Fri. 5 Sept
Although the alarms were set for 4 AM, I awoke about 10 min. prior. Perhaps it was the anticipation, or possibly my internal clock is starting to work again, but for whatever reason, I was awake and anxious to see what the midnight sky would look like with no moon (it went down around 1 or 2 am) and with all the lodge lights out as well. Both Bob and I had brought along miners' headlamps for precisely this reason, and they worked like a charm. The lodge generator was not scheduled to start until 6 today, so it was very dark, quiet and serene. I must confess to a bit of concern when I first walked out of the room and onto the catwalk as the lecture about lions being present at night was still very fresh in my memory.
We took a number of photos, sharing Bob's tripod, and experimenting with what we had studied up on from the internet on Astrophotography. The "500 Rule" was designed to limit your shutter speed to prevent any star motion. It basically said you divide 500 into your focal distance to tell you the slowest you could go.
I was using an 11-16 mm lens so I stayed around 25 - 30 second exposure. .... The pics look great on the small camera screen so hopefully there will be one to show when we are back to civilization.
Everyone was at breakfast by 0615 and we were on the road by 0730 in the 4 X 4's the lodge uses. The /Xaus Lodge is pronounced as "house lodge", only with a "click" in your tongue before "house".
The 29 km drive out over the 90 dunes was not only as rough as when we came in (same road), but now it was quite cold as well as they are open air affairs. There were blankets on the seats so Bill, Bob and I pulled it over us to try and keep warm. It really was quite chilly on that drive!
Mishek was already waiting for us at the entrance to the lodge so after transferring our small packs and the box lunches from the lodge, we were back down the road in Transfrontier Park, heading for Namibia.
Did we see game or what? It was early, and as we drove down the small valley, we came across quite a few different species. By 10 AM we had seen Spotted Hyenas Feeding on a far off ridge, Steenbock, Gemsbock (Oryxx), a Marshal Eagle, a couple of Vultures, Wildebeest, Osttrich, a Giraffe and some bird species I cannot recall.
We went thru customs into Namibia around 1030. Mishek informed us Namibia time was an hour ahead of S African time but Daylight Savings was ending in Namibia in 2 days so not to bother changing our watches. S, Africa does not utilize daylight savings time.
In Namibia we had a 260 km drive over dusty, bumpy dirt road so I packed my camera away and got caught up on my blog on the iPad.
Namibia is called the land of changes, and it does change as you drive thru it. The soil got progressively rockier as we neared Fish River Canyon. It also got flatter and more devoid of trees, if possible. By the time we rolled into Canyon Lodge we were all tired and a little dusty.
The staff here were very accommodating and Mishek informed us they would be expecting 5 Rand for hauling our bags to our rooms.
There was 2 single beds in our room placed about 6 inches apart. There was a mosquito net over the bed as well. They had a outdoor swimming pool and there was internet in the lounge. We dropped off our bags and headed for the lounge/bar for a quick drink.
A sunset walk was planned for 4:45 so Mike and I headed out on that. It was short but enjoyable as they had drinks on top of the hill where we stopped to watch the sunset.
Supper was quite nice with Kudo being the main course. Kudo is a cross between a camel and a deer I looks. The meat was good and not gamey at all, tasting something like beef. The supper btw, was a buffet and overall quite nice.
After supper we had another drink and then we headed off to bed. Apparently there are no mosquitoes out this early in the season so we left the net up. Also, the net makes it quite warm as. It also traps your body heat. I slept on top of the covers as it was quite warm there, in the middle of this strange desert.
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