The most common question...

a travel photographer gets asked is without a doubt - what's your favourite country? Well how do you compare the vibrancy of India, with the spectacular scenery of Nepal or the exoticism of northern Thailand? I know I can't. I have good friends who go back to Borneo every year. They're infatuated with it. But for me my favourite country is always the one I'm going to next. That's just the wanderlust in me.

However, on those days when I don't really feel like explaining this permanent state of itchy feet I point to the little-known nation of Namibia. Formerly part of South Africa, this incredible country is home to some of the most spectacular scenery and wildlife I have ever seen.

And one of its more spectacular sights is the Fish River Canyon. The size beggars belief. Second only to the Grand Canyon it's about 160km long, up to 27km wide and 550 metres deep in places. And when we got there there were a total of zero tourists!

You can see the Fish River, from which the canyon gets its name, all the way at the bottom there. And you can see the path to the bottom in the foreground. By placing the path there I wanted to show that you can actually walk to the bottom. I used a wide-angle lens to give a sense of the incredible scale. Remember that the wide-angle increases the apparent distance between objects (making the far side appear a long, long way away) and the farther something is from the camera the smaller it appears - in this case the tiny bit of water at the bottom.

Ideally I would have liked a photo of someone going down the path, but only four people decided to go down and I was one of them. It was a very long, hard walk down but the swim in the water at the bottom was glorious, as was the view back up to the lip of the canyon. The walk back up was torture though.

The next morning when we got up for breakfast my good friend Gordon couldn't find his wallet. Thinking that he'd left it at the bottom of the canyon we drove out to the lip and he started his long hike all over again. Needless to say we gave him hell when he came back up a couple of hours later to find his wife holding said wallet after finding it in the corner of his tent! Come to think of it I could have taken a photo of him going down the path but I was too busy laughing!