Wits Explorers Blog

Ash River Rafting

2011-09-27T00:13:00.000+02:00

Bridge Rapid, Ash River

We heading down to the Ash River just outside Cleren's this coming weekend (1st - 2nd Octobe 2011r) for some rafting goodness. Trip meeting will be during lunch on Wednesday 28th September in the Exploreres club room (SU202, top floor matrix).

Cost will be R400 per person, all inclusive. Email explorers.wits@gmail.com for more info. Space limited.

Keep it tidy.

Joined Wits Explorers 2010?

2010-01-21T14:49:00.009+02:00

So if you have been scamed into signing up for Explorers in 2010 here is how you can get your money's worth.

End of Block Party

12 March 2010

Alley between Flower Hall and Genmin Labs

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=338597504926&index=1

Beginners Rafting

5-7 March

Orange River

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=327235564180

Beginners Hike

12-14th March

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=301891152291&index=1

Pub evenings every Wednesday 6pm

For more info on trips and activities keep and eye out for posters around campus, check your email, this blog and the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5307039955

Paddling from Joburg

2010-01-07T13:42:00.008+02:00

Driving around JHB you will not think a paddling meka, if fact you would probably wonder if it is possible to paddle in JHB at all. And well, at first glace there isn’t, even at second or third glace there isn’t. But over the years I have found a few advantages to living in Joburg and being a paddler. We to be honest I would rather live in Natal but being in Gauteng is not all lost.

Firstly we have the Vaal, which flows all year round and is just over an hours drive. Yes mostly flat there is a very nice section below Parys, which is the breading ground for most highveld whitewater paddlers. Of course Hugh from Whitewater Training is also stationed there, if you don’t know who Hugh is, then you owe it to yourself to find out.

The Vaal is a nice day run, which a low water (which is generally is ) is boney and a bit of a slog but boasts Big Daddy, an impressive looking low grade 3 rapid. There are also a few others providing action along the way. The wild life along the run is also great for those who appreciate it. Unfortunately more and more god awful golf estates and conference venues are popping up all over the place, spoiling the area a little.

When it does get up the Vaal is awesome, the rapids transform from boney shuffles to nice wave trains with the nice sporadic holes. Theater and Gatsien transform into a long sold rapid. Unfortunately this generally requires a dam release from the Vaal dam which requires quite a lot of rain. In which case there is generally better paddling to be had elsewhere in SA.

Think Kayak, more over think Play boat, this is were the Vaal river comes into it’s own. A play spot for all seasons and levels, at all but very low levels the chute in Gatsien works. The Chute is a narrow deep chute and proper park can play. A great place to work on spin, ends, blunt and even loops. With a bit more water the chute washes out and ten metres lower the most amazing wave start to for, the famous Gatsien wave. From anything above 40 cumecs this wave is a great spot for paddlers of all skill levels. At higher level it transforms into a massive wave, and better becomes a better paddlers paradise. When the water gets too high (and Gatsien gets too big) there is a awesome wave in Parys town. Park your car and walk less than ten metres to this wave and enjoy the ride, this doesn’t happen often.

Gatsien chute

Gatsien at 150 cumecs

Parys Town wave

The highveld croc is a hidden gem, less that 50km from Joburg this river boasts some nice rapids when there is water. If it pisses with rain head down the next day and you can expect a great paddle. There are a few dodgy low level bridges and weirs so it would be advisable to paddle with someone who knows the section. At low level there is a small shallow play wave that works, it is a great little spot to work on you playboating technique.

The Klip is another source of fun to be had close to Joburg , this one has a fair amount of water most of the year. The water is not all that clean so keep your mouth shut. While most of the river is generally used by canoeists there is one 5km section which is nice to kayak (and croc I suppose?). It is a great little paddle for beginners and better paddlers looking for something during the dry winter months. About half way down a great little playwave can be found, while it is better that the one on the croc it can only be accessed by paddling down.

A little further afield lays the Ash, a Gem… Fed by the Lesotho highlands water project this river flows all year round. The one down side is that the water is cold and paddling it in winter should only be attempted on a warm day, which in Clarens does not happen often. The section has a host of nice grade 3 rapids and one infamous grade 4, bridge rapid. If you plan on paddling the full section go with someone who know the run, there is some construction going on and currently the best drowning machine I have ever seen has been put in the flow which require a portage.

Park and play croc wave

Playwave on the croc

Unfortunately to find better action one needs to travel further to Natal or the Lowveld. There are some awesome rivers to be paddled in South Africa, many of which go though isolated gorges where you may not see another person for a day or more. There are too many to mention, so get hold of Celliers’ “Run the river” pick one and go, okay make sure there is water first. The Umkomaas, Tugela and Umzimkulu have great sections for Rafts and crocs but most of the nicer sections should only be tackled in a kayak. Else the Orange provides some great longer multiday trip on flatter sections of river.

If you need help learning to kayak or just need someone to paddle with give me a call, alas I sold out and got a job but I spend most of my out of Joburg.

Olifants Dec 2009

2010-01-02T19:22:00.003+02:00

Still blumpie, no sign of Eddy and leaving a camera to soak for 24 hours is a bad idea.... weird

Olifants or Umko, that was the question. The water levels convinced me that olifants would be a better option. However, at 9pm we still didn't have a plan for driveround. This was a slight problem as we were all set to leave at 11am the following day. Luckily Linda, a local from Hoedspruit, got hold of me and was keen to join for a paddle. First time facebook has ever been useful in my life. She, together with Lelani, helped us out with the driveround and the evenings accommodation. Thanks loads, you are life savers.

In normal explorers trip fashion we left on time, no not really. However two hours late wasn't a big issue given that the drive wasn't too far. We met up at Lelani's place opened up Al's keg and got into some good chill time. Stories of river carnage started flowing causing the newbies and Jo (who was about to embark on her first serious river in a kayak) to look a little nervous. Shortly after hitting the sack it started to rain rather hard. I woke up many hours later and it was still raining, I guessed we were going to be in for a wet big water trip. With the river already flowing at over 100 cumecs a solid nights rain could potentially make life interesting.

In the morning we packed our gear into our hosts bukkie and headed for the river.

Nipple caps, check.

Stuff in 4 crocs, check.

5 kayaks plus paddlers, check

Tents, nope... no tents, except for Chris who was being a pissy.

Water looking like chocolate milk, check.

Sufficient food, not really.

And we were off.

Don with the dirty water check

The first day is generally pretty flat so we set in for a long paddle to lunch and then the campsite. At lunch we stopped at what was previously a very small rapid. On this occasion however the little rapid had a monster hole with a nice surf shoulder. So with a little lunch down the hatch Chris and I headed off for a surf. While the others took the crocs into the hole for some spectacular swimming practice, a skill they would find in handy later in the trip. During lunch the muncher hole transformed into a perfect bouncy playwave. With a little effort the reeds provided some eddy service for a good play session. Al, who has paddling my creek boat, hopped into my flirt and ripped up the wave.

Lunch spot

"Eddy, here boy!" We couldn't seem to find out beloved little friend Eddy for swam past us on our previous trip. Silly little dog, hope something bad hasn't happened to him.

Now when I say chocolate milk I am not kidding. This water was incredibly dirty with silt. Far worse than on our previous trip. In fact the water was so dirty that everyone had mud caked on their faces. Hoping to get a tan I was incredibly brown by the end of the day, unfortunately it seemed to all wash off. (After a few showers I may add)

It was pretty apparent that the water was significantly higher than the last time we did this stretch earlier in the year. The river was flowing through trees, tiny rocky rapids were now big wave trains and our previous campsite was basically under water. It looked like it was 1.5m up, this would make for some interesting times in the gorge and rapids after.

We got to the campsite early and headed down the river to scout. The water was really pumping and contained some massive pourovers, which promised to beat the living hell out of anyone paddling into them. Oh well that was the next days problem, it was now time to set up camp and chill.

Chris and Dee had their little tent, Linda had what could be arguably described as handkerchief with poles, Al had his bivvy and the rest of us constructed two shelters out of fly sheets, crocs and ropes. In the end they looked pretty good however I wasn't too convinced how they would stand up in the impending rain. Of course we all seemed overly happy with our shelters and proceeded to drink tea, beer and cook some food.

Alas the rain never came. Last time we ran the trip it pissed with rain from 10 pm to 7am. Personally I think that was better. I don't even like being warm and dry when sleeping. Not character building enough.

The group at the campsite

Day two... Enter the carnage.

I woke up super early to a river with significantly less water than the day before. Quite possibly a metre less. So we packed up, jumped on the river and headed off to meet Lelani who was planning to join us for a paddle on the day section.

The first rapid provided some entrainment. Jo I don't like scouting Fisher took a swim at the first rapid of the day. Having only paddled the Vaal twice previously I was pretty impressed how well she had done thus far. Colin also provided some entrainment, swimming early in the rapid.

Don and Dee dodging the pour overs

The next rapid was looking pretty technical and was basically a game of dodge the pour over. Chris took and inter sting far left line and I took an equally interesting middle line. The crocs made it down with varying degrees of success.

We met up with Lelani on time, she was most concerned about the water level; saying it was over 200 cumecs. She and Linda teamed up in a croc instead.

The first rapid after the putin for the day section, known as double trouble, has two rather large holes. On our previous trip I plugged straight into these and narrowly avoided a beating. I somewhat cautiously eddy hopped down the entry. Chris tried to follow me but either missed the eddy I was in (it was small)or grew some balls, but he was soon seen doing a back loop in the second hole. I skirted on the left and told Al and Jo to do the same. Al did the same but Jo having a great kayaking surname decided to plug the holes square on. Well, lets be honest missing holes is for pissys. The general floor in her plan was her inability to stay up, which is an issue when you can't roll. Al, Chris and I all headed after her, rescued her and her boat and turned around to utter chaos. All the crocs had decided to not avoid the hole either. The scene involved 4 crocs and 8 people all swimming down the second half of the rapid. After some time we mopped up all the pieces and got going again.

