Umko

Umko, day1 swim scorecard:

No1 3 boats, 5 people
No2 1 boat 1 person

No3 2 boats 3 people

No5 1 boat 2 people

Arb rapid after lunch 1 boat 2 people

Arb rapid with playspot 3 boats 4 people


So after no planning, the trips sea-sawing between going and not going and even where we where going, we left for the umkomaas on Friday afternoon. Thanks to a general lack of experience of the trip on Thursday, taking beginners just wasn't possible. But in the end would have been ok.... 

The drive down is long as usual, we headed down in two cars. Chris Green, Chris Crogan, Don and Myself in one car and Jo, Rob and Paul in the other. We left a bit earlier and stopped in Mooi river for a beer and some supper. The other car met us there with not three but four people walking into the pub. The fourth, a rather boozed looking Alan grant, had decided at the last minute to come despite better judgement. Al had two test and and assignment the following week, he also didn't have any stuff. All he had was a dodgy sleeping bag he found in the storeroom. What a legend. 

So we got there late after some driving in the mist. Apon driving down the steep incline to the campsite the kayaks seal launched off the roof onto the bonnet then the ground. The entire roof rack had come off. After we finished pissing ourselves we decided to stash the boats in the bushes and get them in the morn. 

Saturdays paddle was good. The level was a lot lower than I was hoping for but still good. It was not all bad as Chris is new to kayaking and the river would be pushing his limits. 

I headed down to the eddy above no 1 with the two chris', who were in kayaks.  The rest where paddling crocs, even Al who's kayak was securely at home. 

I checked out the drop, and after a rye smile to the two in the eddy pissed down. Yes it was a big hole and I new Chris Green wouldn't have paddled anything this big. Crogan made it down with no hassle and gave Chris the thumbs up. He cam down and with big eyes hit the hole. He flipped and swam, but non the less had a massive smile. The crocs came down next; Al made it down no hassle, Don and Jo swam as did Rob and Paul. 

Don and Jo, swim 1 rapid 1

The rest of the rapids were filled with swim time and nice action. There are a few nice play spots along the way, which Crogan and I spent some time on. 

Chris styling No.4

Enter 5&6, which is one rapid, probably the biggest on the section. At this low level the rapid is quite easy however a little technical as one has to run the pinnacle (right) line. With more water a chicken line opens on the left, which for croc is a better option. I went first and headed left of the pinnacle, as despite looking more difficult proved to be not too much hassle. Crogan and Chris headed down the right and made it easily. Al, Rob and Paul made the right line in their crocs without an issue. So, Don and Jo..... Crogan and I thought it would be a good time to flash them as the paddled past, off with the pants and we were running safety. The headed down and manged to flip, in true team chaos style on the reaction wave on the pinnacle rock. So, jumping over rocks while trying to pull up my pants we scampered to our boats to pick up the pieces. Jo may have got a rock in the ass, which made a fantastic bruise. 

Me heading left of the pinnacle

Al cruising the right line

Apparently most of the trip never read my mail about the lunch plan, claiming they never got it. Most replied to said mail I would like to add. So the little lunch was split amongst the group, but we had a dry barrel of beer to look forward to come the take out. The rest of the river went along in similar fashion with the odd swim at unnumbered rapids. 

One rapid in particular caused much chaos. Seeing a few waves and not much of difficulty I stopped to play and sent the rest down expecting everyone one to make it. Well, when I turned around there where no less than 3 boats without paddlers and a bent paddle. Not entirely sure how that happened but there must have been some sneaky feature in the path. 

After some looking for the take out we, stopped paddling with time to spare. What was a cane field and a lapa is now a field due to a land claim on farm. So with the extra time we craked open our barrels of beer and started beering. In high spirits we climbed on the bukkie and started back, drinking more beer. What is generally a long cold shuttle turned into an epic party bus. We stopped in Richmond for more beer, where rob ripped apart a massive weed bush. The party bus continued with much urination during flight, except Crogan who stood most of the time at the back holding is pecker. The night proved to be a massive sleep fest. 

On Sunday we opted for a shorter section with a easier shuttle so we could head off earlier. We put in above highover and paddle to 3.5. With a slightly lower level and everyone knowing the river we made it down with a lot less hassle. 

Thanks guys and girl. Awesome trip, awesome mates, awesome times. 

Olifants

Penge (Or maybe the steelport) - Manoutsa



Are we Human or are we blumpie? ... Blumpie

On my drive back from Namibia, Chris while calling all the people in the world because he was home sick (or bored, one of the two), put Chevonne through to Al. "We're going to paddle the Olifants, you want to come?" she asked. "Any water?", I enquired, apparently there was, so a little paddle down the Olifants seemed like a great my to spend my newly found time and the last of my money.

