After the bare rock and sand of my first day, the Green Kalahari finally begins to live up to its name. But the Molopo River mouth isn't renowned for places to stay and so I’ve arranged to be picked up, an overnight just upstream. Distances here, though, are rarely short. 

The new day means a return to the lush banks of the Orange and it’s an opportunity to learn about what the Green Kalahari is really capable of. 

H* here is helping me plot my walk, but I found out last night he’s also a great farmer.

Grapes are a big business along the stretch of the Orange River and the ideal place to see the industry in action is looking down where I left off last night. 

There can’t be a lot you don’t know about this river, H*?

This river is the life of this area. Without this river, there’s nothing here. This is the lifeline and supports all the economic activity around this area.

It’s an incredible landscape, isn’t it? When you look behind us at these really arid, dry rocks, it seems incredible that something like a grape can grow here.

This is ideal for them. You can’t get better. This got very good soil, very low rainfall, so you have a desert climate with a lot of water which is ideal for growing grapes, fresh grapes specifically. 

This is not to be mistaken for the wine that we enjoy, that’s not where they go.

No, no. But this area specifically is very famous for table grapes, exporting of grapes. 

So grapes we might eat, back in UK?

Yes, indeed. I think about 50% of all these grapes will go to the UK and you can buy that around Christmas time in Tesco, in Sans*. My dad started with grapes and he’s actually the first guy that started the export grape business in this area.