For some reason Don and the rest of the croccers (also known as Goat Boaters) seemed a lot more keen to scout now, weird.

There are a few more small rapids before we hit the rapid of untold chaos, long drop. At first inspection this rapid really didn't look too hard. Yes the centre of the rapid had some interesting features but they where all easy to miss on the right. Myself and Chris headed down without too much hassle. Jo once again on Al's tail once again hit a hole off line. However this time she did not just flip and get flushed. Basically she had her first real beating. Her deck popped and she swam the rest of the rapid. I think she thought I was joking when I said she would be drinking booty beers.... Assumption is the mother of all fuckups

Don and Dee on the rapid of untold chaos

Also the last photo my camera ever took

Enter the crocs. Lelani and Don made it down without too much hassle, although Don did try go for the olde backwards sideways wrap toward the end. Chevonne thought it would be a good idea, which it was, to keep really far right. She kept so far right that she got stuck on many a rock on the way down. While getting of the rocks she pushed herself into the main current and got pushed even further left, heading straight for the hole Jo had just been beaten in. Lynnell, her motor, thought it seem like a shit place to go and pulled out a bit of back paddle action just before dropping in the hole. This pretty much sealed their fate, the hole flipped them and pulled chevonne back for a beating. Luckily the beating didn't last too long and all the people and equipment washed out. Pat and Colin, having seen this, decided they would try a slightly more left line than the one Chevonne used and failed...horribly Unfortunately their line was, well, crap. They flipped pretty early on and had a rather unpleasant swim down the rest of the rapid. My heart was in my mouth of a moment when Pat plugged into a massive pourover in the middle of the river. Thankfully he popped up on the boil line and washed out, close call.

After the rapid of untold chaos I decided it would be a pretty good time for a breather, so we stopped for lunch under a tree surrounded by cow shit. It was at this point when my mind thought of my camera, well my dads camera I was borrowing. During one of the swims I put my camera down to seal launch into the river to help pick up the pieces. What I had not done is put it somewhere sensible or gone back to get it. Being not too far from the sport I ran back and looked for the missing kit, but alas I couldn't find it..... bugger.

Losing a rather expensive camera that wasn't mine put a slight damper on my mood. And pretty much paddled to the take out without scouting and avoiding all entrainment.

Then we got out..... Still no sign of Eddy, getting very worried.

Ah sod it I am bored of writing this report now, it is a gay game I don't even like that game (Don Tye, 2006)

Oh yes, I paddled the section the following day with Al and Lelani to find my camera. I found it, but not the working bits. If anyone comes across the working bits of my camera can they please return them to me. Luckily the SD card, although full of mud, still worked. And hence the photos.

Appendix A

First For Jo:

First bossie
First real river
First real beating
First booty beer

Montrose Falls

2009-10-20T13:21:00.003+02:00

After annual dinner I headed down to the lowveld with Adrian (a really old explorers member) and Brendan a kayaking mate. Thanks to the water release for the canoe race there was sufficient water to run Montrose falls on Sunday. Al and Chris met us there.

Me heading down first

Al styling the drop

Chris trying it out in a playboat

Adrian Vroom

Al jumping off the top of the 20m

Ash 3-4 October 2009

2009-10-06T09:25:00.009+02:00

Pre Ash beers at the pig

Neil: Oh what's up Don
Don: Fine thanks and you
....(represents beer and general chit chat)
Neil: Stacey, do you know Don has a habit of swimming a lot
Stacey: (Nervous smile)
Don: I'm getting better
......
.....
Chevonne: stop talking about blumpies all the time
Everyone: Happy birthday Al
......
Al: I'm going to run bridge. Neil you must call me a pissy if I don't
Neil: sure thing
..........
...........
............
Chris: Dale do you want paddle on Sunday?
Dale: Sure
Chris: Ok so my plan is stay sober tonight, work tomorrow, go to the engagement party, leave early, pick up Dale from his party and drive to clarens.
Marco: (A huge rant which I will shorten to)Whatever!
Chris: Watch me!
Marco: fine the bet is six beers
.....
Neil: Later chaps off to get some sleep

So the plan as it stood on Friday afternoon; Jo and Jeremy are already on there way to Clarens. I would drive down at 4am the sat morning. I will do the 80km MTB race and Jeremy the 50km race. The rest will leave wits at 7 and paddle to bridge. Jeremy and I would meet them after the race. Chris, would drive down with Dale after the engagement party and join us for Sundays epically long paddle.

So, 4am comes, I wake up.... get in the car and start the drive. I turn back to get my wallet, and head off again. I arrived in Clarens and started the race. Since my race took a long time, somewhat due to the distance but mostly due to the fact that I am not very good at doing that distance at any great speed, I didn't run the river with the group on Sat morning. So basically I have no idea what happened until I met up with them later in the day at Alles rapid.

-------Enter don's report of what happened up to that point

-------

So I met up with the crew. The crew being Don, Stacey, Keren, Al, Nick, Jo, Pat, James and Colin. Stacey and Keren were sitting on the bank looking warm (no not really) but full of smiles. The rest were running alles a few times creating general chaos. Jeremy was supposed to be part of the crew, but due so miss communication (on my part) he ended up chilling at the backpackers.
Feeling like heman, I decided to go for a quick play in the stop wave at alles. Come on how tired can four and a half hours of mountain biking make you. After carrying my boat to the rapid I realised the answer, pretty damn tired. I had about three surf(none of which were any good) before throwing it in a heading down the rapid. We all paddled down to Bridge however no one really seemed to have the intention of running it. I was quite keen (since I really hate walking away from it) but realised it was probably a bad idea when I attempted to get out my boat. Apparently doing a long MTB race before cramming your legs into a tiny boat then paddling in cold water makes for a fantastic cramp mixture. A much entertained Jo helped me out out my kayak before I ran around in the mud for a while feeling and looking like a retard. So between the fact that my body was not working and that I wouldn't be able to get out my boat at the bottom I decided to give it a miss. Due to the cold and promise of tomorrow no one else was keen to run the rapid, so we opened some beers packed up, chilled and headed to Clarens.
At the trusty old backpackers we all set up camp. I, not having a tent (a situation I would regret later), passed the now freely flowing beer around. Nick and James made a fire and cooked the wors.
At this point I started to wonder about explorers. Good food, pretty girls.... what the hell is happening?

The Ladies looking warm

Thankfully the general discussions and banter haven't changed. With the beers, box wine and Heineken (apparently it is different to beer) we digressed into loud bunch who laugh at toilet humour and sexual innuendo (sometimes not so innuendoish). In drips and drabs we all headed off to the pub where much the same a happened.
Chris, who should have been driving to the Ash now, pissyed out (or came to his senses) and went to bed.

So, bed time. Sure sleeping under the stars will be fine. What the hell does the weather service know anyways.
A few things we where glad about
I was glad it didn't rain
I was glad I didn't check how big Don's tent was when opting to sleep on the floor in the pub when it started to not rain
Keren was happy that Don's tent didn't leak and her sleeping bag didn't get wet
Don was pretty happy he never left is shoes outside.

So in the morning it pretty much kept on raining. The kind of rain that you hope will stop, but you really know it won't.
Now the one thing about the Ash is this, it is cold. Not just a little but cold, proper cold. If it is nice a sunny out getting splashed is nice and refreshing, rolling gives you an ice cream headache while swimming knocks the wind out your chest. If, however, it is not nice and sunny.... Say windy and raining for instance... the Ash basically becomes complete misery.
The generally feeling one got in our morning camp was that paddling would be complete misery so needless to say no one was up early and into their wet kit. In fact we pretty much sat around looking at the rain thinking about our beds.
We all headed off for breakfast, pancakes and waffles at a local spot. Rejuvenated by food, warmth and banter we decided that we would give some paddling a bash. The general consensus was to head to bridge and run it.

We all headed up to Alles to get "warmed" up before hitting bridge. Al, who wasn't looking too keen on the idea of bridge was convinced when I told him I would run it. Bravely he asked me to run safety and without scouting again he headed into the drop. Al hadn't run it before so doing it in this weather was top notch move indeed. He styled through the entry but was knocked over in the drop, rolled and was shortly knocked over again. He rolled quickly just before hitting the shelf and made the window on the right. Nice one Alan.

Al Going for a crazy move down the drop. He was trying to style it for the ladies

Not really working out for him

Making it down the slide and hole, nice one AL

I headed down next without too much hassle this time.
Next the crocs came down one by one.
The infamous croc swim team pair, Don and Jo, headed down first. They styled it without too much hassle. I am a little worried that Don didn't swim at all this trip. It is completely against his nature.

Umko swim team captains, Jo and Don

Pat and Colin went next and tried a less orthodox approach, spinning the boat at the top, heading down the rest backward and hitting the hole sideways. Although they swam the hole didn't dish out much carnage due to the low Sunday level.

Pat and Colin trying it backward

Lastly Nick and James ran it, and made it without too much hassle.
In high spirits after doing some paddling we packed up and made lunch. Lunch turned into a Nick, Pat and Neil food fight. I think Nick ended up worst off.

Good trip, good times.

Nick after a food fight

What a great time, later!

Postscript: The tale of Chris.
Chris didn't stay sober on Friday night, not even a little bit. In fact he got so hammered he only woke up at 4pm on sat. Needless to say he didn't want to drive to the Ash on Sat night after a second party.

