Augrabies & The Richtersveld - RSA

From Polentswa we had a 500km journey through the park to the main gate at Twee Riverien where we completed immigration procedures, first at the Botswana post then at the South African post, before heading off into South Africa. Our destination for the night was the town of Upington in the Northern Cape from where we would head North West towards Namibia.

The road was dirt or bone shaking gravel for most of the journey so it was after 5pm before we reached the tar road to Upington. It was a lovely evening and its a nice drive through the semi desert, not much game except for a lot of dead Bat Eared Fox's on the side of the road, sadly killed when they come out at night. It was after 7pm when we pulled into the Eiland Resort at Upington where we decided to take a fully equipped self catering chalet for £24, which wasn't half bad, it was certainly nice to have mains power, Sat TV and en suite bathroom again.

We spent the next day in Upington, doing internet, the bank and re-stocking the larder and bar. We planned to head off the next day to Augrabies to see the waterfalls but first Rupert was also in bad need of some TLC as he was very dusty from the journey so late in the day we stopped at a car wash near the bus station, where cars are washed by hand, in fact a number of hands and usually at these washes you get a good job.

The place was very busy and we didn't want to hang around so I was just in the midst of negotiations with the owner about coming back in the morning when Sue suddenly shouted "Oh Pete he's grabbed something from the dash!"

Not knowing who the "he" was I turned just in time to see a youth running away through the crowd towards the bus station. Without thinking I jumped out of the Landy and legged it after him, by now he had turned a corner and had slowed down, for a moment I closed the gap but then he realised I was chasing and put on a spurt again. Apart from the age gap I was wearing sandals so couldn't get anywhere near him and gave up returning to Sue and the Landy. By now she was cursing at all and sundry who had gathered round to see what had happened and had ascertained that the guy had grabbed a Leatherman tool which had been sitting on the dash.

The car wash owner was most apologetic but said he didn't recognise the guy and belatedly warned us to be careful as there were a number of bad lads around. It was just annoying that we had been so careless, Sue is normally very vigilant and keeps her window up when we are in towns but this once she had left it half open and the guy had taken his chance.  It was our first bit of trouble since arriving in Africa and thankfully it was pretty minor, especially as no one was injured and we had found the Leatherman in a Cape Town car park anyway, we never did get Rupert washed!

We had been told that, due to all the rain, the Orange River was at its fullest for many years and we should see the falls at Augrabies where it tumbles through a gorge to form a spectacular torrent of water. Whilst we were at Eiland a lot of police cars and an ambulance came racing into the resort, we found out later a boy had been swept away whilst playing near the river, we never found out if he was ever recovered.

As Augrabies was more or less on our route to Namibia we headed there the next day. The countryside was becoming more arid and we started to see Kokerbooms or Quiver Trees which we had only seen before in Namibia. We would have to get used to this as from now on we were travelling through some of the most inhospitable parts of Southern Africa.

We arrived at Augrabies just after midday, which made a nice change from getting in late. It was very hot so we were  dismayed to find the campsite pretty full with most shady spots in use. Luckily being early we managed to find a decent spot which must have been vacated that morning and set up camp.  Soon after a number of new people arrived and started setting up their camps close  by, having just come from the wilds of Botswana with all its solitude it would take some getting used to camping South African style again which usually means people camped cheek by jowl.

The falls were certainly worth seeing, viewing platforms have been built which jut out over the gorge so you can really get an appreciation of the sheer force and volume of water, maybe not as spectacular as Victoria Falls but pretty special all the same.

Apart from the falls there are few hikes you can do,  one is the Dassie trail which is described as being an easy 5km walk. It starts easy enough until you come to the first river/stream crossing which consists of a wooden ladder with half the rungs missing, from there it progressively gets harder as you scramble over gorges and up and down rock faces. Over three days we watched a number of groups head off for the start of the trail only to return a short while later, the faint hearted having decided to give it a miss, we did do it, although Sue was not too keen on a number of the steep, slippery bits and it cost us a Nikon lens cap which fell off and was instantly swept away down river!

