With three Vespas through the Canyon - 15.06.10
With a scooter through the
Fish River Canyon? Impossible! This would be the reaction of anyone who has seen the second largest canyon on earth with their own eyes. Six members of the Cape Town Vespa Club nevertheless attempted the impossible in 1968 and got themselves into an adventure without equal!
Three of them returned to the
Fish River Canyon last weekend. Gondwana’s Managing Director Mannfred Goldbeck had traced them and invited them to a reunion at the
Cañon Roadhouse. Johnnie Johnson (76), Aubrey Jackson (78) and Graham Nell (72) came from Cape Town to attend the party. They showed their slides and told their story to the other invited guests.
Vespa veterans Aubrey Jackson, Graham Nell and Johnnie Johnson (from left) at the reunion in the Cañon Roadhouse / Logo of the Vespa Expedition 1968
The Cape Town Vespa Club had made a bet in 1967 that some of its members would be the first to take a vehicle through the second largest canyon on earth. They planned to descend into the canyon at the main viewing point and take their Vespas to Ai-Ais, 80 km to the south.
After six months of intense preparations the men set off for the
Fish River Canyon on 9 July 1968 – with three scooters, spare parts and equipment. They had named the scooters Veni, Vidi und Vici (as in Roman emperor Julius Caesar’s famous words: I came, I saw, I conquered). The 500 metre descent into the canyon, which hikers usually manage in about two hours, took the men two-and-a-half days, with temperatures of up to 40 degrees aggravating their struggle. The scooters, weighing in at 80 to 100 kg each, were hoisted down the steep rock faces and loose rubble by means of safety ropes and winches, and dragged and shoved over boulders with sheer brawn... They suffered their first loss during the descent: a safety rope snapped close to a precipice and Veni plunged a long way down. Nevertheless the men made history on the evening of 12 July when they had brought two Vespas to the bottom of the canyon.
An expedition prepared down to the last detail: Vici is let down on a rope at Hiker's Point
From there the scooters are lifted, pushed, kicked, pulled... Sand invaded every nook and cranny and the engines stalled ever so often. They used a rubber dinghy to transport the scooters across water. Despite their gruelling efforts they managed less than 2 km per day.
The means of transport becomes goods to be conveyed (from left): Johnnie Johnson, Graham Nell and Tony Beckley with Vici
On 15 July they came close to a catastrophe. As they attempted to take Vici across the river, the dinghy capsized. Vici disappeared in the water – and pulled the swimmer, who had guided the boat with a rope tied around him, down with it. He barely managed to free himself and surface in time.
The following two days the men continued to battle their way through the canyon with Vidi, until water, mud and fine sand finally put paid to the engine. On 18 July they climbed out of the canyon through the escape route at the sulphur springs. They took stock: they had lost three Vespas and managed only about one-and-a-half kilometres per day. But they had left the first tyre marks in the canyon and had made an experience which they would remember all their life.
Gondwana plans to publish the detailed story of the Vespa Expedition. The little booklet will soon be available at the accommodation facilities
Cañon Roadhouse,
Cañon Lodge and
Cañon Village.