Totally disconnected from all organisation, I happily headed off on this trip as one of the hanger-onners.
Haven't really been a hanger-onner on a WEES trip in quite some time, I quite enjoyed the experience. Don and Chevonne did a pretty damn good job at sorting out all the logistics. Chevonne also bought all the cans in the super market, which we had to pack into the crocs. While I gave her tons of abuse about the quantity of shit I did rather enjoy the meals.

So after making the trip late thanks to some police admin, Laura and I headed up in my car to meet Chevonne, Don, Al and Nick on the road. Thereafter, we headed off to find our trusty driver, Juugh, or something like that. Five or six U turns later and we found the man, all piled into his vehicle and headed to "Penge". "Penge" turned out to be the confluence with the Steelport, which is 20 km downstream from where we planned on putting in. The first thing that struck me was that the river was flowing the wrong direction, it also seemed to be smaller than was I was expecting. I initially suspected we where on the banks of the Steelport. Jugh assured me that with was the Olifants, feeling a little disoriented I took his word for it. He also commented my Flirt (play boat) was not a great choice of boat for this river. I thought we may have some interesting times on our hands.

He packed all the stuff in the world into the crocs, our supplies included many many cans, 20L of drinking water and no tents. These croc were not light. After an entertaining mating display from some donkeys we headed down the river.

Since we putin at about 4pm we decided to camp as soon as we found a good spot, which as it happened was about 15 minutes later. Our first camp site was under a large fig tree, between two rock fall spots. We erected our shelter and headed off to do some bouldering on the nearby cliff. It started to rain hard, so we all piled under the shelter and drank good olde OBS. Thankfully it stopped raining and we were able to get a good nights rest.

The following morning we all packed the gear in the boats and set off on the river, which we had now figured out was in fact the Steelport, ready for a day of big rapids brought on by the evenings rain. These rapids never came, basically we drifted down the fast flowing flat water admiring the scenery. After some paddling we decided to head up to a cave on a nearby cliff. After a dodgy scramble we made it, it wasn't the opening to a massive cave system we had hoped for. But the view was well worth the walk. A bit more flat water, some lunch, more flat water and we were looking for the next nights camp site. We stopped at one spot, which was nice but could have proved lethal if it rained. So with much objection from Chevonne we moved on.
The campsite we found was nice, a few trees to and some sand. We set up a shelter in preparation for the rain that Chevonne was adamant would miss us. After watching Nick eat some way too hot for him mild curry we all turned in for what was to be a moist night. At about 10pm the rain started. I climbed in my survival bag, Al in his bivvy and the rest in the not quite big enough shelter. At first the rain was soft and the only interruption in slumber was Chevonne trying to wake the gates of hades with chit chat about Don's newly formed bed lakes. The rain did not stop after it got harder nor did it get more cumfortable in my now cold and wet too-short plastic survival bag. No, it didn't stop raining in the morning either, so we had to pack up in the morning downpour worried that river would flood.


After some paddling the rapids arrived. The first section of rapids are caused by a narrowing in the gorge. They weren't too difficult and we pretty much bombed down without too much hassle. The next drop was a little more interesting, with a large pour-over at the bottom of the rapid, we scouted this one and ran it without too much hassle. Nick swam, but thanks to his black plastic bag top was able to get back in the boat mid rapid and captain his boat away from the retentive feature.



The best action is at the end of the section after the putin for the single day section. However, the scenery isn't quite as good as the upper flatter bit. The first rapid looked at first like a nice wave train. However, suspecting something "interesting" at the bottom, so I told Al and the crocs to stay in the eddy above the drop. It started off nicely but about half way down I could see things were getting interesting. I went right, should have gone left, and plugged into a rather large hole, almost got back-flipped and plugged into the smaller one below. First little bit of excitement for the morning. The spectacle from above had the rest of the group head down to check out the rapid. They all went left and missed the holes, how boring. The rest of the drops to the take out were nice read and run grade 3s and one long one pushing grade4. After some more paddling we arrived at the weir, which is the take out for the section. We paddled down the canal to the Manoutsa campsite where we spent the night and drank some beer. Below the weir is a nice looking grade 4 rapid, we gave it a miss due to the calling of cold beer and a cold nights sleep.

In the morning packed up and headed off to get our cars. Great trip, great section of water, good level, incredible scenery.

