Time for another Fish River Canyon post, and on the fourth day things definitely started to fall into place. But, slowly does it, I was told this week that “good things take time” and this Fish River Canyon series is taking its time. I will keep the posts the Fish River Canyon flowing and put a complete guide together right at the end.
First things first, again we started in the dark – an absolute winner for me.
For some reason pre-dawn is an excellent hiking strategy for me, and one that I mustn’t forget…
And a shady breakfast stop…
And well worth the magical wait for breakfast, would you look at those strawberries!!!
The decision to eat them freeze dried or rehydrated… was a big one!!!
AND The biggest life lesson of the entire adventure… when friends make suggestions and offer advice… sometimes you should listen. It took them placing the poles in my hands and saying “TRY THEM.” After several days of saying it is so much easier with poles, after me carrying poles on my backpack for days… It was brought to my attention that poles are the way to go and I will never look back.
In a moment of mad flying glory, I was the first in the group to make it to the 40km mark… it really was just a moment. A very satisfying moment!!!
There were more stunning river crossings… which are easy to walk through if you have poles to hold you in place…
More sand… to ski through with poles…
More rocks to navigate… so much easier with poles!!!
Short cuts… and gravel…
And a well-earned lunch stop…
It was really hot, and moving away from the river for shortcuts and back to the river again… for pure relief!!!
I did make the mistake of sitting in the river and getting absolutely eaten alive by horseflies… at the time it felt worth it – cool and blessed relief… but a week later I was still itching from those bites.
And a long afternoon of sand and stones and gravel shortcuts…
Eventually we crossed “just one more river…”
And made it to the 50km mark…
Wasn’t the only one who was pleased to be there…
No stopping… it was getting late in the day and we needed to head on. Just past the 50km mark is a shortcut… up and up…
And up some more…
There is only one way to tackle these… one step at a time, don’t stop, just keep on rolling…
And poles really do help…
After that it was a long gravel stretch… for miles and endless miles…
And after a long day, it may have felt further than it was…
Past the famous Four Finger Rock…
And on and on… till after dark we reached the Grave of the German Soldier…
And then on we went, a river crossing in the dark and a very tired stumble to the nearest beach for our nightly ritual… groundsheet, supper and sleep…
Our very last night in the canyon, the temperature dropped, there were more than one or two scorpions around and when it started to rain after mid-night it was unanimously decided to stay warm in our sleeping bags and continue sleeping… despite the raindrops… there comes a time when you are literally too tired to care.
There was of course a fantastic moon and scudding clouds and a bittersweet feeling that, while I had learned so much and had finally found my rhythm… with the poles (!)… it was all so nearly over. On the one hand we were racing to the finish and looking forward to so many things and on the other hand, the canyon has it’s own flavour of magic and I wasn’t nearly ready to leave it.
Day 4 was our longest day by far and I was properly tired at the end of it…
That was Day 4 of the Fish River Canyon, done and dusted. Follow along for more challenges and life lessons from the canyon…
