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“Flying the Fish”
Page IV
With a cool crispy sky, a million stars and not a breath of wind I fell asleep dreaming of the perfect weather we
were anticipating for the following day’s flight to the Fish.
I awoke suddenly with my mattress vibrating, followed by a loud explosion, then a rumble through my mattress and another cracking explosion. Lightning - and real close it was too! I peered out of a small, unzipped section of my tent and saw the sky alive with electricity, crisscrossing lightning, which was hitting the ground around us. My only comfort was the tall metal windsock underneath which we were camped; this would act as a conductor.
Then silence. Followed by huge raindrops pummeling my tent. The gods had obviously misinterpreted my bread dance. I had bought a new lightweight tent especially for the trip. The sales guy told me the trade- off is that it would only keep me dry for about two hours in the rain. I confidently replied that that would be perfect as we
were going to the desert in winter.
It now became clear what the four days of northeasterly winds had been brewing… The rain continued to pelt my tent as I drifted in and out of sleep. I awoke at about four o’clock, freezing cold, to find that both ends of my sleeping bag
were soaked,. I switched on my torches and saw puddles, yes puddles all around my tent.
The rain finally stopped. Even though it was still dark I got up, started the fire and made some coffee and waited for what seemed forever for sunrise.
I felt like I was in the Natal Midland with the cloud base only about 100 feet above the ground. It was cold and grey and to our disbelief large sections of the runway had been washed away. We later found out that we had the region’s entire annual rain fall in one night.
After breakfast we set off for a road trip to the canyon. En route we decided to inspect the runway next to the canyon. It was a foot deep in water and the entire countryside had turned into a river with water flowing everywhere. It was really a sight to behold! We were supposed to be at one of the driest places on earth!
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At the canyon rim we were met with an incredible rainbow. We built a trike out of rocks as an offering to the canyon gods for safe passage and set about returning home. Pondering upon how to continue with our flight and the main section of our filming, with the runway under water, we noticed a sign next to the road reading “ Breakfast, Lunch, Accommodation, Warm fire” etc and there, right at the end, “Scenic flights.” Scenic flights might equate to runway, unless they
were using the other one.
We arrived at Cañon Lodge, an old German farmhouse from the 1920’s, to be greeted by a warm fire, goulash soup and yes, they had a runway 6km from the lodge. We eagerly went to investigate and sure enough there it was
a 1.5 km runway with a drainage wall to prevent it from flooding. These Germans sure know how to build a runway.
We returned to the lodge to book accommodation for the following night; we were keen to sleep with a roof over our heads.
The next morning we awoke to perfect weather, 2 degrees with only slightly broken cloud remaining. The water from the previous day was completely gone. We took off from a section of the
still intact runway and set off for the canyon with great anticipation. We
were not disappointed the canyon walls towered ahead of us. The flight was a magnificent one, over the 150 million
year old crack in the ground. The canyon is roughly 150km long and up to 27 miles wide in places. I have never flown over anything like it.
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After about an hour of flying and filming, we headed for cannon lodge. I was frozen. The ground below suddenly felt very flat as we left the canyon behind. After landing, we secured our trikes, mounted our Gopeds and set off on the six Km ride to the lodge.
On the way in we saw some horses and made enquiries about going for a ride. We
were introduced to “Pertjie” who told us that he needed a couple of hours to go out and catch them. We settled down for a good lunch in the meantime. It’s amazing how you appreciate the small things once you have not had them for a while.
Continued
on Page 5
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