Despite (or perhaps because of) the excitement of night one on Naomi’s roof, neither of us slept particularly well! Some of you may remember that Matt sleeps with a CPAP machine for his sleep apnoea and this turned out to be a disaster during our Scottish cycling trip when he didn’t/couldn’t take it with him and I reached the point of wondering whether murder of suicide was the best option. Since then we’ve bought a big battery which will power him for 2 nights but, what we’d failed to take into consideration, is the warmth of the Namibian night – every few minutes the battery fan would click in to cool it down – so much for drifting off to sleep listening to Africa!
Fortunately, the bed is (surprisingly) comfortable so we drifted off in the end. But there was another reason for not sleeping well – we were waiting for the alarm. Why on earth had we set the alarm, I hear you cry? One reason and one reason only:
Every lodge/game reserve offers a number of different activities – evening game drive, horse riding, quad biking etc, etc. Bagatelle asked us if we’d like to go to the cheetah feeding. Errr, does the Pope have a balcony? This is the woman who got inordinately excited about feeding giant tortoises. OF COURSE I want to go to cheetah feeding!
Cheetah feeding was at 8am (they eat early and late and rest during the day – hmmm, that sounds suspiciously like someone else I know 😀). The lodge was 1km from our campsite so we had to get up and pack everything away – at the risk of pointing out the flaming obvious, you can’t drive around with your roof tent erect!
I’m pleased to say that the alarm went off at 6.30 and we were at the lodge for 07.50 – phew!
Cheetah numbers globally have decreased by 93% in the last 100 years and the current estimate is that there are about 7,500 left in the wild. Namibia has an excellent rescue programme for orphaned cubs (often as a result of the parent being shot for killing sheep or goats) and Bagatelle is part of that programme. They currently have 6 cheetahs, 2 of whom are so tame that we were allowed to get out of our vehicle and stand close to them (no touching!). One of the very tame ones was a household pet (can you imagine?!) and is a bit of a nightmare because he will leap into any vehicle, given the chance, and wait to be taken for a drive! Slightly strangely (to us) Namibia has a strict rule of not breeding from these orphans because they lack the skills to teach their offspring how to survive in the wild. In any event, it was a wonderful experience and they are truly magnificent animals:
After that fabulous start to the day it was a 270 mile (430km) drive to our next overnight stop (remember, Namibia is BIG!).
En route we stopped at the Quivertree Forest for lunch. Quivertrees are a type of tree aloe (and, therefore, not technically a tree) found sporadically over southern Namibia and South Africa. Their name is supposed to come from the Bushmen who used the inside of a dead branch to make the quiver for their arrows. They are declining due to climate change but, encouragingly, there is a big movement here to increase their numbers. They are very slow growing and the biggest trees are estimated to be between 200 and 300 years old:
One of the things which have fascinated us as we drive around are the most enormous nests in trees. In this Quivertree we found the most amazing example:
This is the nest of the Sociable Weaver. They breed communally and you can see the various entrance holes they use. We have become quite the ornithologists this trip and also Quivertree spotters (surely there’s a name for that?).
The recommended navigation app here is Maps.Me (which we have been using for years). You know it’s going to be interesting when you turn onto the gravel road and it says that you turn right after 89kms!
Our second night under canvas was spent at the very quirky Canyon Roadhouse. The campsite couldn’t have been more different from the first one but it was still amazing and the communal ablution block was immaculate and with the most stunning Quivertree in the courtyard (can you tell we’re getting a bit obsessed with Quivertrees?!). Matt was very serious about his Braai (even though it was a bit of a disaster and the sausages took an unfeasibly long time to cook and I might have got a teensy bit fractious!):
Luckily I slept really, really well as it was another early start.
Pub quiz time: where is (arguably) the second biggest canyon in the world after The Grand Canyon?
Yup! Namibia!
The “arguably” bit is because it’s hard to gauge the size of canyons – are we looking at length or depth or overall volume? The pedants can argue all they like because, at the end of the day, it’s damned big!
The Fish River Canyon is 161km long, up to 27km wide and almost 550m at its deepest. It’s quite a trek to get there so is little visited but it’s worth it:
The chain with the padlocks on it is the start of a 4/5 day hike through the 80-90km canyon. Definitely not for the faint hearted!
On the way back to Naomi we met this little fellow, who was very happy to pose:
Those of you who follow hopsonsontour on Instagram may remember a classic photograph I took of Matt 31 years ago in the Grand Canyon, USA. Yesterday, we tried to replicate it – not easy with his dodgy knees!
Will he ever grow up?!!
hopsons on tour 