Breaking News: kayakers from Cape Town time it just right to paddle the Fish River Canyon in flood. This epic adventure happened just this week at the drop of a hat. As soon as they heard of the flooding that was happening all over Namibia, these kayakers descended on the southern Namibian river for the journey of a lifetime. Covering over 250km in just 3 days they flew down the river, often paddling for 12 hours a day, through serious rapids and awesome scenery. Camping at night on the banks of the river, they were fully self-sufficient, carrying all gear in their boats.

Fish River Canyon in flood - all pics courtesy of Andrew Kellet

The Fish River Canyon, situated along the lower reaches of the Fish River in southern Namibia, is one of the most impressive natural wonders in Southern Africa. It developed predominantly during the pluvial times, many millions of years ago. With a depth of up to 550 metres, the Fish River Canyon is the second largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon in the USA. This enormous gorge meanders along 160 kilometres through the fissured Koubis massif all the way down to Ai-Ais. As far as activities go, this renowned area is best known for its breathtaking scenery and the 5 day hiking trail along the bottom of the canyon that is open from June to September. This hike is a challenge in itself as one has to hike to the bottom of the canyon to begin with, and it is deep!

But this time it was the paddlers and not the hikers who scored big. The intrepid trio of Andrew Kellet, Anthony Hoard and Peter Ridgway from Cape Town made sure they were there to take advantage of the river phenomenon that was happening in this legendary canyon. To experience the flooding surging browny red muddy waters of the mighty Fish River that were thundering down its deep gorge, their timing had to be impeccable. Oh, and they also needed to have the necessary whitewater kayaking skills required to tackle a very large angry river in a confined gorge, because the only way to do this was in a plastic kayak.

Peter drove up from Cape Town and met the others at Provenance, the Felix Unite River Adventures camp in Noordoewer. The next morning they drove up to Seeheim to put in and paddled down to Ai-Ais, over 250km in all. And all this in 3 days! The volume of water was about 500 cumecs (cubic metres of water per second!). Reports from the paddlers is that this was the most epic trip they have ever been on, with the most incredible white/brown/red water paddling they have had the pleasure and nerve to paddle. There were definitely some jitters at certain times, with big water pumping through some very confined spaces, but they came through fine. At this stage this is all the news we have of this epic adventure, but stand by for more details.

Well done to the crew and thanks to Andrew Kellet for the pictures.
To see more here is the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/ak4foot7/FishRiverCanyon#