Beginners Hike 2008

The Beginners Hike, 2008, Injusuthi Again

I had a brilliant idea for this trip report that failed horribly. The idea was to use everyone on the trip to do a bit for the trip report, and then put all the little bits together to create a report that brings everyone’s view together to create a holistic multi-faceted approach to trip reporting. Of course no one actually did their bit, so this report is made of two views, that of mine and that of Mike Demers. Let us start with Mike’s introduction:
“Hey Hoosain,

Here is a small part of our trip report. Hope no one else wrote about
the beginning part yet. Feel free to make it more Brittish/SA if I
made anything sound too American.

Michael

On Friday March _, 2008, Hoosain, Laura, Sara, and I left Wits in
Joanna's nice red car. Our ride to Harrismith and Injasuthi was
uncharacteristically quiet and our group would retain the reputation
as the "quiet car" for the rest of the journey. We left Wits at around
2:30pm, and although Willem's Jeep-load of Explorers did not leave
campus until 5:00pm, they arrived at Injasuthi merely half an hour
after us. This incredible folding of space and time can be attributed
largely to Willem's encyclopedic knowledge of KZN back roads – a
considerable advantage to the other car – and our own groups wasteful
use of 2.5 hours at the Nando's and surrounding biltong shops in
Harrismith.

As darkness fell, we found ourselves on a dark road that we could only
know was on a hillside from the position of lights in the settlements
below us. Somnambulant figures appeared and reappeared out of complete
darkness. Even late at night, our road was an active pedestrian
thoroughfare connecting village residents with a shebeen located at
the road's entrance. Several dogs were also observed in the area. When
our car's engine overheated, we took a break of 30 minutes to allow
its internal workings to "chill out." Initial attempts to summon one
or more of the township dogs were made by one Explorer, though
actively discouraged by others. In the quiet night, we could hear the
nearby river.

Arriving at the Injasuthi park gate, Hoosain was the first to climb
over the fence and make a first pass at finding a security guard to
unlock it for us. He returned after not finding it at first, and I
went up the hill with him, but found nothing again. On the hill our
cell phones were able to access Vodacom service, and we called Willem
to confirm that there was indeed a hut with security guards. Walking
back up the hill, further along a divergent path not taken last time,
Hoosain and I encountered a group of abandoned-looking huts. We yelled
for about 5 minutes, sounding ridiculous. Finally, a guard came out
with a machine gun over his shoulder to unlock the gate for us. At the
foot of the hill, we waited for Willem's car, as we knew from our cell
phone conversation that they were only 30 minutes away. Negotiating
with the guard (a first for me: bargaining with a person with a
machine gun whose first language is not English) we waited for Willem
and then drove to the camp where we laid out sleeping backs on the
grass.

Waking the next morning, everyone was surprised to see that we were
actually in the middle of the Drakensberg Mountains (at least I was).
Signs posted at the bathroom warned us to beware a "problem animal," a
baboon that was known to take campers' food. After liberally applying
sunscreen and a quick breakfast, we were off to the trail for what
would be, at times, an arduous trek to the Marble Baths Cave.
“
The hike up to the Marble Baths Cave is quite easy or so I thought, but after the first km, many in the group thought otherwise. The hiking was fairly slow and chilled out. With odd outbursts of song from Cai, about a vulgar Engineer and his Wife. We stopped several times, collapsed out of exhaustion once and I spent a lot of the day convincing some beginners that the cave was just around the next corner. The higher we went the more radical became the views, ranging from lone waterfalls high-up hilly peaks &cliffs to sweeping backs of giant mountains.

At one time, on a particularly challenging uphill, the group then split in half decided to just plop down on the path in utter exhaustion and eat apples. The only person energetic enough to run between the groups, and please note, not walk, run, was Willem. It is almost like mother-nature turned her face away from us for that moment, as even though we’d heard of survival of the fittest, we wanted nothing to do with it. Sometimes I wonder how humans made it to that lone top wrung. Hmm

We made it to the cave in about 5-6 hours, after a hasty lunch, we headed down to the Marble Baths for an afternoon of swimming and chilling in the icy cold water of the Marble Baths. Everyone got wet and cold, and spent the afternoon as a neutralizer for the day of hiking preceding. An afternoon of utter languor! Quite heavenly now that I think back. And before I realized, the early night was over, the hike back was a breeze and we were leaving the beauty of the Berg for the bright lights and tuts and traffics of the city. If only I could stop time on trips, if only.

Transkei

Gatsien 03/02

I landed on Saturday after what was a very long flight and wait at airport. Got hold of Chris (who was suitably rat-ass'd) and decided to head to Gatsien on Sunday to christen his new Wavesport EZG 60.

I convinced Laura to come too and the three of use headed down. Chris, who was looking a little more than hungover, hopped in the back and slept most of the way there.
We got there middayish and headed down to Gatsine, which, while not at an amazing level was still nice. We could all work on moves, with it not being to flushy or trashy.