Umko

2009-03-26T17:25:00.008+02:00

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

2009-01-24T14:21:00.002+02:00

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

2008-07-02T16:04:00.004+02:00

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

2008-05-09T12:22:00.001+02:00

Gatsien 03/02

2008-02-04T18:21:00.001+02:00

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)

2008-01-12T12:23:00.000+02:00

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

2007-12-21T14:26:00.000+02:00

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

8 days, 2 rivers, 3 surfs and 2 broken paddles

2007-11-20T15:13:00.000+02:00

Dave, Chris and I had planned to head down to the Bivane river to marshal the iThala challenge canoe race. The Bivane is full of nice grade 3 and 4 rapids in one of most beautiful gorges around. The later part of the river flows past the iThala game reserve and you can see some great stuff during the paddle.
Work however threw a bit of a spanner in the works, I was to be going to Durban the week after the race. With little time we organised lifts for Dave and Chris with Rob and Andy Mac who where paddling the canoe race, thanks guys! So we headed down on early Friday afternoon and arrived at Bivane dam shortly after sunset. We chatted to the guys organising the martials and headed off to bed as we had to be on the river at 5am the next morning.
Basically we had to get on the river early, paddle down to our martialling points, once the sweeps past paddle the remainder of the river. Well easier said than done as the section is 42km long and my point was 18km from the start, so I was expecting quite a haul. Too my surprise we got to our points very quickly, this due to the fact that the river flows well on the upper section with the best rapids. We read and ran most of the rapids which was great fun and at times was made interesting by the early morning sun in your eyes. I really enjoyed the paddle down, chatting to the other martails, who were a great group of guys.
I bid fairwell to Chris and Dave at my rapid who were to be stationed at the next big rapid, which is the biggest on the river.
Unbeknown to me but Chris had broken his indestructible Riot paddle at my rapid. I had the spare but he decided to paddle to his rapid and wait for me there. There where a few interesting rapids between and I'm sure he had an interesting time.
I met Dave at Chris at big drop, where, after scouting the drop all ran it. Chris was feeling a little apprehensive, understandably after breaking a paddle, but still ran the drop nicely.

From big drop to the end the river starts to flatten out a big with far less big rapids. We hauled down to the Pongola confluence where we where instructed to get out.

After some rather unpleasant admin to get out boats and lifts sorted out I bid fair well to Chris, Dave and Philip and headed down to Durban. Unfortunately I got there too late to paddle on the Sunday. I was working there so never had much time to paddle but in the afternoons I headed down to the beach to play in the surf. The surf was rather small but trashy non the less as all the waves were dumping. I still had a great time even though I'm rather crap when it comes to surf kayaking.

I left Durban on Friday and headed up to Clarens, I was hoping I could paddle in Natal but alas there was no water around. I was to meet up with Ernie and Dave Joyce to paddle the Ash on Sat morning which left Friday night free for me to chill. There as a massive party going down at the backpackers so rather than paying R100 to be kept up all night I chose to head to the end of town and sleep there.

I tried to sort out the permits before the other guys got there but there was some issue and we could not get them. Rather unimpressed we headed to the river and up in at bridge and paddled the rest of the section.

The Coast of Contradictions

2007-10-29T15:45:00.000+02:00

The Coast of Contradictions

Only at the ocean, at the locks of Mother Nature’s temperamental tresses, can I get in touch with my emotions. Maybe it’s the consistency and cadence, of the ebb and flow, or the balance of trough and crest, such a magical metaphor, an eternal statement of truth, balance and beauty, the making of dreams. It’s believed by many that life originated from water, the salty depths of Neptune’s palace. Maybe this is the reason human beings who are in their means; migrate towards the palace each year. I feel an umbilical pull towards her, a yearning each year to be in her awesome presence, to prostrate on her golden shore, to greet her waves, to indulge in her breath. Mine is an infatuation, a passionate vogue.

I’m on my yearly migration to my summer grazing spot, the coast of contradictions. As my herd travels, we make stops every three hours to graze and refresh ourselves before we undertake our journey once again. I come from a grumbling herd of animals; the first hour we spend together of the journey, is longer than we’ve spent together in the last six months or so. Once again our alpha male and female are vying for the spot of group leader. The herd juniors taking key from the elders, start brawling, our animalistic instincts are inherited, and the genes of violence, pettiness and animalism win once again. In the eternal debate between nature and nurture, nature earns a brownie point.

Whenever I am a guest at Neptune’s citadel, I have an odd superstitious ritual. I walk towards her my hands at my sides, slightly apart. I walk straight towards the ocean’s bosom, without flinching at the cool water. It’s something deeply religious for me, deeply spiritual for me. I feel like it’s my connection with a power, power so awesome it causes this closed system of Life to occur. A Power of balance and majesty. It replaces the space of common ritualistic religion with a sort of connection. A sort of inner understanding of my place, my life in comparison to the world, the wild wind of change and destiny we call home, we call life.

I have arrived at the summer migration grounds, and it is time for us to adorn ourselves to attract mates, summer is the time when most human mating occurs. Many of the older members of the herd mate their original mates, but this fact is not really what interests me. It is the young members of the herd who are in search of their mates that are a matter of interest to me. The males seemed to have caught on to a mating trend of shedding most of their fur, but that of the tops of their heads. This fur they style in upward sorts. They also cover their eyes with dark reflective material. They tend to dress in small coverings in various designs made of synthetic material which cover the body from the bottom of the waist to various lengths around the knee. The females remove all fur except for that on the tops of their heads; they dress in odd outfits that cover their breasts and crotch area (which resemble 3 triangular shapes of material). They often were these outfits in bright colors to attract the male eye. The males often do mock physical activities to attract females, while females chatter in loud high pitched chants to attract male attention.

It is solely at the ocean that I can become in touch with my emotions. I seem to just let them build up, and the ocean seems to iron out all the tensions and stresses. I think it’s probably the reliability of the ocean and her waves that attracts me, unlike the land of metamorphosis, the raging rat race of existence. My tears flow easily when I’m at the ocean, when the waves wash over me, cleaning my soul. It is at the ocean I question myself, it is at my yearly migration I’m able to put myself into perspective. I felt like I was a jarhead in the Iraqi war, a distant nobody fighting a battle that I knew was worthless. I felt like I was a mere spectator in my life, a bystander a forgotten face at the meandering mall of life. What have I achieved for my life? What do I have to show? I question, I seek through the silky sand for answers to my philosophy. And like the exfoliating properties of the sand, I break away from the dead emotion; I shed the old to reveal a new me, a new beginning, a new chapter.

Take a trip to the coast of contradictions next holiday season, and after you graze and herd, take leave from the mundane. Take a lonely trip down to Neptune’s palace and other then the wonders of Mother Nature’s luminescent tresses, you might just find yourself.

Just some weird, abstract, random food for thought,
Peace
hoosain khan

P.S. anyone interested in the Otto Trail?

Where did the weekends go?

2007-10-29T13:59:00.000+02:00

As this blog hasn't been updated in a while, due to exams I suppose, I thought I would add a few words about the paddling I have done of late.

Dave and I went to the Ash about a month ago, unfortunately my clutch gave in when we got to Bethlehem. We got it fixed in the morning an managed to catch the other lads about half way down. We joined them and paddled from the Grade 5 to the end. It was a great little paddle none the less, was good to get the dust off the paddle. The Ash is a great "step test" river.

Dave and I went to the Fish river at the end of September for the annual canoe marathon. Despite previous bets involving lots of beer, Chris did not race. I say he is a girl, but it was mostly due to the fact that we had recently become homeless. I race, it was long and fun but the other reason why we went down was for the Fish rodeo. Scott and Craig from Life by Water organised a rodeo after the event. The fish rodeo used to be an annual event coinciding with the race for water. There had not been a rodeo in the last few years, so hats off to Scotty and Craig for getting it going again. I'm sure it will grow and become an annual event again.

Dave and I entered the Intermediate rodeo. I, due to the lack in resolution of the scoring chart, won with Dave coming second it was really close though. I sure Dave and I pretty much had equal runs. Andrew Pollock took the honours in the main event, with some great clean chartwheels. I'm not going to harp on too much about the event, please read about it here.

The weekend after Fish Chris and I headed to the Vaal for the weekend. Unfortunately it wasn't at a great level, the chute was washing out and the wave wasn't quite working. None the less we played hard in the wave even though it was super flushy. Chris worked on his spins tried out the new Fluid Nemesis. We camped at rocky ridge after the biggest storm in the world in a tent that wasn't quite waterproof.
Dave, Chevonne, Don, Liam, Sam and Rob joined us on the Sunday for a river run. The river had dropped even more and was fairly uneventful. The chute was really nice and I had a good play when we got there.

So it rained a quite a lot, Adrian mailed me a said we were off to Deepdale Gorge on the Umkomaas. Sweet, I was so keen. We left JHB at midnight since Dave Joyce had a dinner to go to. A long drive saw us get to Highover at around 7am. Dave from Highover helped us out with shuttle and we putin just below deepdale falls.
What an awesome river, long technical rapids, beautiful vistas and not a person in site.
You can read more about the trip on Adrian's site

Dog brown wings

2007-09-04T11:44:00.000+02:00

The Vaal dam outflow was increase slightly last week. Which meant there was sufficient water to make the section below Parys good.

Only Don and I went down, both of us kayaking. Don is fairly new to kayaking and the Vaal at this level is a good introduction. Since I was a bit sick and don had turned into a tank the night before we left rather late (well past 10) and arrived at Parys even later. After the mandatory shopping for food and checking out the locals. I found the most amazing pie, I had to buy it and take it home for Chris. He was excited.

Anyway, back to paddling. As we got there too late to run the river we headed to Gatsien. Don squeezed himself into the stubby we headed down theatre to Gatsien.
So Don started off ok hitting a few rolls (he had never rolled before) and then headed off to the current. He worked on a few eddy turns and peel ins. Basic moves but you find out quickly that working the currents in a lot harder than bombing down a river.
When attempting one eddy turn Don went over and lost his paddle. At first I thought he had seen me further down stream and was swimming toward me (still in his boat). Shit I was so impressed. So it turned out he was just have a bit of a doggy paddle session under the boat. None the less he held on long enough and got to my boat in time to not swim.

I hit the chute a couple of times, wasn't feeling too hot. It was a great level though, with Vroom and Brendan displaying some moves.

After staring at woman wearing a pillow case, complete with pillow, we headed up and run the chute. Don went over and after a bit of doggy paddling popped and swam. Don then learn the ever important lessons of kayaking. Paddles do in fact float down stream if you let them go, boat with little floatation are damn heavy and the vaal bugs suck the sweat of a dead mans balls.

