Fish River Canyon Day 4

There is something about sleeping under the stars, something Primal. That's another Primal Rule: get lots of sleep and I think we did on the hike. Other than the light of the campfire, your body lets you know that you should go to sleep when it gets dark. I love that!

Progress!!

I think day 4 was the day we all realised it was going to be ok and we were going to make it. Perhaps it was the big 40 and 50km signs we walked passed, or the fact that nothing much had gone wrong, and we were fit and strong, but by day 4 we were more relaxed. The scenery was amazing, as was every other day. The food was working mostly well for Renalda and I. At this stage the canyon had widened out nicely, and if you took the inside of the bend it felt like you were taking big shortcuts and making massive progress, but each one of these bends also took you far away from the river and reminded one once again that this is a desert! But when you got back to the river, it always invited you in for a swim!

More Progress!!

Amazing intrusions into the rock, like God was mixing playdough

I just had to take a pic of a dead tree...not a terribly good one

Signs of Humanity

The river clay is baked hard into blocks that can be lifted, neither of us had seen it like you see in the movies.

This is definitely a desert

By then end of day four and after sleeping in the sand for the first three nights, we had learned that cold hard rock is better than warmer sand. So when we got to the campsite for that night we decided that the best place to sleep was on the cement weir. And I think I slept the bast that night so far. It's interesting how you get used to sleeping out, in a sleeping bag with nothing but fresh air around you. But the hard ground definitely helped and there is no question about it in the future. If there is no soft grass, hard ground or rock wins hands down.

Our bed for night 4 in the bottom right