Here are some of the pics:

VAAL @ 120 (9Jan)

When the Vaal goes to 120, you can't pass up the opportunity to get down there as soon as possible! Luckily, Nicklouse and Dwane the Dog were super keen and Dwane's girlfriend, Stacey, and their friends Damian and Kieran came too and it was festiveness all round.

Jhb was wet and miserable when we left and Parys was much the same when we arrived, fortunately the weather came to the party and the sun shone and the overhead freshness (that which we do not name!) was favourable. In fact so favourable that on the flats, between the freshness and the current, we never even paddled, just strapped the boats together and floated down.

Nick & Don trying hard not to do much on the float-down...

Big Daddy was good times, thanks Nick for making none of the eddies on the left so we didn't have a rope. Thanks Don for making the second one to cover our asses.










Nick in action... Don in action...






We did make a stop so that the boys could hop of the bridge going to the new golf course with the ugly ass fountain at the entrance - not that ugly ass fountains are uncommon in Parys!





The rest of the day was normal festiveness... lunch at Paradise, pity the hole was washed out. But the hole at Theatre made up for it, nice!! Gatsien was good times, but moving rather quickly so was a schlep back up river... especially for those who thought a swim was necessary.




Good times... thanks all!

Upper Umkomaas

Long weekends are like gold in a working man's life and I wasn't going to let this once go without some kind of trip. Unfortunately most people already had plans and could not make it. So in the end it was just Laura, Bryden and Myself heading down from JHB and Mike meeting us there from Umkomaas.

We drove down on Saturday morning as to avoid the late night drive, it didn't however help us avoid the traffic. Fortunately as the traffic started to get bad we turned off to Bulwer where we were met with heavy mist and put our Saturday paddling plans to bed. Our plan was to go and paddle either the Umzumkulu waterfall section or the Umko section below Lundies. I decided to go check out the waterfall section as I hadn't ever been there. After a lot of driving we found the put in on Stoke's farm, where a new camp site is being built, which, when finished will be great for paddlers.
As there was only two of us keen and we never knew the section and the weather was getting dodge we gave paddling the full section a miss. I paddled the first drop on the section which is a nice easy 3 metre waterfall right at the putin. I ran it twice although at this low level it's a piece of cake.

3Metre on waterfall section

We headed back to the Nip Inn at Bulwer where we were staying after a few close encounters with goats in the mist. The weather was really getting horrid and we opted for staying in a bungalow instead of camping. Maybe I am getting soft in my old age but a soft dry bed was great.

Mike met us there first thing in the morning and after many sorrys we piled into my bakkie and headed for the putin. The water was... drum roll.... low. Horribly low, well maybe not horribly but about as low as you would like to run it in a croc. I headed back to the Nip Inn and sorted out the drive round. We headed off and paddled the endless flat before the first gorge. This section has a nice set of rapids after an hour or so into the trip. It starts off with a largish one and is then fairly continuous with smaller grade 3 odd rapids before an nice technical one. At this low level not too many problems where encountered except for getting the croc stuck on the odd rock.

Mike and me surfing a small wave

After the gorge the river flattens out and with nothing more than the odd wave train. Just about half way and when you are least expecting it there is a somewhat nasty drop at the bottom of an innocuous wave train. The croc gave this one a miss and Mike and I ran it. I went first, I over boofed, was pushed up against the wall and went over. Not too much off a problem as the channel is quite deep, just a little narrow. Mike's run was better although he also hit the wall.

My run down the narrow drop

We camped shortly after this rapid and got ready of a wet night. Mike and Bryden made an awesome fire, which with coffee, raised our spirits. Thankfully we had decided to take tents which made the night a whole lot more comfy as it rained on add off all night.
What the rain did not do was increase the level, so we headed off slowly down the river. The river goes into another smaller gorge again. There are a few nice rapids. There was one which was just too bony get the croc down, so Bryden paddle half of it and we lined it down the rest. Mike and I ran it with out too much difficulty.
After the gorge there is one small natural weir, avoid the left as the suck back is bad but at low levels you can run it pretty much dead centre. From here on the river flattens out a lot and it is a bit of a haul to the tale out. The heavens opened as we reached the first bridge, it was decided to get out there and deal with a crappy take out. Mike and I hitched a lift from a very generous truck driver. We landed up going through a road block and had to plead with the officers as to why there where 4 of us in the front of the cab. After much chatting we were let off and did the rest of the drive round.

Great trip, great river, more water would have been nice but what can you do.
Thanks okes for a killer trip, pitty more people didn't come. This is a great section for explorers trips, nice rapids, not too much flat and fairly easy logistics.
All photos by Laura Manley