All in all it was a pretty successful day, I was impressed with Don's persistence and I hope to see more WEES kayakers on the water.

Onseepkans round two, this time in winter

2007-08-09T14:55:00.000+02:00

So running a WEES trip while working is apparently more of a mission that I expected. None the less a slightly disorganised trip left JHB early Saturday morning. We left a little later than expected as some guy decided that the back of a landrover is almost exactly the same as open road, he was wrong… badly wrong.

Other than that the drive was rather uneventful, with the mandatory progressively increasingly dodgy conversation. Yes, I chose a shit lunch spot, but my decision was badly effected by 1994 pop music, yes That’s right Monster hits 2. We pulled into a little campsite in Koimoes on a wine farm, where I offered to sell one off the staff members’ wine. My Afrikaans is not so hot apparently, Glen’s is. Reading this you are you may realise that my English ain’t good either.

We left early for the putin, and got there with sufficient time to squeeze in the drive round before nightfall. Chevonne managed to spin her car out on one of the corners during the drive, thankfully nothing was damaged too badly and the drive could go on. Back at the put in we packed the mountain of stuff into the six crocs and one kayak. Chris, Nick, Don, Glen and myself headed up a mountain to take in the landscape, putting shoes on fist would have been a good idea as I cut my foot nicely…. It’s still infected…. I might have to have my foot cut off.

Typical scenery on this part of the Orange

We paddled a couple of km’s before setting up camp in a nice little spot. I somehow managed to get hammered off very little whiskey and the rest of the night was a bit of a blur. I passed out in Dave’s bivvy with a croc over my head to cast a shadow over the bright full moon.

Mondays paddle is the most challenging in terms of navigations, the river is widely channel and one must avoid a going left into a serious gorge, which, at high level could kill you and this level make your day rather unpleasant. Somehow we managed to not go right enough, requiring a portage over a small island to get into the correct channel. It is a bit of a long slog from here to the “rapids” but everyone made it. The water was too low to make life very exciting at little falls. It was a bit of a scrape to get down.

Scouting the channels

We got lot Richie falls latish of a long days paddle, and brought out the best lunch ever. Random-can-day, which, was embraced well… thankfully. What Chris did was buy whole bunch of random cans, then take the labels off. The cans included; tinned meat balls, brussel sprouts, jam, treat, green beans, curry to name but a few. The second can of meat chunks did go down too well, wander what it really was?

Relaxing around the one of Glen's fires

That evening we all drank and Don entertained us with the most amazing party trip I have ever seen. Hopefully he will do it again sometime

To get the boats and gear down to the water requires a bit of a scramble and the lowering of the some gear. I set up a b-lay and lowered the boats. We paddled up the gorge a little to see the falls, even with little water they are still impressive. I would love to come to this section with a full river.

Looking up the gorge

The biggest rapid on the section followed shortly, big bunny, which I suppose live up to it’s name. At this level is quite bony and getting the crocs down was a bit of a mission. Next up in Dolly Parton, not difficult at all but not particularly pleasant. There is a poorly placed rock to get a croc stuck on, which wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t for the massive siphon down the left. Most made it okay, except for Don. Don got it a little too sideways and began to wrap. I was in the eddy behind them and got Luke to clamber onto the rock and push Don and the boat off this “Backward sideways wrap” he did however do such and efficient job of getting Don off the rock that he forgot to get back in the boat. Luke now stranded on the rock was looking a little puzzled as to how he was going to get back to Don. I reassured him, since he was looking very river man, that he should just stay on the rock and be safety guy. Luke embraced this job and gently pushed the remaining boats off the rock thus avoiding them the same fate. He once again however forgot to jump on the last boat, leaving him high and dry in the middle of the river. I told him to jump into the river and swim for it, which he did and hastily ordered Chris to give him a buddy rescue. A move he was supper keen on ever since Dave has shown it in the safety talk.

The rest of the river is largely flat, so be paddled on slowly. I got out the kayak and into the barge and plodded the heavy ass boat down the river. We camped early and made some fantastic food.

Coldest campsite in the world

The next day was a long one, as I wanted to make distance. The reason why it ended up being so long was down to the lack of campsites. We started looking for one at 4pm and only found one well after 5. The one campsite we did find, which looked amazing from far away turned out to be “Super Rock City”. Not a single bit of flat land, with senses of humour starting to fail Nick found a nice spot on a island in the middle of the river.

The forth day on the river was short and we paddled to till be found and nice campsite. Much of the ground was made thanks to the strong tail wind, I erected Chris’ tarp as a sail. All of a sudden the slow barge was transformed into a speed machine, well kind of. Later all the boats joined, we made a large sail and covered the large expanse of what water with ease.

We made camp and a few of headed up the closest mountain, at first sat there and drank, then someone threw a stone. It was like a switch was turned on, as all hell broke loose. I think that particular bit of mountain is a lot lower than when we started.

The last day on the river was short and sweet, we made it to the take out easily this time. Nick and I were determine to find the bergie toilet we has stumbled on last trip. With the aid of the GPS and some keen navigation we found it, what a find.

We packed up and headed off, hoping to stay at Augrabies falls, however it was full. Chris had spotted a backpackers some distance back and we headed off to Kalahari adventure centre, this was to be the scene of much debortury. I was being grumpy tired guy so you’ll have to get the full account of what happened from someone else.

Craziness about to start

We headed to Augrabies the next morning for breakfast and to check on the falls. Dave, Chris, Kerry, Sarah and I headed off to find Neus falls. We found it after getting lost in a maze of irrigation channels. Neus is an awesome place, and I’m sure with more water would could be an awesome time. With the low level and only one boat it wasn’t really much of and option. There was one nice line and a really dodgy drop, which would hurt a lot if you got it wrong. We gave it a miss but I will be back one day when there is more water.

Main drop at Neus falls

We headed off stopped just outside Upington for and overnight stop and a braai, then headed off home.

What a great trip, thanks to everyone who came and helped out.

Sweet

Neil

Highveld croc wave

2007-06-18T10:16:00.000+02:00

I headed to the croc wave yesterday for a play. It was a little lonely as I never had any company but it's a fairly safe wave to play at on your own.

For those who have never been to the croc wave before it is really it quite sweet, especially once you get the hang of it. It is small, not much more that 2 meters wide, flushy and shallow. I guess I'm not making it sound too awesome, but it has has a few positives, firstly it is not that far, only 40km from the center of jhb. Secondly it is proper park and play, you don't get tired walking. And while it is flushy, it does make you use correct technique. No blast into spins on this wave or you will flush. Once you get it down you can do four or five spin before getting dizzy and trying something else. I battle to throw ends but am getting better, as you need to elevate spins more than throw vertical ends. I've watched Luke Longridge get a few ends, but he works that wave like a pro.

Chris and I in the river left eddy

I'm sure if you move a few rocks around we could improve the wave a bit, Luke has already improved the eddy service by cleaning out the eddies a bit.

I don't have any photos as my camera wasn't working yesterday, I'll post some in time. If anyone is keen for a play on this wave left me know, it works all winter.

There is also a small wier (+-1m) were you can practice boofing without much consequence. Provided you go on the left and not when the water high.

Sweet

Me in the wave

Dave surfing

Wenches Trip (26-29/30 April)

2007-05-01T17:31:00.000+02:00

Finally, after 6 years of threatening to organize one, I did... 12 years after the last wenches paddling trip. So off we went to the Orange River, looking for good times, not so much the hectic river and massifff rapids.

Pre-river
We left jhb around 17h30 in good spirits after fighting off all the boys who wanted to come along on the trip. The dinner stop in Potch saw much shinanigans as we relieved our youth on jumping castles and jungle gyms. This is also where serious injury #1 occurred... Chevonne grazed her elbow. A few hours, and much loudly-sung Bryan Adams, we found the campsite near the Groot Gat in Kimberley, at around 1am.

Day 1
We got on the river pretty late because we faffed about a bit and had to treat serious injury #2 belonging to Nikki who stabbed herself while pumping the boat. Drive round was assisted by the owner of the Caltex Garage by the put in (where we normally sleep on Beginners).

Turns out I should have checked the weather report, because a cold front arrived just in time for our paddle. We paddled into the worst headwind you could possibly imagine and I'm not joking when I say that the waves were in fact breaking in the faces of the front paddlers. When we stopped to rest we had to get out the boat and hold it else we would float upstream and undo in seconds what had taken plenty of minutes to accomplish. At one stage it was better to have someone pulling the boat from the front was more productive than having a lazy captain... so we did that for a while, until I thought it would be fun to get my foot stuck in rocks and bruise and swell up... serious injury #3.

We stopped for lunch and Lis became proud owner of serious injury #4 when she tried to slice off her finger to put on her sandwich. We pushed on down to the old wagon bridge, and there was some fairly festive rapids just above there. Ok, mostly rapiiiiids, but one just before the bridge which was good times. At 4.30 we'd decided we'd had enough of the wind and made camp on the left bank. Crabs and Nikki made a much welcome fire and we all huddled round and then the most delicious food evooor was made (think by crabs again) with potatoes, creamed corn, and sausages. Then we spooned and tried to sleep...

Day 2
Woke up with frost everywhere... I was so cold I couldn't even sleep, so got up and made fire and thawed a little. Thanks to the cold we took our time in getting going while we waited for the sun. The wind had died down a little and we made good time getting to Hell's Gate, which we decided to run, but probably wasn't the best idea in the world.

Lunch was tuna mayo, which I discovered (as a non-tuna-eater) can be made to taste awesome with plenty of black pepper. We paddled the rest of thunder alley without too much excitement, save a girly scream upon being splashed by one of our seeming hardcore team members... no names mentioned.

We set up camp at Slypsteen (where we normally take out for beginners) and someone made comment about the strange water mark about 1m from the water level, so we pulled it above there just in case. Then we made fire, food and warm obs and the evening went a little pearshaped for some of our members... Crabs had a tc, Nikki got a burning log thrown on her lap and there was much singing and shinanigans.

