Thursday, April 12, 2007
Namibia Road Trip: Day Two
Wednesday 4th April - 410km
We awoke quite early on Wednesday in order to get through the Namibian border and on to our next place of stay. But first, we headed into town (Springbok) to get some breakfast and to fill up the tank. I also developed some photos for a scrapbook Milja made of our trip.
We got to the border at about 10:30am South African time, which is 9:30am Namibian time. We hid our electronic equipment as we were told before hand that we might have to pay the equivalent price of each item when we entered the country, although we would get it back as we left. The process was quite easy, first going through the different stages on the South African side, then driving a few hundred metres through a bit of a no-man's land to the Namibian offices, from where we were given clearance to proceed into the country. It was a lot hotter here than in Cape Town, the last place we had been outside during day time.
After a few hours of driving through Namibia and on the rocky, gravel roads, we reached the Cañon Roadhouse, an ex-farmhouse-turned-lodge in the middle of nowhere. We were about 20km from the Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon in America.
The lodge is a very cool place, quite new and modern, and decoraterd with old signs and memorabilia.
We were quite hungry so we had lunch. It was very hot - mid 30s ° C. Luckily the lodge had a swimming pool! Minna had a rest in their room while the rest of us went out to cool down. Matias and I ended up doing 60+ lengths each after I challenged him, while Milja sunbathed.
We had booked a trip to another nearby place, the Cañon Lodge, to go horse riding. I had never been horse riding before, but Milja has been itching to go for a while, and India loves horses. The riding was fun; we followed the guide for about an hour in the lowering sun and returned tired but not as sore as I thought I would be!
[Waiting for photos from Heikki :)]
As the sun was setting, we were in a hurry - Heikki wanted to go and visit the canyon at sunset. The canyon was about 20km away from the Lodge, and unfortunately we didn't quite make it in time to see the sun set. As we arrived, there was just the vibrant red-yellow glow hanging above the horizon.
The canyon is massive. It was hard to comprehend just how big it was, as there wasn't anything to compare its size to, but it was definitely on the large side. We could see lightning coming down towards the North, over the canyon, in the midst of the pink clouds. Milja tried her hardest to capture the lightning on film, but it was infrequent enough to make that a tough challenge.
We headed back to the lodge and had an awesome meal. Milja ordered Oryx which we had never eaten before, and it was delicious - very tender - and definitely better tasting than my very regular-sounding rump steak :)
It was now dark and another thunderstorm was breaking out behind/over the mountain just a bit away from the lodge. We were again treated to an awesome display of sheet and fork lightning, and later on it came closer, although not over head, and we had a few spots of rain. Heikki managed to get a shot of some lightning...
[Waiting for photo from Heikki :)]
We awoke quite early on Wednesday in order to get through the Namibian border and on to our next place of stay. But first, we headed into town (Springbok) to get some breakfast and to fill up the tank. I also developed some photos for a scrapbook Milja made of our trip.
We got to the border at about 10:30am South African time, which is 9:30am Namibian time. We hid our electronic equipment as we were told before hand that we might have to pay the equivalent price of each item when we entered the country, although we would get it back as we left. The process was quite easy, first going through the different stages on the South African side, then driving a few hundred metres through a bit of a no-man's land to the Namibian offices, from where we were given clearance to proceed into the country. It was a lot hotter here than in Cape Town, the last place we had been outside during day time.
After a few hours of driving through Namibia and on the rocky, gravel roads, we reached the Cañon Roadhouse, an ex-farmhouse-turned-lodge in the middle of nowhere. We were about 20km from the Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon in America.
The lodge is a very cool place, quite new and modern, and decoraterd with old signs and memorabilia.
We were quite hungry so we had lunch. It was very hot - mid 30s ° C. Luckily the lodge had a swimming pool! Minna had a rest in their room while the rest of us went out to cool down. Matias and I ended up doing 60+ lengths each after I challenged him, while Milja sunbathed.
We had booked a trip to another nearby place, the Cañon Lodge, to go horse riding. I had never been horse riding before, but Milja has been itching to go for a while, and India loves horses. The riding was fun; we followed the guide for about an hour in the lowering sun and returned tired but not as sore as I thought I would be!
[Waiting for photos from Heikki :)]
As the sun was setting, we were in a hurry - Heikki wanted to go and visit the canyon at sunset. The canyon was about 20km away from the Lodge, and unfortunately we didn't quite make it in time to see the sun set. As we arrived, there was just the vibrant red-yellow glow hanging above the horizon.
The canyon is massive. It was hard to comprehend just how big it was, as there wasn't anything to compare its size to, but it was definitely on the large side. We could see lightning coming down towards the North, over the canyon, in the midst of the pink clouds. Milja tried her hardest to capture the lightning on film, but it was infrequent enough to make that a tough challenge.
We headed back to the lodge and had an awesome meal. Milja ordered Oryx which we had never eaten before, and it was delicious - very tender - and definitely better tasting than my very regular-sounding rump steak :)
It was now dark and another thunderstorm was breaking out behind/over the mountain just a bit away from the lodge. We were again treated to an awesome display of sheet and fork lightning, and later on it came closer, although not over head, and we had a few spots of rain. Heikki managed to get a shot of some lightning...
[Waiting for photo from Heikki :)]
Dan | 
10:30 
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