapping off a gazillion photos and they even posed for us with one of them rolling onto his back with his legs in the air – show off!! Their tales are so long and they have clear black streaks on their face that makes them look like they have been crying, but my, what long legs they had as well. Okay so they weren’t in the wild, they were on a private farm, but to see them so close up was pretty special and I am sure not many people get the opportunity to do what we got to do today.
From here we drove on only another 5 minutes to get us to theQuiver Tree Forest. The quiver tree is an interesting and characteristic plant of the very hot and dry parts of Namibia and the northwestern part of the Cape Province in South Africa. Actually it is no tree, but an aloe plant. The plant is called a "Kokerboom" because some Bushmen and Hottentot tribes used the tough, pliable bark and branches to make quivers for their arrows. "Koker" is the Afrikaans word for quiver. The quiver tree is a stout tree up to 9 meters high with a smooth trunk which can be up to one meter in diameter at ground level. The plants are usually found growing singly but in some areas the plants grow in large groups, giving the effect of a forest. The trees in the forest are natural. No trees have been planted by humans. The quiver tree forest was declared as a national monument on 1 June 1955. The big trees in the forest are between 200 and 300 years old and they made for some great photos. The forest also seemed to be the home of the Hyrax, which is like a rabbit/hare looking creature that lives amongst the rocks.
Our last stop for the day was the Giants Playground. It is a rocky area of dolorites which are magma that was pressed up, but cooled off just below the earth's surface. The softer parts of the stone and the top layer of the earth’s crust eroded away, which left the dolorites exposed. It looks like some of the rocks have been placed on top of each other like a giant may do. The dolorites are between 160 and 180 million year old, and in the Keetmanshoop region cover an area of 180 000 km2.
Lunch was going to be 45 minutes away, so GG suggested we walk the marked track that takes around 45 minutes and by the time we got back lunch would be ready. So we all set off thinking it would be an easy and clearly marked track from what GG made out. Well it started out like that for the first 15 minutes and then the arrow signs stopped and the path lead off into different directions, some had thorny bushes over grown over some of them, so it got a little confusing on which way to go. At one point Dave and I turned back, as the path we were on didn’t look like it had been used for some time, so we doubled back and found the ‘oldies’ and Lisa. So we stuck together as a group and what seemed to be getting further lost around the rocks. Lisa and Dave climbed the rocks at one stage to see if they could see the truck, which they couldn’t, so Lisa pointed us in what we hoped was the right direction and kept walking. We were totally unprepared with no water, no hats and sunscreen and Rolf, who always has his GPS in hand, was GPS-less with it still on the truck. So we walked for 1 hour till we saw Meyouki on a tall rocky crop waving to us, we were saved!!! The sun was so hot and even though I knew we wouldn’t perish out there, it was a little disconcerting that we had no idea on where we were or how to get out. A little scary, but all’s well that ends well and we were only gone for 75 minutes and GG and Ben had climbed some rocks when we hadn’t come back in the 45 minute time frame and they could see us, even though we couldn’t see them, so we weren’t going to die in the Devils Playground after all.
So after lunch we left at 1.40pm for the 2 hour drive to our resting spot for the night. Our day was not yet done though. After setting up camp and tents for the 3rd last time, we had 45 minutes free time before driving 20 minutes to the finale of what was a super busy day and that was a visit to Fish River Canyon. It is the second largest canyon in the world and the largest in Africa, as well as the second most visited tourist attraction in Namibia. It features a gigantic ravine, in total about 160 km long, up to 27 km wide and in places almost 550 meters deep. The Fish River is the longest interior river in Namibia. It cuts deep into the plateau which is today dry, stony and sparsely covered with hardy drought-resistant plants. There are 3 viewpoints to look at this magnificent canyon, and I would have to put it up there with the Grand Canyon. Ben dropped us at the furthest view point and then we got to walk the track that ran along the rim of the canyon 2.6km to the middle vantage point. We got there just after 5pm, so we got some great light before the sunset which we also go to see set over the massive canyon. The photos of the sunset don’t do it any justice, you just couldn’t capture the sun and the canyon in the same photo, maybe if you were a professional maybe, so I put the camera away and just watched the sun go down on another fabulous day in Namibia.
I am starting to love these afternoon activities though, as once again, when we got back to camp Simon pretty much had dinner all ready to go for us. He is worth his weight in gold that guy. It was nice to have benches that we could lean back in and not have the worry that we may fall off and with a log fire all stoked and roaring away, it was a nice way to end what was a super busy day. Day 57 – boo hoo, still not talking about the goodbyes just yet.
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