Day 3
This is where it all went pearshaped... We found the quickest cure for a hangover is to lose a boat! We woke up, started the fire, then someone went to the boat for a crogan paddle... there was no boat!!! The water had risen 2,5m and carried it, and all the safety equipment off into the night. We found out later that this rise is caused by plenty of irrigation during the day being switched off at night and plus lots of upstream rain.

After long silent minutes, we split off into 2 groups... Lisa, Chevonne & I went looking for the boat and Sarah & Nikki walked out to fetch the car. I made no good plan for if we found the boat. We took food, maps, medical kit, the cellphone and warm gear to look for the boat. We found it about 5km downstream still with all its gear inside... God bless the flatness that is the Orange. To say we were happy would be an understatement! I went in search of signal to contact the others, but found none. We unwittingly abandoned our plan and paddled downstream to the take out, which we thought was about 8km downstream.

We had lunch just before where we thought the take out was and had another look see at the maps. When we got to the place the maps suggested the car should be we didn't stop because it did not in the slightest resemble where Lis had left the car. So we kept going, starting to doubt my map-reading skills. Eventually the decision was made that we had no idea where we were and possibly had missed the take out and needed to ask for directions... but there was no one to ask.

We got signal at 3.30 and spoke to Soekie and she said they had figured out what we were doing and were already waiting for us at the take out... but neither group knew we'd missed the take out already. We then lost signal again.

At 5.30 we found the first signs of life and went with our maps to ask for directions... the conversation between 2 second language afrikaans speakers is not an intelligent one. We eventually ascertained that there was a bridge "om die draai", and according to our maps could only be one bridge (the one with a weir in front of it incidentally). So we relayed this info to Soekie and Nikki when we got signal again and paddled off "om die draai". An hour later, that seemed further than expected. We were determined to paddle as long as daylight allowed and then walk to somewhere with light, even if we weren't that close to the bridge. In the last few rays of sunlight we saw the lights of an operational pump house and decided to paddle there and get help. Then Soekie phoned from the bridge to say they'd spotted us through binoculars and to keep coming and take out on the left bank. Before we had a chance to ask them to catch us before the weir (which we would definitely miss in the dark) we lost the phone to the Orange... not a high point for us.

When we thought we were as close to the weir as we could be, we took out in the thorn trees and walked towards the bridge. We found Soekie and Nikki and they said they would shine headlights well above the weir to indicate the take out. We paddled off, and the fishing lines just in front of the take out did not improve the mood much as we had to disentangle ourselves and get past them.

So after 35km and 10 hours of paddling, we were on dry land again and happy, though frikkin tired.

We got back to jhb around 5am and all in one piece.

Despite it being a bugger up, we were all very lucky and it can be called epic only because we got out of jail free.

Thanks to everyone involved
Here's to the next one...

Ash Kayaking Again - this time with Jack Daniels (and a few other dodgy characters...).

2007-04-16T16:29:00.000+02:00

So we went to the Ash again, this time joining some other kayakers down in Clarens in a last-minute trip sort of fashion... Neil and I met Grant Morstead at his place at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, had a quick coffee, picked up Jared and were on our way. We had a lightning-quick, massive breakfast at Wimpy Bethlehem and joined up with Adrian, Wihan, Marius, Carl and Theuns at the road to bridge rapid (which some people call Fish Pond Rapid, and which Morsie calls Butthole-Surfer Rapid).

So, we got on the water sometime after 10 I think, with breakfast straining at the cag seals. We took it really slow, taking lots of photos and scouting the bigger stuff for the benefit of those who hadn't seen it before. I hadn't seen anything below the waterfall before, and it was pretty cool to finally paddle the whole stretch.

The top section went well, with a few quick rolls at Alles. Bridge as always was a little intimidating, and I decided to walk it after swimming in the eddy above (the branch I was hanging on to broke - I decided it was a bad omen). Neil and Adrian ran it without too much trouble, with Wihan and Grant getting a bit surfed in the bottom hole and swimming out.

The middle section is pretty flat, with a few small wavetrains and a straightforward drop after the weir (which we portaged). After the second bridge there is a nice drop called "big suprise" (int he photos below), and then some smallish rapids before "The Grade 5".

The Grade 5 is a particularly shit rapid, and requires a portage. It's fairly continuous above it, so knowing where it is is pretty useful... Carl ended up going for a swim here, luckily bewteen a few of us we managed to get his boat and paddle to the bank before the rapid. Directly after this is the slalom rapid where Nationals #2 was, which then leads into the 2-metre waterfall. Wihan and Adrian both ran it on the left, Grant also ran it but managed to get pushed far left into the trees below - luckily close to the bank so Neil and I managed to stabilise his boat so he could get out. Directly after the falls is a rapid with two big holes, apparently one is quite a muncher.

After the waterfall most of the difficult rapids are over, with a few drops and an awesome, slide-like weir. This weir is pretty easy to run (all that ran it went down the right to avoid the big wave on the left, but I don't think it would keep a boat long, might thump you a bit though). There's a pretty interesting rapid below this as well, with some big holes at higher levels. Seemed to be easier to skirt the holes on the right, as there was a tree on the left which Wihan managed to catch his deck on... You don't want to go too far right though either. Two drops follow the weir, one is a bit of a shelf, boofed on the left, and the other has a nice glassy wave at the top and a meaty-ass hole on the right at the bottom.

All in all a really fun stretch, there's a lot of boily flat which gets a bit old, especially in the middle section. And it rained a bit on Saturday as well, which wasn't all that pleasant (good opportunity to play the "I have a dry-cag haha" game though...). Overall I found the cold water easier to deal with after an hour or so though, I defintitely didn't think about it as much as I normally do when we've only paddled short sections.

In the evening many beers were drunk, and Jared had to participate in an initiation ceremony (it was his first time kayaking on a river) which involved much Jack Daniels (straight, with coke, and even with ice-cream). He also had to wear a helmet all night. Good Fun. We retired to the backpackers, had a bit of a fire, and a well-earned sleep.

We woke up to a miserable day, and there was a significant lack of enthusiasm about getting ona freezing cold river, in the freezing cold... Luckily it warmed up, and a slightly dimished group of 5 kayakers went for another run down the whole section. Everything went a lot faster, we stopped less to scout and take photos. As a result we finished the whole section in just over 3 hours (it had taken us over 6 the previous day). Everybody ran bridge, Jared rolled impressively a few times but got beaten in the bottom hole and swam (the only swim of the trip). Neil did an awesome last minute roll to miss getting beaten on the shelf, and I managed to go over before the middle drop (I was going for a kickflip of course...) by looking too far ahead.

Adrian and Wihan were the only takers for the waterfall, and the water seemed to be pushing a lot more forcefully towards the trees. Wihan got pushed quite far left and just managed to miss the main branches, Adrian saved a flip with high brace and got washed into a branch. Neil and I helped him maneuver his boat round to below the trees so he could ferry out inot the rapid again... I think a saw might be in order here...

The rest of the trip seemed to fly by - amazing the difference good weather can make - and before we knew it we were eating Nando's on our way home. Good times. Doing this longer stretch of the Ash defintitely makes it a more worthwhile trip, especially for kayaking.

Thanks to Adrian Tregoning for some of the pics.

The Chute v2.0

2007-04-11T18:49:00.000+02:00

So we went to the chute again on the Easter Weekend... I had to fetch my seat from a dodgy place in Germiston in the morning, so we only left at about lunchtime. However, we still managed to get to the hole in time for Neil to do a few cartwheels, me to paddle like a girl, and also to see some great boobs... We walked back up in the dusk, chatting about pornography at the top of our voices, until we saw a wedding party on the lawn at Stonehenge waiting for the bride... oops.

We squatted (no, "camped for free", not actually squatted) at the 24hr MTB race, which was a little like trying to get some sleep at Oppikoppi, but not too bad. We watched a bit of Cricket at Finnegans, which sucked. At least the burgers were good.

The next day the hole was a little deserted, with only Ernie and Blake joining us for half an hour or so.... and definitely no fantastic boobs. The level was also a bit lower making it slightly more shitty to get in, and making the wave a little smaller but slightly more retentive. Neil did some good cartwheels and I did a few amazing Atomic-Turtles (like a phonics tortis but bigger and better). We took lots of footage to help the learning curve, and managed to almost amazingly cock up transferring a peli-case from the rock to the bank...

Oh, and there was also a commercial trip with a retarded kid - a little annoying but pretty funny (as always) to watch the clients swim the rapid...

We eventually (quite quickly actually) got too tired to paddle, and left for Jo'burg. The end.

Gatsien Chute

2007-04-02T10:42:00.000+02:00

Daav and I haven't play in the Chute for some time now, but with the water as low as it is at the moment we where left with little option. The water had come up a bit to 15cumec which made it possible to play in the Chute, when the water is lower (below 10 cumecs) it really isn't worth while. The last time the played in the Chute we both found it almost impossible to get in and when in impossible to do anything. There is also a nicely placed rock on surfers right which has claimed faces and paddles.
This time round I was pleasantly surprised, it wasn't too difficult to get in (once you know how) and when in it was possible to spin and go for ends. I spent some time working on a cartwheel in the Chute with the help of Hugh while Dave and Laura worked on squirts and eddy line moves in the current below.

Laura going for a squirt

Dave later hoped in Hugh's prototype large Nemesis and gave it a spin in the Chute. This new Fluid playboat looks awesome, it seems much faster than the Fluid and with harder edges give more control. Dave also said it is more stable on ends, I tried but being way too light for the boat never came close to getting it vertical. It 's a sweet boat though, can't wait to try out the medium.

Hugh and the large Fluid Nemesis

I spent some more time in the Chute working on ends, I nailed one cartwheel but the rest generally ended up in me being upside down. Dave swam onto the rock about the chute and got some awesome photos and video. Marius, many will remember from Bivane, was there. This kid is really looking good, I'm sure in a few years he will be an awesome paddler.
Our paddle was short lived because Laura and I had to head back to JHB early. I'm sure we will be spending a lot more time at the chute this year as it is often at this level throughout winter.

