Pictures from canoeing the Orange River
September 20 Kamieskroon to Orange River
September 21 Orange River
The first thing we did when we got into Namibia was to set out on a canoe trip on the Orange River. This trip was led by a guide from Felix Unite, which has a canoeing and rafting centre here. We would canoe downstream for the rest of the afternoon, sleep out on the river bank, and then continue canoeing the next day.
The experience was made as simple as possible for us. We used kayak paddles so that we didn’t have to learn canoe paddling, and the canoes were sturdy fibreglass models that didn't much mind hitting rocks all the time.
Sleeping on the riverbank was very comfortable, since we slept on a grassy sandbank. We didn’t have tents, but there were no mosquitoes and no chance of rain; the place is right in the middle of the desert, after all.
In keeping with the “simple as possible” idea, even the rapids we ran were not very difficult. And before we went down any of them, our guide went down first to show us where to go and what the problems would be. Usually the main problem was that there were a lot of rocks showing because the river level was very low.
There was only one rapid of any significant difficulty. Most of us went down it with no problems, although we all got splashed. Only one canoe capsized. But we stopped for lunch right after that, so everybody sat in the sun and dried off.
West Coast Hikers Around The World 