The Gondwana Collection Namibia had its beginnings in 1995 when the first farm, Augurabis, was purchased bordering the eastern side of the Fish River Canyon.
We had the privilege of hosting the De Waals, the former owners of the farm, last month at Canyon Village when they visited the farm for the first time in thirty years. We had an adventurous day 4x4ing on the rocky roads that Hendrik’s father, David Jacobus, had painstakingly built. Lunch was enjoyed in the riverbed in the shade of camelthorn trees where we heard the intriguing tale of how he arrived with his family and his flock of sheep in 1951, travelling by donkey-cart, and set up a tent which served as the family home until they could start building a more solid dwelling. It was an emotional time when we stopped at the old farmhouse and memories flooded back. Photographs and more stories were shared after breakfast at Canyon Village the next day.
The story of the De Waal family will be the first in a series about the early farmers of the eastern canyon to be posted on Gondwana’s PadlangsNamibia Facebook Page in the near future.
The visit wasn’t only a trip down memory lane for the De Waals, who had travelled from Springbok and Douglas in South Africa and from Walvis Bay in Namibia, it was a journey back in time for Gondwana. After Augurabis was bought, nine other farms were gradually acquired, one of them being Karios on which Gondwana’s first lodge, Canyon Lodge, was built. The farms today form part of the Gondwana Canyon Park, a 130 000-hectare conservation area which was rewilded from farmland over the years, and the Gondwana Collection is now one of Namibia’s largest hospitality companies with lodges, hotels and camps throughout Namibia.