Neil initiating a cartwheel and landing up in a "I hate myself" bow stall

Marius styling

Ash kayaking

2007-03-26T12:48:00.000+02:00

The one great thing about the Ash is that no matter how much is doesn't rain everywhere else the Ash will always have water. This year has been particularly bad on rain, with all the river low and dusty we decided to head off to the Ash.
the trip list was as follows: Dave, James, Chris, Laura, Dale, Willem and myself all in kayaks. Dale and Willem are new to kayaking, having only kayaked the Vaal at low water before, although Dale has done many canoe marathons.
We headed down on Saturday morning bright and early, well not bright but damn early, stopping in Parys to get a boat for Dale at Whitewater Training. All kitted up for what was to be a cold paddle, Dale and Willem having never been on the Ash before were unsure of what to expect and looked unjustifiably nervous.
The paddle from the dam down to the first drop is short and gives you little time prepare yourself for what is to come. Dave and I ran the drop first eddying out below and waited for everyone else. Chris, Laura and Dale all made it ok, they all made me laugh as the punched though the hole they all that the same "Damn this is cold, gaping for air" expression on their faces. Willem ran the drop well but got caught up in an eddy line and went over, he missed three rolls and I was almost positive he was going for a swim but on the third roll he made it, super impressive stuff especially in such cold water. The rest of the run was fairly uneventful, we ran all the rapids carefully and everyone came to terms with the numerous boils and eddy lines.
We scouted Allesgevinden and Allesverloren just to make sure everyone was okay with the lines before we ran it. Chris and Laura ran it well, Willem, Dale and James came down next. James hit a great line for Dale to follow and the both made it, Willem got a little sideways and went over. I was impressed how determined he was to roll, unfortunately he go pushed up against a rock with a hole just before it which made it almost impossible for him to roll and he swam. Not the worst swim in the world but a cold one none the less.

Dale and James down Alles

Dale hitting the line down Alles

Willem lining up the drop

I was keen on doing Bridge (or Fish pond) rapid, so I convinced the others to come help run safety. I supposed there was no backing out once I had got everyone down there. I checked my line and nervously got into my boat, although this rapid isn't that big it can hurt you if you cock it up. It hit the wave before the second drop a little to far right and landed up further right than I would have liked for the drop. As I hit the boils below my paddle was pulled out of my left hand and I went over, lucky I rolled up quickly and was able to do the rest upright. I didn't quite get the ferry right before the rock shelf and hit the hole at the bottom in the centre. I thought I was going to the pounded but managed to get through, good times!

Neil wishing he was half a metre left

Neil upside down

About to hit the rock shelf

We headed back to the car ate lunch, napped and headed up for another run. Being a little later the water seemed to be just that little bit colder and there was a slight edge in the air. Willem went over once or twice and had a few swims. This time we headed straight down Alles, Laura and Willem walked not too confident or warm after some swimming.

We headed back to town, made the most food ever and looked for a pub. After half and hour we where still looking for the pub, eventually we had walked right across town and found nice little pub where we had a few beers and watched some of the cricket.

The Sunday plan was to run a bit of the longer section, however with new paddlers and time pressure the full section was off the cards. The plan was to paddle to the second bridge, so Chris, Dale and Dave set off to do drive round. They took quite a while, so James and I entertained ourselves by watching a log get trashed in the weir at the put in. Apparently Chris hit a rock quite hard and bent his rim so they had to change a tire on the way.

The paddle went according to plan until Alles, which at the lower level made a quite sticky hole at the first drop. I went down and sat in the top eddy after which James, Chris and Laura came down. I could see that the hole was sticky by the way it almost stopped Chris in a Y. Laura came down and hit it right in the center, the stickiest bit. It surfed her back and flipped her over, she swam and made it to the bank before the second drop. Unfortunately her boat went over the second drop and got pinned. It came out by its self but damaged the hull. The Ash river often causes a bit of carnage. So Laura and James stayed at bridge and the rest paddle off to the cars. The second section has far fewer rapids that the first, with only a few wave trains, a nice drop, a weir and a nasty broken down dam wall.

I was keen on running the first drop of the last section so I paddled down while Dave, Chris, Dale and Willem walked there to run safety. I saw and eddy just above the drop which I new I could easily make, as I got closer I noticed it had a fence blocking it. Not good times! I managed to duck under it and scout the rapid, but was relieved that I didn't get washed down it without anyone watching. I ran the left line, went a little further left that I would have liked but was okay. We headed back to the cars and did drive round.

Note: The construction of a hydro electric channel is being started on this section. We left a car there with the guard. Please contact the farmer before doing so, he is reasonable but doesn't like random people walking over his land without being told about it.

We picked up Laura and James, had some lunch and headed off home. It was a great trip, thanks to everyone who came and Chevonne for helping out with the organisation even though she didn't come.

Beginners hike: Marble baths, Injisuthi

2007-03-14T20:44:00.000+02:00

The plan was to go to Marble baths cave in the Injisuthi area, Drakensberg. We (Kemba, Will, Hoosain, Willem and I) would leave early, sail through the traffic (no traffic on a friday afternoon, never!), get there, set up camp for the night and turn in early... Lets just say that didn't exactly happen...

What I thought would be a relatively simple drive, but possibly a bit of a challenging hike turned out to be exactly the opposite: the 30 - odd Km road to the Injisuthi campsite turned out to be one big car-swallowing pothole for the rather low Camry we were in, and therefore it took us a long time to get through. We got to the entrance to the reserve at about 11pm, and, (not surprisingly) the gate was locked. So I ran all the way up some tiny hill in the hope of getting some signal, found signal and proceeded to wake up the Injisuthi reception person so they could radio the guard to come and let us in. However, when I came back from my mission, the guard had already opened for us... Good way of making new friends at the camp...

So we got there in the end. However, the rest of the weekend went by so effortlessly, that getting there almost seemed to be the most challenging part of the weekend. The route was easy to follow, and not very difficult. The weather turned out to be sunny and a little hot, but no rain. There was one part where I thought we were lost, though. There was this thick mass of vegetation on the path, and millions of baboon paths going off in all directions. Well, I took one of those paths, thinking it was the right path... Turned out it wasn't, but we found our way back to the main path eventually. We found the cave easily, and then all headed down to the baths after lunch, where the boys had lots of fun swimming in the pools. I was looking for lizards, and therefore didn't swim... I consumed a fair amount of OBS during supper, (no-one else was, so I had to make up for them...), and consequently was very happy when I got to bed.

On the walk back, a rather large puffadder decided Kemba was a threat, and so struck at her. She wasnt bitten luckily, and the snake, which must have been quite scared moved off quickly. The incident left a few shaken people, me included, as a snake bite, especially from a puffadder would not have been good times.

Anyway, we got back safely. The 'Berg was absolutely beautiful, the water tasted lovely, and all in all, it was a really good weekend.

Cheese

Blyde Fest

2007-03-12T15:14:00.000+02:00

So it turns out that getting from Wits to the other side of Benoni, whilst not requiring a passport, does take the better part of 2 hours on Friday evenings. Inevitably we got to the Blyde Canyon Adventure Centre around midnight with only a few drunk kayakers from Benoni (strangely) around to greet us. The plan had initially been for Dexter, Crabs and I to waste away Saturday while Neil competed in the kayak race on the Upper Blyde. A haphazard last minute rearrangement saw Dexter and I tagging along in a croc with the kayak race and Crabs getting the short straw - which I still feel bad about - and staying in camp.

The 4am start was over-rated and the 2 hour drive was pretty hectic, but the view and the crystal clear water was well worth the lack of sleep - anyone who's been to that part of the country knows what I'm talking about. One of the highlights for me was drinking straight from the river with no gippo-strings attached, very refreashing after the sludge in the Vaal and most Natal rivers.

The kayak race was a timed sprint (on two occasions a head-to-head race) down three of the larger rapids on the stretch and the rest of the river was just tripped. Neil represented Explorers well, even though he brought a medium red knife (read: flirt) to a gun fight. Although it could've been worse... he could've been Luke in the large flirt. Mark and I thought we'd embarrass ourselves rather and took a few swims, Mark felt it neccessary to increase his number of swims. I particularly enjoyed the swim above the waterfall... thanks Mark. But the kayakers seemed to enjoy the relatively informal format of racing and good times seem to be had by all... although, the guy who worked in the hole below curtain falls seems to have a strange sense of good times because he went back for more.

That night descended into a boozed haze and much abuse was hurled in Explorers direction as the video of the day was watched and the full extent of the carnage revealed. Next morning we nursed our heads and bumbled down the lower blyde, which couldn't really compare with the spectacular canyon of the day before... at least this time we had Crabs with us.

Amazing weekend, hopefully have a bigger contingent at next year's event...

Snoo

Went to the X-fest and came back with “balls” on my shirt

2007-02-21T15:22:00.000+02:00

I suppose a general lack of kayakers in explorers meant that only Dave, Justin and myself headed down to Underberg for the Thrombi X-fest. We left a little later than planned mostly due to the powers of the room, which upset me mostly because I had been at work and not in the room. We arrived at the X-Fest late into the night thanks to some interesting navigating in the mist and rain, with the most featured road in the world providing some extra entertainment. We put up the tent had a beer and went to bed.

Our breakfast plan of pronutro went to pot thanks to some awesome bacon and eggs rolls for sale, I’m sure everyone at the festival has egg on the pants. After a fair amount of fannying about Dave and I decided to enter the kayak sprint race, a little worried that we had never seen the river before. Luckily we paddled the section over which the sprint race was being held Philip Classens and Adrian Vroom. This included two of the bigger rapids on the section: “Slot machine” and “Super tube”. With no major chaos we our minds were put at ease.

Previously this race had a Le Mans start format, this year an interesting start ramp had been built barely wide enough to fit three boats never mind four. Dave was put up against a three other paddlers in creek boats and never really had a chance. He managed to cock-up the run somewhat needing to roll at least half a dozen times. My race was more competitive as there were only two other paddlers both in play boats. I cocked it up right from the start getting off the ramp late and hence playing catch up. I cocked it up more by getting flipped at the bottom of slot machine. At the end I was getting creamed. There was one more twist in the tail however for Dave and I, the race was longer than the section we paddled in the morning and included one more drop. Both of us took horrible lines and needed to roll at the bottom but all was good.

