Marsh Multinational Hiked the Fish River Canyon

Another night survived. We were all up rather earlier this morning and Kevin, for a second morning, fed us with ProNutro, a soy & maize-based porridge alternative. It was a fake banana flavour and you made it up with hot water. This morning when we ‘tucked in’, it was especially crunchy and it was quite hard to work out whether it was meant to be like that or whether it was actually sand that we were eating…… Martin had two spoons and gave up. The ProNutro never came out of Kevin’s rucksack again.

While the rest of us were faffing with cleaning plates and packing up bags, Martin and Gavin took off to try and get some ground covered before it got hot again. They needn’t have bothered. Jen and Kevin, at the back of the convoy, had rounded one riverbend before it started drizzling.

Remember – It never rains in the Fish!!!

“It won’t last, Jen. Don’t worry“, said Kevin.

Then the wind picked up.

The rain became horizontal.

The temperature dropped.

You will have noticed that cagoules were not deemed vital enough to have made the packing list. Jen’s only warm jumper was cashmere and not very rain/sandstorm resistant.

It did eventually stop raining, I’m pleased to report, but it was still PRETTY chilly – not quite what you’d expect from the African desert but there we go!

Things of note on day 3 –

• We hit the 20 and 30 kilometre marks – THANK F*CK!
• We saw a big family of baboons!
• Gavin restrained himself from firing his catapult at said baboons
• Day 2 of Kevin’s Waldorf salad for lunch
• We encountered our first and last scorpion – when it charged Shannen between the legs!
• Lots of enormous dead cat fish- “mmm sushi!” (we think that the Fish Eagles had been feasting on these. The sight of them certainly put Jen off ever getting in to another pond.)
• The remains of 2 dead baboons – Kevin didn’t say this at the time but the only things that could have eaten them were either a leopard or a hyena…
• The skeletal remains of a dead horse
• 2 (living) wild horses (the highlight)

We encountered the horses in the middle of the afternoon, a real high spot as Kevin had been talking about seeing them for the whole trip and we’d been seeing horse poo at regular intervals down the Canyon. They were very beautiful and in much better nick than the weary hikers who were observing them!

Sadly straight afterwards we hit the low point of the day – the largest deepest sandy riverbed we’d been confronted with so far. Absolutely miserable for the legs and spirits. However, we were sure that ‘just around the riverbend’ (which was the song from Pocahontas that was playing in Jen’s head for the whole trip) there was a camping spot for the night so we battled through it un-complaining.

Unfortunately we, yet again, discovered no water so we had to keep going. Martin had specially requested that we stop earlier today to have more time before the dark descended but unfortunately this now wasn’t looking likely. Tempers were fraying. “Kevin, I thought you said that days 3 and 4 were easy?“, asked Jen crossly. “EasiER, I said“, replied Kevin.

We sent the boys (the three musketeers) off ahead on a scouting mission. This involved scrambling up the side of the canyon (their favourite thing) to get a better view of the terrain ahead and on the other river bank.

Success!!!! They found what was actually our best camping spot of the week, with lots of bushes for shelter (and having wees behind), and lots of wood so that we could finally have a camp fire!!!

Usual evening activities of water purifying, ablutions and dinner started in earnest, and the boys & Kevin gathered up a very decent stock of wood for the fire.

This was when Gavin discovered the downside to this camping spot – the pond below it was the dirtiest one we’d encountered yet.. probably not helped by the Egyptian geese hanging around.

At this juncture, I’d like to give a shout-out to Gavin (and his assistant, Martin) for keeping us hydrated & healthy on the trip. One of the very important things Gavin had brought in his rucksack was water purifying apparatus, something Kevin had pooh poohed before the trip. Gavin would collect water, often straining it through his (clean) snood, painstakingly squeeze it through a filter into a clean bottle, then add a purifying chlorine tablet. He did this for Kevin, Martin and me every morning and every evening, and sometimes at lunchtime too! I’m not saying we’d have died if we’d done it Kev’s way (just adding a tablet to the water) but I’m fairly sure we’d all be hosting some sort of water-borne parasite now.

Anyway, Gavin had gone down with his snood (sporting the Welsh flag) to the pond to collect more water and when he’d lifted it out he realised that it was absolutely teeming with life. Gavin is a pretty hardy sort but even he blanched at that, “Two chlorine tablets tonight, I think“, he said to himself.

Anyway, pond life aside, we actually had a very lovely (it’s all relative) evening! Especially as we knew we were more than half way home (in terms of days, if not distance!!).

We had, very sadly, finished the last of the Andrew Walker dinner delights so this evening we had some dehydrated Jollof rice, which was really delicious (despite Kevin’s reservations about dehydrated food) – especially with a bit of salami chopped into it.

The fire was magnificent and the boys produced a bottle of so-far-untouched Captain Morgan’s rum which Kevin exchanged some ‘Game’ in return for a share of.

In spite of having resolved to go bed later tonight the fire was very sleepy-making and most people again got into their sleeping bags fairly quickly. Kevin had painstakingly chosen the spot for the fire, putting it in the perfect spot for the smoke to waft exactly over where Jen & Martin were sleeping!

To be fair the lack of oxygen probably sent them to sleep faster, aided as well by the comforting sound of the gang around the fire playing drinking games & a rendition of Taylor Swift’s – The Climb.

Kevin passed out by the fire after they’d finished the litre of rum but luckily didn’t roll into it!

Jen only needed to get get out of her sleeping bag to go to the loo 4 times this night. Hurray!