When the going gets tough...

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Issue 30

...the tough get hiking. Mark Stratton pares down his kit and pushes himself to the limit on one of Namibia's most spectacular walks: the Fish River Canyon trail. By the second night in Fish River Canyon my feet were blistered, my chest sported a heat rash resembling measles, I was tired, and my sanity was threatened by the spectre of giant earwigs.   Now forgive me if I’m sounding a little vulnerable. But I was sleeping rough in the middle of remote semi-desert in a vast chasm prone to flash floods and severe drought. Without, I might add, a tent, vehicle, little food or water, or a mobile phone. Then, just before it was time to retire for the night, Chris Liebenberg (my guide, an experienced Namibian tracker) unleashed a natural history horror story. It was all about the carnage potentially inflicted upon the human ear by the canyon’s monstrous earwigs. Even with reams of tissue-paper jammed in my ears, I didn’t sleep well that night. However, no sympathy please – for this was my choice. I was hiking Namibia’s epic yet little-known Fish River Canyon Trail. It starts 150km south of Keetmanshoop where the Southern Kalahari meets South Africa’s Namaqualand. I was carrying enough vac-pac food to last five days, a sleeping bag, one set of clothes (I was prepared to pong), a wide-brimmed hat to fend off the blistering sun, and iodine to treat the canyon’s river water. ‘Got to travel light,’ Chris had advised, and it soon became apparent why. For if handing in a medical waiver at the Fish River Canyon National Park HQ declaring I was fit and active for duty wasn’t a hint the walk would be arduous, arriving at the canyon’s edge was an absolute giveaway. A giddying 550m below, the infinitesimally-small looking Fish River was cradled by mammoth cliffs. Bronzed and salmon-pink, the cliffs are notched halfway by flat-top plateaus creating the appearance of a smaller canyon within a larger one. The canyon has true wow-factor. It inspires the sort of breathless thrill of excitement you feel seeing Victoria Falls or Ethiopia’s similarly huge Blue Nile Canyon for the first time. It was about then that I had an ‘Oh my God how am I going to get down there’ moment. My guidebook had explained the 86-kilometre walk was suitable for ‘very fit, experienced, and self-sufficient backpackers’ but neglected to add ‘…who enjoy vertiginous drops’. Slipping and sliding our way down the 60-degree scree-slopes below the main viewing platform was a little dangerous and unnerving. The nimbleness of a mountain goat was required but with a fully-loaded backpack I could only just muster the grace of an inelegant rhino. Still, we made the canyon floor with just a few minor scrapes. There onwards, we set off downriver following the canyon’s continuously meandering course. There are no signs, but the skyscraper cliffs funnel you in the right direction. Nor are there any footpaths; annual floods remove all traces of the previous season’s footprints. Or indeed campsites; we would simply unroll our sleeping bags on the nearest sandy bank. It’s the conditions inside the canyon though which make this one of Africa’s toughest adventures. As soon as the sun climbed above the canyon walls we were trapped in a linear furnace. Meanwhile, the uneven rocky terrain underfoot ranged from hellish to nightmarish – not least when we had to circumvent boulders the size of houses, dragged down by the river in spate. Progress was slow at first. We’d planned to camp the first night at Sulphur Springs, 15km along the trail, to soak in its bubbling mineral waters. But we fell woefully short, reaching there mid-afternoon on day two and settling for a quick paddle. It was important not to rush. Only one group is permitted to walk the trail each day and none were booked to follow us. A sprained ankle or twisted knee could have been problematic given that we were truly on our own. Well, nearly. Besides the magnificent scenery, one of Fish River’s great joys is its flourishing wildlife. Before entering the canyon we’d spent a day in an adjacent private nature reserve – the 100,000 hectare Gondwana Canyon Park. Once badly overgrazed, the reserve’s owners have successfully re-established the native Karoo savannah vegetation, including stands of marvellously surreal quiver-trees. Mammals like oryx and zebra have returned in numbers and the habitat now supports reintroduced giraffe and red hartebeest. Perhaps some of the fauna had spilled over into the canyon. By the end of the first few days we’d seen kudus and numerous klipspringers. We’d marvelled at spur-winged geese powering through the canyon like bombers on low-level sorties. We’d examined jackal tracks hoping they might have been those of the canyon’s rarely-seen leopards; fed chirpy red-winged starlings with trail-mix; and discovered a desiccated carcass of a Hartmann’s mountain zebra. To subscribe or order this issue click here Meanwhile baboons were also always on hand to roar their disapproval at our presence from high ledges, or, worse, disturb breakfast. I refer to one particularly unsavoury incident when a shamelessly amorous couple decided to procreate in full view of where I was tucking into my muesli. What the wildlife existed on was anybody’s guess. Spartan at best, the canyon’s assemblage of acacias, tamarisks, euphorbia, and green-hair bushes, looked highly unpalatable. Everything else, according to Chris, was deadly poisonous. “Ach!” he exclaimed as we came across a harmless-looking plant, “One bite of this brings on death, psychosis, or extended hospitalisation… and not necessarily in that order.” It looked like white-radish to me. But datura, he explained, was used by Namibia’s San Bushmen as a hallucinogenic