Justin and I entered the croc race expecting to kick as….well we never. There were some pro canoeists in our group, this wasn’t all bad as we go to drink beer sooner. I went to bed early and Justin kept on drinking beer so I’ll have to let him account for what happened.

Then next day Dave and I ran the river down to the falls with Adrian T, Luke and Vroom. What an awesome section of river lots of big drops and long rapids with short pools. We got to the falls without incident, Adrian T and Luke ran the falls while the rest started the long walk out the gorge.

Thrombi X-Fest

2007-02-20T14:44:00.000+02:00

ok - so Neil beat me to the post... oh well, was such an awesome event it deserves two posts. Wrote this a few days ago, was going to add pictures but won't bother now seeing as Neil has put some in. By the way - if you're wondering about the "balls on chests" thing - just have a look at the t-shirt sometime...

We went to Thrombi, and came back with "balls" on our chests...

So Justin, Neil and I headed down the dreaded N3 on Friday afternoon, towards the Umzimkulu River and the Thrombi X-Fest ("Thrombi" is a section of the Umzimkulu known as Thrombosis Gorge, near Underberg). Luckily Neil's car held up on the long drive (thanks Neil's Car) and we arrived at the campsite after getting lost (well, we weren't really lost but we didn't really know where we were going...) via Underberg. It was drizzling and miserable, so after a quick erection (of the tent) and a beer we retired to the dryness for some kip. Justin didn't have faith in my old school Vango tent, and claimed that he got a little wet in the night - I told him to stop peeing in his sleeping bag.

We woke up to a fantastic breakfast of bacon, egg, bread, all mushed together and dehydrated to make the wonder food we all know and love as Pronutro. After staring at the box for a while we went down to the tent and got real bacon and egg rolls - no brainer really, especially when you have no bowls or spoons, and the long life milk looks like Crogan punched it in the face.

We entered the kayak race, after fannying about a bit, and tried to join up with a trip to the waterfall. We ended up missing this trip, but ran the race section with Phillip and Vroom. Only three rapids really: Tonsils, Slot Machine and Supertube. Tonsils was just a drop into a hole really, slot machine was a little more tricky with a lead in and then a nice twisty hole to sort you out at the bottom. Supertube is probably the biggest rapid on the stretch, with a tricky lead in rapid (stay right or middle right), ending in a blind drop into a "supertube" to the left. At this level we went just left of the indicator wave at the top of the drop - great rapid. From here it's a relatively easy walk back to the field at the start.

We then did the race, after being informed that there was no more "lemans start", instead all 3/4 kayakers in each heat would have to slide down a dodgy looking contraption on river left, into a pool about a foot deep... hmmmm. Anyway, no-one broke an arm or anything (not on the slide anyway). I was a spectacular last in my heat (although I was the only playboat in a field of much faster creekers - but I would have been last anyway). There was a bit of a suprise at he end, when it wasn't - the end that is. After finishing supertubes we were beckoned from downriver towards the "new" finish, which included a small drop and a massive one. Running the last rapid (and finding out it was a 3 metre drop) before the finish completely tired and completely blind was pretty interesting.

Pictures, and more article to follow later...

Buffalo: Fugitives Drift - Buffelshoek

2007-02-19T11:42:00.000+02:00

After the planned trip to the Malibamatso River (in Lesotho) didn't happen due to lack of water, a few of us decided to go paddle anyway. After frantically arranging a lift at the last minute with Adrian and Vroom, we all set off towards a pub in Vryheid (where Robin and Ronnie had been since luchtime...). I was in the back of Vroom's bakkie - and with no window to the cab, was kept company by a six-pack of BL and Adrians photo album. There were murmurings of paddling Buffalo, I thought we were paddling Bivane (which would have been similar to Mali - read: easier than Buffalo). Turns out that all the paddlers that had not pulled out were pretty keen on Buffalo, and where all much better kayakers than me... hmmm. So, a little apprehensive about the paddling a big river the next day, I was keen for an early night. Of course, this meant that we stayed at the pub till midnight (with many rubber arms being twisted) and eventually ended up sleeping in the garden of the waitress that had been serving us...

The next morning we were woken with a tray of coffee (look out for "Natalie's Backpackers", opening soon in Vryheid) and promises of breakfast. We gracefully declined (didn't want to take advantage after all)
and headed off towards the river, with a stop in Dundee for breakfast and pink Gorillas.

The river was steepish, and high volume (100-150 cumecs) - very pushy water. I started to regret overpacking my boat, and was enviously eyeing out Robin's Expedition Solo. The first few rapids provided a nice warm up - were very long but the lines were pretty obvious and there weren't really any retentive holes around. Soon though, we came upon this rapid:

Philip had ended up on the right, and opted to walk around the massive pourover ("because there was no-one there to throwbag him"). Vroom and Adrian ran a less intimidating (but still tricky) line down the left. Another steep, fast drop finished off this rapid (see more photos on my gallery - unfortunately this was the only place I got my camera out). Robin decided early on to walk around this rapid, and rather than fanny about deciding whether to run it or not, I joined him. I put in in a side stream and bumbled down to the bottom of the rapid.

Somwhere along the line (near the beginning) we all dropped into a massive hole while running a seemingly "innoccent" looking (but still massive) wavetrain-type rapid. The wave-hole was about 2-3 metres high and spanned the river, so there was no way around it. It backlooped all of us I think, but luckily wasn't very retentive. Good times.

It's been a while since I paddled with a nose-plug, but the amount of rolling I was doing in this very dirty river made it a neccessity for my dodgy sinuses. As the day wore on I started bonking a little, and the rolls started getting a little sluggish. I hadn't done any real paddling in about 3 months due to a rotator cuff injury, and was feeling the effects of my not-fitness. The river was also testing my read-and-run abilities, with some quick ferries around massive holes and dodgy creases a requirement every now and then.

A serious learning experience, made better by being in the company of some good paddlers.

The next day a few of us pulled soft and paddled the commercial section, declining the offer to paddle the slightly more difficult Rorke's Drift - Fugitive's Drift section. I'm sorry to have missed it - but it's not going anywhere...

Lots more info and photos on Adrian Tregoning's Site.

Upper Blyde

2007-02-02T09:09:00.000+02:00

Daav and I headed up to the Blyde river in Limpopo last weekend. The original plan was to paddle with Hugh, which didn't happen. Instead we crashed at Chris Huddle's place and bumed along on a Blyde river adventures commercial trip.

The drive into the canyon is a long one but well worth it. The scenery and river is awesome, a cool clear river flow though the third largest canyon in the world. But the rapids make it even better. The run starts of fairly easy with a few smallish drops and bony rapids. I made a meal of Island rapid by getting broached half way down, but I sorted it out with a little shoulder contact on the many rocks below.
After the lunch stop about 6km down the river starts to get really good, with lots of low volume drops and steep rapids.
Just as it starts to get late you meet up with the dam and catch a ferry across what would be a long hall into a head wind.

Good times, awesome river and looking forward to the Blyde fest.

Umkomaas - Impendle section

2006-12-21T08:19:00.000+02:00

So there was water about and we weren’t paddling in it, this had gone on too long.

I thought Umko would be a nice place to spend the long weekend, which was not a long weekend due to the public holiday falling on Saturday. None the less with all the time constraints I managed to convince various working folk to get a half day off or just leave early. This was a big help as an early departure on Friday meant earliness all round.

Dave, Sarah, James, Chevonne, Justin, Nasi, Bryden and I headed down in two cars to Trinity farm where we spent the night thanks to Gavin. We made to boiled potatoes and Russians, which didn’t take long at all, setup a rain shelter and went to bed.

Thanks to a good night sleep we were able to get to the river early and get on the water before 10. Most where paddling crocs and I was kayaking, a little unsure as to how I would cope on this unseen section. This meant we would have a long days paddle ahead of us and time to spare scouting the numerous rapids that lay in our path. There river was at a great level, any higher and things could have go interesting and any lower we would be scrapping over rocks.

The first few kilometres of river is mostly flat with a few small rapids and wavetrains. This was good to get everyone eye in before the river went into the first gorge and the rapids would get bigger and more numerous. The first rapid we encountered was a nice 3/3+ rapid with a fairly easy entry with two big hole you need to miss at the bottom. Dave and Sarah went first and nailed the line. I went second, feeling a little nervous about the potential beating at the bottom however after a nailed the line my confidence was up for the rest of the paddle. Byden somehow managed to cockup the line but still miss the massive pour over and sneak down a side shoot. Chevone took a swim but other than that everyone made it fine.

After this rapid things got a little more interesting with lots low grade 3 rapids to run. At the end of this section there was a big grade 4 (probably grade3+ at this level) with massive boulder, we scouted from the right hand band and decided to run the left hand line. As the river was very wide at this point we didn’t realise how big the hole was nor see the sneaky rock below it. Everyone made it down fine, although a little surprised by the hole, until James can down went for the left line (which most had missed) and wrapped his croc. It was nicely stuck and took a bit of rope work to get if off.

After this the rapids eased up a bit until a rather nasty one with a big drop leading into a narrow slot with an undercut rock. We gave this one a miss as the water was too long to easily make the chicken run down the right. A storm was coming in fast so we decided to get off the river and set up camp. We feasted on spaghetti and soya mice and went to bed feeling stiff and expecting to get a little wet.

The second day had less in the way of rapids, except for one big one which we portaged as it would be difficult to get crocs down it at this level. From there on the river flattened out other than the odd play wave there wasn’t much in the way of rapids.

At the take out we were greeted by a few locals boys interested in seeing what we where up to. Justin and I walked up to the store and bought some cokes and beer. We all packed up and headed home, well some headed to the coast.

Thanks to everyone who came and a special that’s to Gavin who help us out with drive round.