Our next stop was going to be The Richtersveld NP which had come highly recommended by the Nedens and the Evans who described it as a tough drive. It was too far to do in a day so we planned to break the journey at a place called Springbok, even from there it is a good way but we hoped to make it in one day.

The drive to Springbok is quite scenic through a landscape which gets more arid as you go, reminding us a bit of Death Valley in Utah. There is very little habitation on the way except for a small settlement with the great name of Pofadder! We where now entering Namaqualand, home to the bushman in days gone by, it was the first time since leaving Cape Town where we had not seen rain clouds somewhere on the journey, a very welcome change! 

Springbok is a small town which serves the mines round about, it has just the one campsite which lies a little way out of town. We arrived around 4pm and checked in, it was very reasonable at R70 (£6) which included power hook ups. The only problem was it was full of caravans set up in long straight ranks which gave it the feeling of a housing estate, we were the only people using a tent.

It seems a lot of people who work in the area live in these semi permanent caravans so during the evening they would socialise with the neighbours, shouting from one caravan to another and with the kids playing in the street outside it was like a council estate on wheels. Still it was secure and we still had time to pop into town to get some drink and luxury of luxuries we found a KFC, the first we had had in many months. 

Next day we headed off early and stopped in Springbok to do some last minute food shopping and to check emails, after here we would not be in a decent town again until we reached Windhoek capital of Namibia, at least one week away.

The Richtersveld lies in the far NW of South Africa right on the Orange River at the border with Namibia. The only way to reach it is to take a very circuitous route out to Alexander Bay on the Atlantic Ocean coast then drive back inland over gravel tracks to the park. Its as remote as it gets in RSA and not the sort of place to get into trouble. The first part of the journey to Port Noloth is absolutely stunning mountain scenery then it changes to scrub desert so flat that by now you can see the Atlantic in the distance even though its over 15km away.  

Port Noloth is a small seaside town where you can pick up basics, from here its about 85km along the coast to Alexander Bay, then a further 90km to Sendlingsdrift which is where the park headquarters are. By 4pm we were only about half way to Sendlingsdrift, the road being poor gravel by now and it was fairly slow going so we decided to camp at a place called Brandkaros, which doesn't appear on most maps, whilst we still had light.

The campsite here costs R100 and is nothing to write home about so if going again we would try and make sure we reached Sendlingsdrift in one day, although you need to get there early if you want to carry on into the park.  The next morning we headed onto Sendlingsdrift, the road getting worse as we went along. We drive conservatively when on gravel as it's very easy to get fooled into driving fast and in Namibia where a lot of  gravel roads are well graded loads of people get killed and injured every year overturning their trucks on this surface.

As we neared The Richtersveld we started to see a load of 4WD vehicles coming at speed towards us, clouds of dust in their wake. We slowed and pulled over as far as we could but the buggers just raced past throwing up stones and dust as they went.

The previous day we had been passed late on by two bakkies (pickups) racing to get somewhere before dark and had been hit by a stone but luckily nothing was broken. This time we had passed about six cars without mishap then as the next passed we heard a big stone hit the car, needless to say he just raced on regardless. It was only later in the day we noticed a perfect round crack in the windscreen hidden behind the rear view mirror! It was no surprise to note that they all had Gauteng GP number plates, they really are the worse of the worse, totally selfish bastards.  

Sendlingsdrift is supposed to have a pontoon which crosses the Orange River into Namibia at Fish River Canyon but this had been washed away which was a bugger as we had hoped to use this to enter Namibia, now we would have to retrace our steps to the tar road to Springbok. However, you can get fuel here and there is a shop with some basics, if you arrive late there is also a campsite although we had been warned to avoid this if at all possible.

There are four camp sites in the park, a couple on the river and a couple inland but when we arrived we were told all except the De Hoop site on the river were closed! The other site on the river had been washed away by the floods back in February and was still inaccessible and the inland ones were closed because the roads had been destroyed. We had planned to camp at De Hoop then move up river to the other site before exiting the park so we just hoped it was not going to be too congested with just one site open. There is rest camp with chalets as well but this is close to Sendlingsdrift and not near the river.

