Those naughty Baboons will take a Fall!

3rd and 4th of August 2018

Our next place of interest was the Augrabies Falls National Park and it was only about a 4 hour drive including our morning coffee stop! On booking in at the parks reception we were warned about the very cheeky monkeys and baboons who if given the opportunity would enter your van and help themselves to what ever they wanted and then as we entered the camp site we saw a number of baboons which scattered as we came closer. Before setting up I noticed that a tent not far away looked a bit untidy and on closer inspection I saw that there was a hole ripped in the front door and another in the back wall and the baboons had obviously been inside tearing it apart to look for food. The owners arrived back from being out that day and they were a couple in their late 70’s and as you can imagine quite shocked. The Park people were very good in that they lent them a tent and also put it up for them until they could go out the next day and get another one. Apparently there is a park ranger on duty in the camp site each day to keep the baboons out but on that particular day he was off sick!

That night after dinner we took our first walk down to have a look at the water fall which is lit by flood lights at night until 9pm which was quite spectacular. The Augrabies Falls (meaning “Place of great noise”) is on the mighty Orange River and is the Worlds 6th tallest falls.

The river thunders down a 200 metre long ravine with 200 meter high cliffs and there are quite a few different viewing points including a spot called the Arrowhead which is about a 2 kilometre walk out to. The next morning was the anniversary of the passing of our beautiful son Luke and so a good long walk was in order to take our minds off this. We decided to do the Dassie (Rock Hyrax) Walk which is about 8 kilometres long and follows ravines and crosses numerous crystal clear streams and then up and over all sorts of boulders and rocks.

Along the way we came across some enormous foot prints and we decided in the end that they had to be Giraffe because surely they wouldn’t let us out here with Buffalo or Rhino on the loose!

It was definitely one of the best and most interesting walks I’ve done. On our way out the next morning we walked back down to the waterfall for the second time but this time in daylight and it was quite amazing just how different it all looked. We really enjoyed our couple of days in the Augrabies National Park but in the morning it will be an early start for the journey to Kimberley.