The main viewpoint at the Fish River Canyon is a slightly strange place to arrive at, because the ground simply stops. You walk or ride the last stretch across flat, stony plateau, a low rail or a few boulders mark an edge, and below you the land falls away in a great meandering gorge. The river you see is a thin green-brown thread at the bottom, wandering in horseshoe bends between buttresses of layered rock.
The scale is hard to absorb in a photo. The canyon is about a hundred and sixty kilometres long and roughly five hundred metres deep at its deepest, and the plateau on the far side looks blue and hazy even on a clear day. The rock is old, some of it hundreds of millions of years, and its horizontal layers catch the light differently as the sun moves, giving the walls bands of rust, grey and cream. In the late afternoon the shadows deepen and the colours warm up so quickly that people who came for a ten-minute look stay for an hour.
Several things are good to know before you go. The viewpoint has a rim path in both directions, and a short walk away from the first platform gives more solitude and a changing angle on the main loop. The rim has no fence in many places, and the wind can gust, so keep children and enthusiasm in check. Baboons and rock hyrax live in the area, and you may hear the bark of the former across the gorge.
For riders the road in is gravel for the last stretch, and an unhurried pace is the right one. Early morning and late afternoon give the best light and the mildest temperatures, and winter is the most comfortable season. Summer midday heat in the canyon area is punishing, and shade is limited to what you carry or find at the camp.
Downstream, the hot springs at Ai-Ais are a popular place to soak aching muscles after the hike, but that is a separate leg of the journey. For now, it is enough to sit on a rock, drink some water and let the size of the thing settle in.