Down the Orange River

During the last months several people really recommend us to take a canoe trip down the Orange River. Everybody who had done this trip was raving about Amanzi trails, a company run by Colleen and Johan. Due to all the rave reviews we decided to drive up to Noordoever ourselves to check it out.

We booked a 3-day fully catered trip and were looking forward to lots of paddling combined with some relaxed and quiet moments drifting down the river looking at the birds and animals. There are some exciting rapids to manage as well. Never a dull moment. =)

On our first day we managed to do 25 km and spend the night at a nice wide riverbank. While our guide Jaco prepared dinner we set up our little princes castle. As we are both not too keen on lying on the ground right between all the creepy crawlies we brought a ground sheet, an airbed and a mosquito net. By digging in the two paddles we managed a nice windproof structure to keep the net up and slept quite nicely right underneath the stars.

We even had a small frog trying to find his way inside our castle. It must have been a prince wanting to move in with us, but we weren’t interested and sent him away. (Does that count as another marriage proposal? We haven’t had any offers lately…. Maybe we are looking a bit scruffy nowadays. Living outdoors for 6 months probably makes us look less like wealthy Europeans as when we started.)

In the morning we were woken up by Jaco preparing the fire and after a lovely breakfast we continued down the river. Surprisingly enough we didn’t have sore muscles so the second day we made the 20 km a bit faster than expected. We even managed the shamrock rapid without capsizing or sinking so we arrived at the overnight spot at lunch time already. We then spend the afternoon lounging around in the shade combined with some swimming in the river. Nice and relaxing.

The third day we again were making more progress than expected and decided to continue on to the endpoint and ask for an earlier pick-up. This turned out to be a wise decision because we were just climbing out of our canoes when a sandstorm started and tried its best to blow us away. We were very happy to find shelter in the lodge at our pick-up point as the outside conditions were turning a bit rough.

All in all we loved the trip, and also recommend it to anybody passing by with some days to spare!

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Off into the wild

Today we enjoyed a lovely relaxing day on the campsite of Amanzi river trails. We are here getting ready for our 3-day kayaking tour down the Orange River that will start tomorrow and are all packed and ready to go off into the wilderness. But don’t worry, we are not going alone. The whole adventure will take place under the supervision of Jaco, our very experienced local guide who has done this trip more than 300 times already.

Fish River Canyon

After our disappointing experience at the Arizona grand canyon in the USA where we encountered busloads of tourists we were a bit reluctant to pay the relatively high fee of 170 N$ for a look down another canyon. But in retrospect we are glad to have gone the few extra kilometers as the Fish River canyon really is a sight to see. It is much less commercialized than the American version and we were able to enjoy the main viewpoints all alone.

Ai-Ais

After we shortened our stay in the Richtersveld we now are running so far ahead of schedule that we decided to fit a visit to the fish river canyon in before our boat trip down the Orange river. Our first top is in Ai-Ais which means hot – very hot in the local Nama language is also dubbed the place of burning water. A fitting name for a resort build on various hot, sulphurous springs.

We dipped our hands into the 65°C spring and Haitske even managed to walk/tiptoe/jump through this really hot water. We also checked out the indoor spa area with its various hot pools and had some fun splashing around in the huge outdoor pool. A lovely place to be.

We were lucky and shared this whole resort with only 10 other guests. In high season (april till june) Ai-Ais can accommodate approximately 700 people! Those indoor pools must get really REALLY crowded then….

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Richtersveld – De Hoop

The campsites in the Richtersveld are quite basic and very quiet this time of the year. When we booked at the reception in Sendelingsdrift the lady even told us that we are the only tourists in the park at the moment. It is just too hot for most people with temperatures reaching 45°C.

On our way to De Hoop, our first campsite, we really struggled with the heat as well. The sun was burning right through our front window and we were very happy to reach our campsite. We had read that there were only cold showers at De Hoop and that sounded really nice. =)

The campsite is basically two ablution blocks and some stone circle fireplaces where previous guests cooked their dinners. We parked the car underneath a tree and first tried to cool down and get our energy levels back up with a light lunch and some cold drinks in the shade. When that wasn’t enough we decided to try the cold shower option. Sadly enough the water was heated up so much by the outside temperatures that we almost couldn’t relax under the water.  Instead we had to cool down by standing in the shade, just waiting for the water to evaporate of our bodies. We thought we were the only people around for miles so we felt quite comfortable and free.

Later in the afternoon we were suddenly surprised to suddenly find a local caretaker walking around the camp looking after things. Lucky for us he didn’t come by during the heat of the day….  =/

Sandra shaking hands with god

In the middle of the Richtersveld NP there is a stone with a huge imprint of a hand. This site is called the Hand of god. Sandra just couldn’t drive past without shaking hands. *gg*

Hiking the Wolfberg Cracks

The Cederberg region is absolutely beautiful. After the descriptions of our lovely host, the amazing Ms Louise from Nuwerust, that the hike to the Wolfberg Cracks was some easy up and down trip of just 3 to 4 hours we decided to get a permit, and check them out.

As the days get quite hot here with temperatures around 40°C we started our trip nice and early and started walking at 8 in the morning. Within 2 hours we had reached the summit and started looking for the entrance to the narrow crack.  The hand drawn map wasn’t really easy to read so we ended up climbing around for about one hour before we found the starting point, a big rock that you either climb over, or under to end up on a ledge leading to the entrance.

We realized that from now on it would be more climbing than hiking to reach the top, but we were not deterred by that thought. But after one hour in the crack where we had to climb through narrow, dark places (aaargh, the feeling of spider webs in the dark. Brrrr) and over big heaps of boulders we found ourselves stuck at the last hurdle. After passing the arches and the hanging bridge the crack got narrower and narrower with some massive boulders stuck in between the two walls. The third boulder was just too big for us to climb without a rope so we decided to turn around again and go back the way we came.

We were very happy to return back at the entrance and treated ourselves with a nice lunch enjoying the view before starting the descent down to the car.

Climbing down took us another two hours and we arrived back at the farm around 4 in the afternoon. The lovely cool pool took care of our tired and overheated bodies and we slowly floated around, absolutely exhausted but proud of our achievement!

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Tenikwa – close up with the cheetahs again

We visited Tenikwa today and made some beautiful close ups of the various cats.

There is no comparison to encountering them in the wild, but feeling a grown-up cheetah brush against you while walking past remains a hair-raising moment!

Storm river mouth

Driving back along the Garden Route we now passed the Storm river mouth in the Tsitsikama National Park with beautiful weather. Therefore this time we decided to visit the famous suspension bridge right across where river and sea meet.

We had great fun running on the bridge, bouncing all over the place. Luckily nobody saw us! When we got off the bridge we saw a sign saying bouncing is strictly forbidden. Oh oh…

Finally Baviaanskloof!

Before driving north towards Namibia we decided to double back on our previous route to visit Baviaanskloof, a classic south African off-road route. Now that Patsy is fixed we are finally allowed again to take her off the tar roads. Back to gravel travel, the way we like it!

 

Baviaanskloof in itself was nice, but not as challenging as expected. It more resembles a mountain gravel road than a real difficult off-road route. Our highlight definitely was the lonely campsite at bo-kloof. We only had to share the whole campsite with two leopard tortoises and a steenbokkie. =D

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