Exploring the biggest Canyon in Africa by motorbike - Episode 2

In this episode, my campsite gets hit by a storm. I check out the second biggest canyon in the world, hang out with some more local wildlife, navigate some water crossings, watch a desert sunset, and sleep amongst the boulders under the Southern Cross. In the last episode, I'd ridden to the top of the mountain to take in the views. I headed off from the top of the Bukharas mountain, making my way down the rocky washed out track. The one thing to watch out for when going down hills is getting your front wheel caught up on one of these larger rocks. Otherwise, it's quite easy, just letting the bike roll down the mountain. How cool is it to find a trail like this in what seems to be the middle of nowhere, no one around, and views to the horizon. No wonder people say Namibia is a great place to ride. As mentioned when riding up, this extinct volcano was created in one event, where a buildup of lava below the surface pushed the earth up slowly at first, in this case 400 meters, then the magma mixed with ground water, which rapidly turned to steam, resulting in a large explosion called a phreatomagmatic explosion, throwing debris 10 kilometers in every direction. I'm sure it would have been a crazy thing to see. Once I got back down to the flatter section, the tracks moved out. I made it back through a deserted gate. I looked back and in the time it took me to get off the mountain, rain clouds had formed in the crater and started raining. It's like the mountain created its own weather. Those clouds that had formed at the top of the mountain were now chasing me down. The storms loomed large in my rear-vision mirror, but it was all sunshine ahead. I made it back to the main road, so it was a straight shoot down the highway towards the town of Kitmanshu, as near there was a place called the Quiver Tree Forest that I wanted to check out. I rode into Kitmanshu to fill up with fuel, then headed out to the east of the town. I got back onto the dirt. This road was quite corrugated, which probably means it gets used a lot. There were small rain cells everywhere. I guess it would only be a matter of time before one hit me. I pulled into the Quiver Tree campsite. I checked in, then headed a couple of kilometers down the track towards the Quiver Tree Forest. I had a quick ride around the camp spots, trying to work out which one might be best in the event of a storm. There were definitely some soft sections. You could see water had run through some of the campsites. Made it to the campsite, just before this storm looks like it may hit. There's lightning everywhere. There was a better campsite up there, more protected from wind, but it looks like it's got a river flying through it. I feel the wind's just about to pick up. I'd rather be behind some breeze as well, because as that storm comes in, I'm sure it's going to get really quite animated. The wind? I better do it before it actually hits. There is a taller block just here in case I need to bail out for any reason. I couldn't get it done in time. I had wind squalls and then it's just started raining, but I couldn't put the tent down in the wind, so I'm under this tent for the moment. There is no one else here, so I don't think anybody'd mind me parking here for a bit. The rain poured down, and then thunder and lightning. As the wind started really cranking up, I had dumped my gear into the toilet and shower for now. The rain eased off a bit, so I went and had a look. This is the road I came in on. It's still passable, but in a few more hours, if it stops raining, it'll be all dried up. It's wild how quick they come and go. Look at this. You can see the foam on the side of the bank, so it was another maybe half a meter higher in the last 20 minutes. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. If the wind stops, I might still camp under the tin thing, just in case it starts up during the middle of the night. At least I can then bail back into here. It's about five in the evening. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I think I'm just going to twiddle my thumbs for an hour or so more and see what happens. So the only half-baked plan I have is to sleep in the toilet side. Shower side, the floor doesn't go the whole way through because of the shower. It's going to be competent. And on the right-hand side here, it's actually dry under the sink. I put my air mattress up and, well, it's not that cold, so I won't have to put anything over the top, and I might just sleep in the clothes I've got on. But it may all come clear and sun comes out before it goes to sunset, or maybe not. Well, the rain has backed off. It's very light now, but there is another storm coming. And I was going to put the tent out here, but if the next storm does the same thing, and wind, and a lot of wind, I'll probably get blown off again because I can't peg the tent in. I'll just get blown away. So at the moment, it looks like I'm going to stay in the toilet. I'm going to be on the backup food tonight. Sliced peaches. It's good. As the sun went over the horizon, I set up in the toilet as more rain fell. Started hearing mozzies, so the weather seems to have settled a bit. So I'm going to put the tent out here. I don't want to get bitten by a mosquito that may be carrying malaria. Let's see how this goes. Well, I've had a small wind, and the tent's up. It has been an eventful day. Always good when you're on the road. All right, I'm finally gonna try and get to sleep again. Morning. What a difference a day makes. There's not a cloud in the sky. A couple puddles left, but most of the water's gone. Let's hope the dry season has finally arrived. I finally got a chance to check out the quiver trees. Thought I'd go for a wander through the forest when it's not raining. The name quiver tree comes from what the sand people would create from the branches. They would hollow them out, closing one end with something like animal skin, to create a container to hold their arrows for hunting. And a container that holds arrows is called a quiver, which led to them being named quiver trees. This was one of the first spots I looked at to camp, as it's got all these trees here to protect from the wind that I thought would come from the storm. But looking at the ground, I'm glad I didn't. You can see where the water's come rushing through here and also rearranged all the sand. Sometimes it makes some good decisions. I got back to the shelter and packed. Tent's packed and all the gears on the bike. Just as that sun's coming over the horizon, feels like it's gonna get warm. Gotta remember to drink that water. I made my way out of the campsite. I got onto the main road and you could see the water had cut up the surface of the road yesterday afternoon and into the evening. It would have been like riding a shallow river here if you'd come in just before dusk. I rode through the town of Kepmanshug. Just a quick stop to get a photo of the