Mr Fish!

I first have to tell you about the ‘Mr Fish’ otherwise you will wonder? And you will? …won’t you??

Now we all grow up with challenges in our lives and some we accept and others we deny. But when we have something that is in our minds, maybe a push-over challenge or just a lump of ladder then we belittle them like calling the pig just a piggie? Are you sure you want to call Mister pink belly just a pig?? Or do you first want to catch and control Mr pink… and then assess again before he whips your ass into pignalation!!

In a movie (and on stage recently) I was amazed by Mr Pig (aka Pumba) as I feel the same by calling the ‘Fish’ just another hike…The fish…should be called : Mr Fish!

The Fish River Canyon is not a day trip. 90Km’s of water, rock, sand, stone and blistering heat!!

Another fact that they happen to forget or not to mention is that it has claimed so many lives! But what a spiritual experience it turned out to be none the less, here we go:

Day one

It took us about 3 hours to climb to the bottom of the Canyon as one of our members was ill.

We had a relaxing swim in the river at the “Start” point and this was seen as lunch.

We only progressed another 2km as half the group was tired from the long hall down the Canyon and we were concerned that we might not find a suitable area to camp again before dark ascended upon us.

Our first night was at “First Rest Pools” and the name was fitting to the occasion!

Day two

This day took us to just passed the 10km mark so we took it as 12km in the first two days and started getting worried (slow going)! Especially when a group of people come hiking passed you and they are doing the hike in 6 days and not 5 like our selves!

It must be said that the river was very high indeed which forst us to do some boulder pioneering on the edge of the gorge and really slowed things down.

Another miss jugment was not crossing the river in time to take the first ‘important’ inside bend at “Wild Fig Bend”.

Day three

At this point we realised that we would be playing ‘catch-up’ from now on and woke up just before the sun rose and ended up having breakfast at “Palm Springs”.

We kept the pace aggressive and it would be the last time that we would see the ‘six day hikers’ but met with a new group of ‘Poms’ that were doing it in 4 days but started a day later than our selves which put them on the ball park with us! Gave us (me) some hope at that stage.

We had lunch (our last official lunch) break at “Reef xxxxxxxxxxx” and it was definitely one of thee greatest highlights of the Fish as it was a smooth rock embankment with lots of water and son. Here we played, washed and ate to our hearts content which I believe gave us the energy to press on with vigor!

We ended up at “Table Mountain” after a sand storm or two with the Pom’s about a K infront of us, we thought we had done about 18km and were at 30km in total.

Day Four

Realising we had 60km to do in 2 days we woke up in the dark and started packing! Breakfast was consumed along the way…

We pushed on well and kept an eagles eye out for our first short cut, we found it after a ten minute lunch ‘loop en sook’ and we took it! It is high so if you have a phobia of heights maybe ‘klapping a toon’ is better! There after we hit the second short cut soon afterwards and we took it with all eagerness! This one was a long shorty though and as much as we wanted to get passed “Four Finger Rock” we ended up at its base! We however saw the Brits summit this before sunset and knew they were still just a spit away.

Day 5

We knew that we had a bigger day than the day before ahead of us and the nerves were apparent and the tempers were flaring! But what held us together was the fact that we had come so far together and there was only one fifth left for us.

We passed the Causeway still in the morning and felt good about the road ahead, things got better when one of our leading hikers saw a “unofficial short cut” and we took it to our advantage!

We came out at the final “Official” short cut where we had a rest/lunch and then had our last Boulder climbing session of the hike just after the river crossing.

We were soon passed “Stock Kraal” and wisped passed the 80km mark with a tight left hander which brought us up to “Almost There”.

The last five kilometers were not tuff exept that the sand is soft and deep and that you think you are a spit away as the pipes to the resort from the river start just after your final river crossing! It was a long last 5km!!!!

 

Wag ‘n Bietjie

For those of you that are not from around here (South Africa) the title (Afrikaans) to this post means “Wait a bit” in English and “ちょっと待って (chotto matte)” in Japanese

This is also a common name of a member of the Acacia tree family (Acacia Caffra) that has the ability to hook onto to you and not let go! This tree is found in Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Northern Province and North-West. We happened to be in the Northern Province when we encountered this lovely but potentially troublesome tree.

We were on a hiking trail by the name of…you guessed it: ‘Wag ‘n Bietjie Trail’!

We tackled this hike end of September 2006 which is still pretty much winter in SA but you do this when hiking in the North as it gets as hot as hell in summer months.

This trail is situated just north of Warmbaths that is now called Bela Bela and is a spit away from Johannesburg and Pretoria. The trail is ranked ‘easy’ but due to some purely marked trails it may become a challenge as we discovered!

The first days hike was meant to be a breeze 8km (the second day 14km) or so but after lunch we started getting the feeling that the map was just not agreeing with the trail no more, what we didn’t know at this point is that we had missed the turn off to our overnight hut a while back! We even lost the trail at a stage and in an attempt to find it my buddy Jack and I tasted the full wrath of a Wag ‘n Bietjie tree, trust me on this one…you don’t ever go near one of these…’Little shop of Horrors’ can go sleep! The full trail is either shorter than what is noted or we are super hikers, by late afternoon we realised that we had hiked the full two day hike in less than a day finding ourselves back at base camp where we had started the morning!

Well at least it had a farm dam converted into a swimming pool that we abused immediately. We then approach the Farm Manager as one is not allowed to drive to the overnight hut with your own vehicles (Not good for the wild found in that camp), he immediately jumped to action and loaded us up into his make-shift ‘Landy’ and off we went. Just as well I took his cell number when he dropped us off as we later realised that the water in water tower was pungent to say the least! So the manager came back to help us out and we had clean water again. Around the fire with a glass of wine that evening we realised how lucky we really were…if we had taken the trail to the over night hut we would have sat without water!!

So even though we hiked our tails off that day and complained about the trail markings…the Almighty had a plan!

 

The Unknown

 It is the one thing that drives mankind to the ends of the earth and above in the constellations; The Unknown!

But on a weekend hike it is something that is a joke for a moment or two and then it can become life threatening. Hikes are all good and well as long as there is someone in your group that is experienced and that there are aids in the form of a map that is concise, accurate and legible and relative to the surrounding area and a trail that is well marked would be a bonus!

So we had the afore mentioned but for the latter we were dwindling apostles only preaching to the way side as we stuttered through the Baviaanskloof!

I asked my self as the group did what the hell is a peace of heaven doing in the hands of misguided ‘authorities’? This is but another part of the puzzle of
Eden and we were not enjoying it purely because if the map says X km then it should be, or are you meant to know that it might be a whole lot more?

Luckily this hike was so beautiful it made it all worth the while. There was not much game to speak of but the mountain range, rivers, waterfalls and forests were something to write home about! The accommodation was also interesting as we slept in huts that looked like caves (nice touch), and at first sight it did make some of us shout for joy!! Another first was ‘bucket showers’ that with a bit of effort could turn out to be one hell of a nice wash session. There were also some of the most majestic views as we ascended steeply against the gorge, especially the look out where we looked onto a prestigious waterfall!

All said and done I would love to do it again some day, with a GPS that is!

At the end of the weekend I realised one thing…the ‘Unknown’ could have scared us and sure did try but the amazing group of friends we found our selves in was the ‘Known’ and that is all that mattered!