Karen5 April – Lake Oanob
Next stop was Lake Oanob which was rather resorty, right on the lake/dam, but we really enjoyed some good relaxing time out with really good lunch and dinner on a beautiful deck restaurant, next to the water. There were about six cats patrolling the area, who entertained us no end, missing our felines back home!
6 April – Quiver Tree Forest
Next day, off to Keetmanshoop and the Quiver Tree Forest, where we had the most stunning campsite right next to the forest of bizarre trees. Unfortunately I had to work on an urgent deadline here to create and sumbit a whole batch of documents for the ISP business, having pushed the deadline beyond all reasonable limits, and now it was crunch time – but Tiennie kept me fortified with wine and encouragement at my stone slab of a desk, and eventually I managed to Aweh-Gig-email the whole lot off, and felt properly on holiday!
The moon and stars were stunning, and we enjoyed the warm evening without bothering to put a fly sheet over our tent. Imagine our surprise when it started to rain at about 2 am! Sunrise was enjoyed, photographed and described by Tiennie and observed by me as usual with one eye out of the tent!
GOOD morning photo, sent off to all on Instagram!!
7 & 8 April – Gravel Highways of Namibia!
First thing, we visited the Hungry Lion café in Keetmanshoop to sit and do some necessary work, online banking and bill payments, still using the fabulous Aweh Geeg data! They did not have any coffee, sadly, so we once again breakfasted on tins of Sparberry “rooikooldrank” and occupied a table for a very long time on the strength of this- luckily the novelty of this amazing fizzy red beverage had not yet worn off!
Fish River Canyon!
We decided in advance that we should award ourselves a second night at the Canyon, as we were pretty tired after the epic journey so far.. but first – we had to get there! Our heavily loaded bike had never done a trip like this before, and I was extremely nervous about it! Turned out that the purchase of the “Annakee Wild” tyre, was a very inspired (lucky!) move, as it was brilliant on the gravel, and Rally Boy enjoyed himself once he got into the swing of it, moving expertly from one “lane” of sand to another in grand style. I remembered that I had to practice the art of letting go of my fears, and my responsibility was to relax completely in order to not jeopardise the delicate balance of the bike. I decided I could not really bear to view the scary lines of loose sand, so looked at the horizon and meditated calmly instead, thus successfully neutralizing myself as a threat!
Our campsite at the Canyon Lodge was in an old dried up river bed, and we had luckily booked slightly ahead, as we coincided with some of the frontrunners of the Gauteng school holiday trek!! However the campsite is so spacious and well laid out, we were hardly aware of our neighbours and only had to deal with a bit of German competiveness in the ablution block, but that was solved by walking further to another one instead, a bit of exercise was no problem just to keep that chilled holiday spirit alive!
The Canyon lodge is a marvel of retro cars, railway memorabilia, and everything a petrol head could be fascinated by… It has a lovely atmosphere, and is conveniently situated about 35km from the actual Fish River Canyon.
We really enjoyed not-catering, and indulging in restaurant food and wine, in the special atmosphere of the Canyon Lodge, getting our washing done… trying our best to deplete the almost finished 7 day Aweh Geeg with our Instagram photos and updates.
We headed off the next morning on a totally liberated bike – no panniers, no luggage at all, only our tank bag! This was the best ride for Tiennie, he so enjoyed the gravel roads, the Annakee Wild, and the
Rocky tracks right up to the awesome Canyon itself. For me, I was just getting incrementally better at this whole gravel road experience…
Words are not really enough to describe the Fish River Canyon, its silent and ancient beauty..
| On the way back to camp, I jumped off while Tiennie just enjoyed some free runs along the very inviting and empty gravel road towards Ai-Ais.. |  |