in chanting ceremonies. It may also have played some part in a lunatic attempt by three hippies to ride the canyon by mopeds in 1968. They never made it. I was won over, too, by the distinctive canyon walls adorned, at times, like an impressionist’s canvas. In places the strata are squeezed into squiggly folds like toothpaste from a tube, or cracked by honeycombed fissures, or striped by chocolatey protuberances of dolerite lava. They are scars from 500 million years back when the canyon was opened up as Africa’s shifting tectonic plates merrily tore the continent apart. Fish River only arrived on the scene fifty million years ago. During the first few days of our hike, these walls were pinched together no more than 100m apart inducing a Lilliputian sense of being stuck between the cracks of deep paving stones. This had its compensations. It meant shade arrived early and stars would already be filling the horizon by 6pm; well before I’d managed to brew my first cup of Earl Grey tea. Throughout the nights the stillness was almost overwhelming. There was no 21st-century background noise of any kind; indeed not one aeroplane ventured overhead in the course of our trek. Only the occasional hooting owls and scrabbling rock-dassies broke the blissful silence. By day three, the canyon had taken on a new form and widened considerably. The scenery was even more dramatic: rounded and wind-burnished. The vast meander bends opened up into stony amphitheatres, while isolated pillars of rock angled skywards like minarets. Theoretically, with a wider canyon floor, the walk should have been easier as more options existed to pick our way through the troublesome boulder-fields. But by this stage heat and the phsycial exertion were exacting their toll. I may have been used to my sweaty shirt, the lingering taste of iodinated-water, and tired limbs, but I couldn’t forget the crippling blisters on my swollen feet. Fortunately there were a few further distractions to assuage my grimaces. We came across a small herd of feral horses. Not native, Namibia’s wild desert horses have triggered much speculation over their origins. There’s a much larger herd around Aus near the Namib-Naukluft National Park. Some say they’re the descendents of equine escapees brought over by European settlers from the 17th century onwards. I rather liked a fanciful tale of horses swimming ashore and forming their own colony after a 19th century cargo ship carrying them foundered off Namibia’s notorious Skeleton Coast. Then, on what turned out to be our fourth and final morning, we found a century-old grave of a German soldier. He’d been shot by rebels in the canyon when enforcing German colonial rule on native Namibians in 1905. Perhaps a little irreverently there was a comment book (inviting walk feedback) by his grave. Most of the entries were unrepeatable. They summed up the love-hate relationship I was feeling: ‘amazing walk but painful’. More prosaically a female German hiker wrote: ‘One day I’ll come back fitter so I can see more than my feet.’ I could sympathise with that, and only speculate what happened to the relationship of a South African couple walking the trail on their honeymoon. After a gruelling two days covering the last 50km, we parted company with Fish River. We turned off into the grounds of Ai-Ais campsite which signalled the walk’s end while the canyon itself continued southwards. It would soon expand to around 25km wide before coalescing with the Orange River along Namibia’s South African border. The Fish River Canyon Trail isn’t just a momentous hike; it’s about survival in a truly extreme environment. Would I do it again? If I’d been asked that during one the punishing mid-afternoon route marches... the answer would have been emphatically no. Yet as we entered Ai-Ais camp, encountering cars, people, radios, concrete buildings, and smoking braais, I felt a tinge of regret. I’d found unspoilt rugged beauty and peace in the canyon’s uncomplicated universe. But I must admit the thought of a crisp clean shirt and a comfortable earwig-free bed were rather tempting. Mark Stratton visited Namibia with Sunvil Africa (see below).  Factfile Basic requirements: A reasonable degree of fitness is required to walk the Fish River Canyon trail. You need to present a doctor’s certificate before entering the canyon stating you are in good health. You also pay a small fee of N$100 (around £9) to enter. One group per day is permitted to enter, usually in groups of no fewer than three people. An experienced guide is essential. When to go: The canyon is open to hikers between April and late September. May to August probably offer the best temperatures to walk in, dipping below 30 degrees C. What to take: Temperatures drop at night, so a sleeping bag and mat are required. A tent would be unnecessary weight. Getting there: Air Namibia, tel 01293 596654 (www.airnamibia.com.na) fly from Heathrow to Windhoek via Frankfurt from £550 including tax. Tour operators: Mark Stratton travelled to Namibia with Sunvil Africa, tel 020 8232 9777 (www.sunvil.co.uk/africa), who can tailor-make trips to Namibia incorporating the Fish River Canyon hike. Where to stay before or after the hike: There’s accommodation in the adjacent Gondwana Canyon Reserve at Cañon Lodge  (www. gondwanapark.com) It offers comfortable chalets in a beautiful setting amongst ancient kopjes. Most of the food is sustainably grown or reared on the lodge’s own farm. The owners will drive you to start of the trail and arrange your collection at the end. Doubles with breakfast from £51 per person. Find out more: Namibia Tourism Board, 6 Chandos Street, London, tel 020 7636 2924 (www.namibiatourism.co.uk) To subscribe or order this issue click here

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