July 26-27: Ai-Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park

After leaving Namaqualand, having had to skip my intended visit to Namakwa National Park, I headed north to the transfrontier park known as Ai-Ais/Richtersveld National Park on the border between South Africa and Namibia:

This transfrontier park, encompassing 2,334 square miles, was formed in 2003 by combining the Namibian Ai-Ais Hot Springs Game Park and the South African Richtersveld National Park. Most of the Park forms part of the buffer zone of the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape World Heritage Site. The most distinctive features of the Park are the hot springs (Ai-Ais translates as “fire-fire” in the native tongue) and the Fish River Canyon, purported to be the largest canyon in Africa and is considered the “Grand Canyon” of Africa.

Fish River Canyon is the second most visited tourist attraction in Namibia, after the dunes of Namib National Park (to be seen later). The canyon features a gigantic ravine about 100 miles long, up to 17 miles wide in places and up to 1800 feet deep – nothing to compare with the dimensions of the Grand Canyon in the U.S., but spectacular nonetheless. Fish River itself is the longest interior river in Namibia. It only flows during the summer months; during my winter visit, it was just a series of long narrow pools.

The Park landscape is extremenly dry (~5 inches of precip on the high, but less than 2 inches in much of the park), stony and sparsely covered with hardy drought-resistant succulent plants, including some unique plant life, such as the critically endangered giant quiver tree (which I showed you in my previous post) and some other tall aloes sparsely distributed among the sem-desert shrub vegetation. Another of the so-call mega-succulants is the “half-mens” tree. The local Nama community hold the half-mens tree in high regard, believing that the human-like figure it assumes is their ancestors longing for the Namibian home. Here’s a not-to-great shot of one:

Given the aridity of the environment and sparse vegetation, it is amazing that this ecosystem can support much animal life. Amazingly, however, I saw 4 kudu, 1 gemsbok (photo below), 1 springbok, and 3 klipspringers on my drive between campsites this morning. I don’t know how these animals scrape a living off this barren landscape, but it demonstrates the incredible evolutionary adaptations of the animal kingdom. Not the best picture, because gemsbok generally like to only show you their ass as they move away from you, but here it is nonetheless:

I had orginally intended to spend several days in this transfrontier park to take advantage of the opportunities to get in some nice desert canyon hikes, but I had to reduce to two full days due to my delay in Cape Town. I spent my first night at the Hobas campsite located close to the Fish River Canyon. Here are some photos of the upper portion of Fish River Canyon, that is very reminiscent of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, but on a much reduced scale.

Succulant on the plateau above Fish River Canyon

My second day I did a half-day hike up the lower Fish River Canyon and then move farther down canyon to near the confluence of the Fish River and the much bigger Orange River (which forms the border between South Africa and Namibia) to a campsite call Boplaas, which I had entirely to myself. The campground sits adjacent to the Orange River and I opted for a solo morning kayak trip on the river for a change of activity. Darn, another camper just pulled in – Europeans no doubt, as they seem to be the dominant tourists here, so it looks like I will have some company tonight. Here are some pictures of the desert drive to Boplaas, my campsite, and the river from the kayak.