Fish Canyon is suppose to be the second largest canyon in the world. Having seen the Grand Canyon several times, I wonder how this one would stack up? Fish River according to some it is absolutely magnificent and breathtaking in its immensity. Well, not that bad ....

The Fish River Canyon was probably formed about 500 million years ago, not only created by water erosion, but through the collapse of the valley bottom due to movements in the earth's crust.

The canyon is part of a nature conservation park so we had to camp at the outskirt.

It was still hot as we drove from our previous night's Konkiep Lapa / Ruskamp Rest Camp the short 300 km into Hobas, our camp ground on the outskirt of the Fish Canyon area and we got there for a late lunch. With a free afternoon with not much else to do around the camp site, a few of us decided to walk the 10 kms along the unsealed road to the canyon itself. I had expected to see a little bit but the road was so straight with only a few turns and not much on the roadside to see. Glad I did it simply to stretch the legs and get some much needed exercise.

At the main view point it drops vertically half a kilometer out of a flat arid plateau without any warning.

Then as the sun set, out came the champagne and nibbles to celebrate this stopover. I was more interested in trying to capture the changing red sun light colours as it turned into a dark blue then jet black with stars twinkling away.

The next day it was onwards again continuing 200 km south, crossing the border into South Africa and our night's stop at Fiddlers Creek / Bush Whacked camp site right by the Orange River.

Here is a photo study of a quiver tree that we stopped by and the vegetation around it. Again Mr Wikipedia comes to the rescue. Quiver tree is indigenous to Southern Africa, specifically in the Northern Cape region, and Namibia. The Quiver tree gets its name from the indigenous San practice of hollowing out the tubular branches to form quivers for their arrows.

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Water crossing warning in this dessert!

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Travellers places a stone onto this pile

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