Day 34: Grand Canyon & Victoria Falls

Kilometres driven: 57km

Kilometres walked: 11km

Diesel: 0

Food: 0

Ice: 0

After a very quiet night at one of our favourite campgrounds to date, I woke up to the peaceful sounds of the bush. As I opened my eyes, through the vent in Veruca’s roof I could see blue skies and branches and I was immediately in a good mood.

As we went about making breakfast however, as Chris later worded so eloquently, I was “mauled by a wild animal.” In short, I was bitten by a really big ant. I flung my thong across the dirt and clambered inside where Chris could tend to my needs. As I sat there with ice on my foot, he went on to tell me about his experience with a giant ant that left a huge red lump on his leg for a week. Suddenly, I felt it might be time to tone back the dramatics. My damn ant hadn’t even been thoughtful enough to leave much of a mark! As I tried to lure a relative of the culprit towards a 20 cent piece, I accidentally took a couple of his legs and then had to put him out of his misery. Sorry little guy. You can see from the photo though just how giant he was. Can you spot the regular sized ant beside him? We ate our brekky and went on our way, eager to get started as soon as possible, before the heat we knew was approaching.

You may have heard of The Grand Canyon before. Well, this one, while much much smaller, was pretty bloody lovely too. We started our descent into the canyon and watched as two steep cliffs grew on either side of us. Towering under the rock, the temperature soon dropped a few degrees as ferns and moss appeared. Before long we were wandering alongside the deepest part of the canyon. The space between the huge cliffs either side of us had narrowed and we manoeuvred under cantilevered pieces of sandstone, through waterfalls and over stepping stones. We passed anchor points for abseiling and signs advising that this area was for experienced canyoners only. Suddenly my mind began to run away as I imagined myself donning a helmet and delving further into the unknown canyon that dropped away beside us. I would jump through waterfalls and clamber over rocks. This was a sport I could get into!

Soon enough it was time to exit the canyon which, sadly, meant climbing our way back up. It had been an incredibly long decent so we knew exactly what was ahead of us. Endless stairs wound their way up to the tops of the walls that we had followed all morning. It was absolutely stunning and almost beautiful enough to distract from the fact that we were training for Nepal. By Nepali standards, the 400 vertical metres we climbed today would be merely the tip of the iceberg on the days we incline over 900 vertical metres come March.

While we had planned to tackle another 7km hike during the afternoon, we were both pretty pooped after this morning’s effort so decided that a ‘shower’ of kinds might be a better use of our time. Chris found a waterhole that was only a 400m walk. Sounded perfect. We could get clean and back to the car before we started sweating in this heat again. Or so we thought.

Victoria Falls is at the end of a long, dirt road. Once we parked up we saw the sign that advised us of our destination actually sitting 2km from where we were, not 400m as we thought. Oh well, we were there so we might as well press on. We figured just walk back slowly, careful not to break a sweat. That idea seems oh so laughable in hindsight.

About 50m into the walk came a lookout that demonstrated just how high we were. Looking over the edge would throw some hikers into spins of vertigo and there were even taller cliffs on the other side. We had a whole lot of vertical metres to cover once again. So, down we went.

The trail was steep. Steep, slippery steps, some made of stone, others made of wood and gravel. Again we weaved past overhanging sandstone. However, the clean and tidy, well-maintained track of The Grand Canyon was well and truly behind us. This trail looked like we were the first to walk it since early explorers. Trees had fallen over the trail and bushes made finding your direction tricky. Bugs swarmed, grasses whipped past your legs and all the while we looked carefully for snakes on every step because, as we do, both of us had left our phones behind and nobody was carrying a first aid kit. We did have towels though. And good thing too because once we finally reached the base of the valley we were rewarded with multiple swimming holes. The lowest sitting looked up at a waterfall which cascaded over a piece of stone that, despite everything under it having broken away, somehow still sat high and mighty like a roof over all below it. We took a dip in the pool and Chris finally got to have that ‘shower’. A little further up the trail were The Cascades. Again, a deep pool sat at the base and was a lovely way to rinse off. We both explored for a while before I spotted a little orange crayfish with sharp pincers that made me decide I’d had enough swimming for one day. We had every intention to take it slowly back up the hill, eager to maintain this feeling of clean. Dressed only in swimmers and hiking boots we crawled back over and under trees and pushed through bushes all the while going up and up and up. At one point I looked up and saw just how far up the cliffs we started on went. We had a long way to go. When we finally arrived back at Veruca we were both in need of another shower. This time we used the dog bowl (our sink) and scrubbed ourselves the best we could.

Veruca received a few lovely comments from a group of fellow-vanners. And she deserves it too. Today was Veruca’s birthday. Today she hit 400000km. And my oh my is she doing great. Here’s to you Veruca. We love you.

We made it back to the campsite from last night, again we are creatures of habit, and found nobody else there. Apparently we are the only creatures of habit. We enjoyed it ever the more.