The drive to De Hoop is challenging to say the least. The track starts off ok but quickly deteriorates as you cross a  mountain range until you are rock crawling rather than driving on a defined track. Once through the mountains you then descend into a sandy desert valley before winding through a series of rocky canyons until you eventually come out to the river. It is great fun and you would pay a few bob in the UK to drive such a demanding 4WD route.

You suddenly come upon De Hoop as you come out of the canyons and its lovely to see the Orange River and the river foliage after an hour or more of desert driving. Just here is one of the two ablution blocks with a shower and two loos. What we weren't told before setting off from Selingsdrift was that the other set of ablutions and all the sites around them were unreachable, cut off by the river, so that limited our options even further.

There was quite a nice camping spot on the river just here but a family who were actually camped somewhere else where using it to have a BBQ, thus excluding it for anyone else, not surprisingly we noticed they had GP number plates!  There seemed to be only one other group camped some way up the river bank so we drove way past them further up the valley and found a really lovely isolated spot to camp right on the river.

It would mean foregoing the use of the ablutions but it was worth it for the solitude and privacy (we have our own shower and sit on loo for when in the bush anyway). We wouldn't need water as we had plenty for drinking and we could get as much as we liked from the river which was just yards away for washing, so happy days yet again!

We stayed here for three days and in that time our only company was a Nama goatherd who slept in the open with his goats further back in the valley. Each morning he would drive his goats up the valley and disappear until dusk when he would return, his only company was his six dogs who got used to visiting our camp for titbits!

The only other time we saw anyone was one morning we suddenly saw a blue barrel go floating past, the Orange was still very full and we had been warned not to camp too close to the river as it was expected to rise another two metres whilst we were there!

Anyway, just as we were wondering where the barrel had come from a cool box floated by then a paddle and more bits and bobs. They current was so strong you only saw them for an instant, then we heard shouts and an empty canoe came past with a guy swimming like crazy trying to catch it. The guy reached the canoe just as it went out of sight but you could see he was knackered and was hanging on for dear life.  Next minute two canoes came past with guys paddling like crazy trying to catch up!

We assumed the canoe had overturned and the guy was trying to get back in but then a short while later a truck with two guys pulled up asking if we had seen their friend who apparently had seen the empty canoe go past and on the spur of the moment had jumped in to try and save it.

We told them it had just gone past and the guy had just about caught it but he looked like he was all done in and at the speed it was going there was no way he would be able to climb back in the canoe.

They laughed and did not seem too concerned and then raced off down the river in pursuit of their friend. We had no idea where the river ended up but we seriously doubted they could catch him so it was with some surprise that about an hour later they came back with their friend sitting in the front seat, looking sheepish but none the worse for his experience, but no canoe.

It turned out these guys were camping about half a mile back back down the river and for some reason their friend was naked when he jumped in the river, by the time they rescued him he was covered in scratches and cuts from where he had eventually pulled the canoe to the river bank. He was mad to risk his life, which he almost did for a canoe as the river was in full flood and although it was hot the water was very cold. Chances are the lads on a bachelor weekend had had a few early morning beers, and he thought it would be a good idea, but he didn't look too good by the time we saw him and in fact they left soon after as we think he must have had a funny turn.

Eventually much later the owners of the canoe appeared, it turned out it was an expedition of about 10 paddling down from Upington. A few had capsized at some rapids but they had managed to recover all but one, we never found out if they ever got their cool box and other bits back.   

Our camp spot was stunning with views across the river to Namibia and the Fish River Canyon. For the first time we had day after day of clear blue sky's and hot sun. It was the only place we had been in South Africa where you really felt isolated so it was with some reluctance that we packed up to leave but we needed to get into Namibia to meet our friend Carol and her daughter Tanya who were flying up from Joburg to meet us in Windhoek. We had two days in which to do something like 1000 kms so we needed to shift ourselves.