escarpment over here. Seeing I'm avoiding the dirt for this morning and staying on the tarmac, I've got plenty of time. As you can probably guess with the different layers of escarpments, there's probably a lot of canyons around here too. Rode through an open plain where they had dug really long deep trenches and I couldn't work out what they were for. Whoever dug them looks like they may have OCD as each of the mounds of dirt was pretty identical. On the map it looked like there was a river or lake to my left so I thought I'd have a look. It was actually a dam with a decent amount of water in it for a desert country. I got back onto the road and ahead you could see the advantage of being below a dam. The land was very green. I thought I'd test how difficult it was to ride through the sand around here. Well with all the rain, it wasn't. That is the one bonus of rain. It makes sand firmer and more predictable. The roads here are quite good when not affected by water runoff and it's easy to sit on 100 kilometers per hour. I pulled over. The one thing you have to find when pulling over here is a good flat wide rock to put under the stand as the sand here is so soft your stand will sink and the bike will fall over. Just noticed the color of the sand here has changed. A bit further back it was all white. Now it's gone this reddy yellow color. Pretty straight. A bit further and I've got a right hand turn to make and I think there's a roadhouse somewhere along there. Might find some food. I came to a causeway that did have a concrete bottom but now it was covered in sand. It shows how water has control of the landscape. Then I came across a stationary passenger train. It seemed they had just parked it here as nobody was in or around it which was a bit strange in the middle of nowhere. I then came to a river crossing. The concrete blocks on the right gave me an indication of the depth. It looked like it was a little deeper towards the other side but still no more than a foot high as a rough guide. The water was actually flowing quite fast and I started feeling the back of the bike getting pushed towards the right. I pulled into the canyon roadhouse. They had an old drilling rig and a few old trucks out front. A lot of places to park in Namibia are covered with solar panels serving the purpose of shade while collecting power which makes a lot of sense in a desert country. Inside the roadhouse was more old unique vehicles and if you didn't know any better you might think the idea for an animated movie about cars may have come from here. I grabbed something and well it was pretty good. They were really good. There was three selections of pies I guess you'd call in there. So I asked the local what would be best to eat and she said the chicken and she was right. That's about the tastiest thing I've had here. That was so good. So right now I'm just going to fill up as it's a while before I can find another fuel station. I do have the always best to fill up when you can. You just have to wait for someone. Hopefully they'll be here soon. Yeah thank you. I set off. It wasn't too far until I'd reached the main goal for today and that was to see the Fish River Canyon. I had reached the turnoff to where I was going to stay but continued straight to the canyon. I reached the entry to the canyon. Is this to the canyon lookout? Paid a small entry fee and continued on. It was just over 10 kilometers to the canyon. I rode along the track on the edge that led me to a lookout. I could see another track that looked like it might have a better view so I made my way along it. Well this is Fish River Canyon. The amount of water that must have passed through here over time must be staggering. The Fish River Canyon is the largest canyon in Africa. The canyon is over 160 kilometers in length and reaches 500 meters deep. I made my way further around towards the west along the rim to another viewing point. Due to flash flooding and the heat, hiking passes are only given out in winter which is May until September. So no hiking for me this time. It reminds me of Horseshoe Bend along the Grand Canyon in the US. This is one of those places that is barren but somehow still stunningly beautiful. I had made it to the canyon lodge. Alain has some rather nice lodges in his Gondwana collection. This one's no exception. This is a canyon lodge. This one has some rather, I'm not sure what they're called, but they're doing a great job of keeping the grass trimmed. There's heaps of them everywhere. I've got a room right out the front onto the desert. There's more of them here. Mexican standoff. The older ones don't seem to worry if you walk by them. This is sort of nestled into all the rocks. Could be a set of a Star Wars movie. The rock people. It was super cool how the room was built in and amongst the rock. So definitely better than trying to bunker down in a taller block to avoid the weather last night. Actually I think it's better than just about every place I've stayed at. Just went outside for another look around. As the sun's getting down it's starting to cool off and well there's something over here. I guess they don't need my lawns here with the little guys and those guys are eating all the grass. This is this place. You wouldn't know there was anybody else here. You can barely tell there's buildings in there. I felt something sharp. A tree thorn that was on the ground had pierced into the side of my shoe. Just watching the last of the light and there it goes. I guess I am. How's this rock? It's just been split in three. I guess that's what time does to you. Well to rocks anyway. It's amazing how the boulders just balance in wild spots. There's one up here. It's small. Well it's probably taller than me but looks tiny and it's just balancing the side too. How on earth it got there to start with. These guys are still at it. I wouldn't want to corner one of those guys with those horns. I'm sure they're friendly. Look at the bark on this tree. This thing must be ancient. Well it looks ancient. Just so textured. So dinner's a buffet but there is an entree and the nice waitress started telling me saying words I had no idea. It's local but it's meat so we'll see what it's like. I'm sure it is epic because everything here that's been meat has been epic already. It was really good. It was meat. Just little pieces and some sort of doughy. Oh more like damper but a little sweeter. That was good too. Can't wait for the rest of it. And the rest of dinner was just as good. Not a bad location to have dinner. I walked back to the room. The night sky was so clear with little light pollution you could see the southern cross and a few other constellations. Oh my love you're such a fragile thing I know. In the next episode I woke up to an incredible sunrise. I ride into the desert where I find some very sandy tracks but also the best track so far leading to an incredible place to stay. Don't worry about the cold just yet. The trees haven't started to shed.