Fishriver Canyon

Spectacular New Year’s Day visits are starting to become a habit of mine: it was Virunga in 2016 (gorillas on New Year’s Eve, chimps the next morning) and the Rock Islands of Palau in 2017. On the first of January 2018, I woke up at the edge of Namibia’s Fish River Canyon. I had only been sleeping intermittently because of the strong, howling winds blowing through the canyon and along the chalets of the Fish River Lodge which has been built exactly on the rim. From my bed I could see the sun rise above the canyon, constantly changing the illumination of the rocks.

This canyon in the far south of Namibia is one of the world’s largest (often advertised as the second largest), although a precise ranking of canyons is as difficult as that of waterfalls. Are we counting length, width, depth or total area? We have 26 different canyons within WHS already inscribed in our connection, including Capertee Valley (Greater Blue Mountains) which also is said to be the world's second largest canyon after the Grand Canyon.

Anyway, the Fish River Canyon is a spectacular natural creation. It actually consists of two canyons, one inside the other. The outer canyon, the first level of terraces, was created when a tectonic rift made a wide gap in the earth’s crust. The Fish river afterwards eroded the second canyon along the valley floor, creating the 270m deep inner canyon.

It would have been lovely to do a hike through part …

Fish River Canyon is the second longest canyon in the world, only beaten by the Grand Canyon. It's located in the Ai-Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park in the south of Namibia (close to South Africa).

There are a number of spectacular viewpoints over a distance of circa 30 kilometers: Main viewpoint, Hiker's viewpoint, Sulphur Springs viewpoint and Eagle's Rock viewpoint. The Main viewpoint can be reached by normal car, which is also the case for Hiker's viewpoint and Sulphur Springs viewpoint although for the latter two a 4x4 is recommended. The Eagle's Rock viewpoint can only be reached by 4x4.

We found the Eagle's Rock viewpoint to be the least spectacular and it takes 30-45 minutes (one way) to reach, so if you run out of time we suggest to skip this one.