Marsh Multinational Hiked the Fish River Canyon

It had been an interesting night. We had a black-backed jackal right by our encampment making a hell of a noise and there were lots of other animals around. Kevin was very relieved that Jen was unconscious.

There was a lot of nervous energy in the camp – feelings of relief that it was nearly over, concern about losing bets, thirst for cold drinks mixed with a VERY small amount of sadness.

The only real thing to report of the morning was that Martin Pugh finally gave in and had a date with the Spade…

We’ve got a fair amount of footage of the day so I’ll let that do the talking rather than write about it (you’ve read enough about walking over sand, then boulders, then sand etc. etc. etc.)

By the last few kilometres we had all split into groups. Jen was about half an hour behind the boys and the others were another half an hour or so behind her. 11am had come and gone (a win for Jen) when she suddenly heard some voices in the distance. Expecting to find the boys, Jen walked towards the sound.. but it was not the boys! A man and a woman, both in flipflops, were sitting on a rock. They were not covered in dust or looking fed up which meant they were not Fish River hikers! They were normal humans! The woman took in Jen’s rucksack and fed up expression and said, “You’ve done it! Congratulations! Amazing!“. Jen said thank you and burst into tears.

About 5 minutes later she did find the boys, waiting, just around the corner from the finish line. We waited for the whole group to be together and then walked on.

The last 200 metres were, of course, of thick B*STARD sand but nothing could stand between us and the big finish.

It was pretty great feeling walking over that finish line, but to be honest mainly we were just thinking about getting to the bar and that fridge-cold glass of beer.