Nationals #3 - Done and dusted

2006-12-04T11:52:00.000+02:00

Well, I feel like writing something but I keep falling asleep in my chair and my shoulder hurts like shit... lekker tye. Sarcasm has been italicised for ease-of-read.

After a fairly disasterous start to the weekend (car-wise at least) we eventually all got to Inanda Dam campsite at 2am. Good, wait... Baaad. We slept for about 3 minutes and then went to Tops Needle for the Sprint and Slalom. Some knob had interfered with the dam release so what was supposed to be a really easy set up turned into a bit of a mission - Neil and I helped move the gates around in the middle of the flow in our kayaks, damn we're hotshit. We had a terrible first run, matched it with an aggresive 2nd run where half the team exploded out of the boat when we hit a hidden rock at "very fast". Good swim, not rocky at all... Our third "safety" run got us third place (tied), but we drew last for the sprint because we had a DNF for the swimming run. We gave it horns in the sprint, even though Justin managed to swim somewhere in between getting off the bank and getting into the boat... good. After laughing our heads off till half-way down the rapid (when we saw we were heading for the massive "wrapping rock") we ended up taking a pretty good line around it and almost took second. But, we hit a rock, losing second and then hit another one, almost losing third.

The girls came second in sprint and slalom (to the other girls) and also managed to lose a team member - although they picked her up and managed to finish the run...

So that was that - it started raining and we retired to the campsite for some beer and OBS. It carried on raining, and we had some awesome dinner. It rained a bit more. Kevin showed up in ridiculousy spiky slops (and very bright headlights) on his way to the MTB party...

The next day was about 50 degrees in the shade, at 9am. Downriver started at 11 (was supposed to start earlier but the same knob had fiddled the water release for this day too). We won the trash-talking competition, and the race into the first rapid. This time we were a bit too close to the rock, but it all ended well. The steering was a little difficult, partly because there were a million stealth rocks all over the place, and partly because my steering strokes were like those of a big girls blouse because I'd done some extreme-upside-down-kayaking down the sprint rapid a little earlier.

Anyway, the upshot of it all: We (mens and ladies teams) were the second most consistent sides in the series, and both got silver. Good.

Good luck to the SA teams going to Worlds.

November play

2006-11-08T16:21:00.000+02:00

So the Vaal marathon gave us the choice between doing a two day canoe race and playing at Gatsien. It is obivous from the title which was chosen. The second day for the canoe race was supposed to have a dam release of 105cumecs from the barrage.
Daav and I headed down on Saturday in the hope than the water would be up from the rain... it wasn't not even a little bit. I fact it was the lowest I have seen it all year, so we headed to rocky ridge and paddled up to the wave at Paradise. The wave was as good as ever, if by any means it is ever good.

Sunday morning saw significantly more water flowing past the camp, we packed up and headed down to Gatsien. When we got there the level was around 60, around where the wave starts to get nice. It steadily increased in level with the every increasing number of people, at mid day it was about 80cumecs. Chris met us there after taking the long way round to get there.

I have put chris' photos up here

Bivane River Trip

2006-09-19T12:27:00.000+02:00

"Embrace Chaos!".

Getting 100 people down a steepish 10 cumec river sounds like a bad idea, doesn't it? Well, despite it being a little chaotic, and Hugh failing to give the Bivane @ 10cumecs "real river" status, the trip was good times (best times even). The river itself was really cool, with awesome scenery and some nice drops that were high on fun and low on risk (read: perfect for our sometimes limited kayaking/croccing abilities). Speaking for myself I certainly learnt a lot more about kayaking than I have on any other trip, made easier by the fact that there were so many good paddlers with us. I think Neil and James (the other kayakers), would say the same. Megan and Chevonne had a "good" introduction to croccing on a bony river - nothing like being thrown in the deep end... While Bryden, Laura and Justin learnt just what "paddling the lunch down" really means. Have a look at the photo's to see just how much stuff you can fit in a croc.

This annual trip is basically organised by the vryheid canoe club and the local water affairs people. There's a dam release, and everyone goes off in "slots" on Saturday morning. Most of the chaos is caused when groups catch up to each other, with millions of boats all over the place. In just our group, there were 16 kayakers (about half of whom were relatively inexperienced) 4.5 crocs with friends and family of water affairs people (read: inexperienced), 4 crocs paddling "the lunch" down, with Crabs-and-Cheese teaming up in the grey croc. "Beginners Rafting on Steroids" is what Neil called it.

The river was still fairly bony at 10 cumecs, so the crocs got stuck a lot, but we all ran all the drops (although Hugh didn't always like our line) which was pretty cool. The only really unpleasant part of the whole trip was a particularly bony rapid, where it was almost impossible to get a croc down, nevermind a very heavy croc.

Anyway, pictures tell a thousand words - so look at the pictures, and for more information on the river and the trip in general check out the article in the next newsletter and the river information on the wiki.

Thanks to Chevonne for organising the trip, Hugh and Craig from Whitewater Training for letting us paddle the lunch down, Bruce and Kevin from Xtreme Equipment for making everybody laugh... and oh Water Affairs I guess...

Second national rafting event

2006-08-28T18:17:00.000+02:00

The second nationals rafting event was held on the Ash river in the free state. Explorers had two teams, a ladies and mens.
I headed down with the second load of people to meet up with the already-had-some-ob's early bunch.

The first event was slalom, the event we are generally worst at however this time we came good. The slalom course was on the rapid below the grade 5, where Cameron McIntosh has setup gates. The course was really well setup and a really challenging but doable slalom. We got there early to put in a practice run, just as well because the run went to pot. Our first run was fairly solid but we still misted a few gates. On the second run we hit all but one gate and ended up third overall in the event. Team FTRM cleaned up in the event hitting overly gate flawlessly. The girls put in a solid performance to come second.

In sprint a head to head paddle down a rapid we fared a little better and come in second overall. Once again Bruce's FTRM team took us, but not without a bit of a fight. The girls came in second to the strong Mary's angels.

Downriver was held on Sunday, as the name suggests it is a race down the river. At this event it was done by time trial, each team leaving in 15 minute intervals. Once again we came second overall and the ladies second in there class. This event is a test of endurance and ability to run rapids down the fastest line while fatigued.
After the event Gareth and Justin in a croc and Dave and myself in kayaks ran the same downriver stretch, all went more or less to plan. A bridge the croc ran the rapid, they made it.... to the second drop then swam. They just managed to get into the boat before the muncher hole at the bottom, which sucked them back. Gareth fell out the boat and managed to pull it out the feature. Both paddles where in the water, luckily on landed in an eddy and washed up to me, but the other floated down the river with Dave in hot pursuit.

The event was awesome, thanks to Bruce, Hillary and Kate for organising it.

Wow... great place, got a pool?

2006-08-07T22:54:00.000+02:00

So this is it, decent place. lets get 20000 chicks onto this blog...been learning the HTML on that website. pretty neat shit. gonna make a link on the website that links to like some save the penguins site chat room...keep well

Klip Kayak

2006-05-16T11:51:00.000+02:00

Daav and I headed down to the "crogan" river on Saturday, which by all accounts could have been time better spent. The klip water was cold and smelly, although the cold gave it the illussion of being clean. It was awesome to see what the floods early this year has done to the river; new channels, massive tree blocks and debris deposited impossibly high.
Our intended purpose was to play at the infamous (maybe innotfamous) klip wave. It's wasn't all that bad except it was a tad cold, and shallow. However after this years awesome water, a little hole on a cold river is somewhat overrated.
None the less the klip is still cool for beginners kayakers, paddling for a laugh and racing. The playwave is awesome for learning to spin, I'm sure as winter progresses this wave will seem more and more appealing.

Long weekend roadtrip

2006-05-02T09:03:00.000+02:00

There wasn't really a solid plan to start with, however the just of it was to head down to the coast then head up to a the odd river.
This is more or less what happened.

Justin and I headed off to the south coast on Thursday morning. It took us a little longer to get there since two trucks crashed on the N3 causing the highway to be closed. We took the alternate route however it still took us 10hrs to get to the coast. It wasn't entirely in vain, as we saw some cool stuff along the way. Firstly a possibly the stupidest person on the planet on the back of a bukkie, then some random old guys members (just hanging it out toward the oncoming traffic) and lastly the worst area in Howick.
Since the drive took so long we stopped in Howick to check out a the old waterfall.

We finally got to the coast after nightfall, we met up with some of my mates who where more than a little intoxicated. There wasn't much to do other than join them. Many Sick Sick F#^ks where thrown out and every moment was captured on the "ham'sh cam'sh".

The next morning headed down to the sea where Justin horribly misjudged the distance of a tree and challenged me to a race.
The surf was big and once I had decided a good spanking was in order I kitted up in paddled into the rock infested waters. It was good times, I threw down many spins, a kind-of donkey flip and was nicely beaten by a wave. I did however do many unintedo cartwheels before being surfed upside down.

Early Saturday morning we headed up to Highover on Umkomaas the water had dropped and we where in for a bit a bumpy ride. James went over in the first part of #1 and broke the left blade of his paddle. He rolled up and did a nice C1 move into the eddy. We got out the Good olde Dufli paddle and headed down the rest of the river. At lower level it becomes a bit bumpy and technical and many of the bigger rapid look nasty. We got to the take out late and loaded our broken bodies onto the bukkie. It was impossible to make sandwiches on the drive so we broke apart the cheese and cucumber then feasted upon chunks of food.

The next day it was decided that we would sit around and generally do nothing. After doing a bunch of random stuff, like playing cricket with a polystyrene ball and James broken paddle we decided to leave and head up to Bushmans. The rain came down as we started packing, right at the point of no return. We made a stop Spur in Matrizburg for an eat feast.

There was even less water in Bushmans, so we decided to head home early the next day to miss the traffic.

Easter Play

2006-04-18T15:19:00.000+02:00

Rain during the week meant the dam outflow was set to 150 cumecs over the Easter weekend, this with the general flow flow made the Vaal flow just over 200 cumecs. Dave and I headed down on Friday morning and went to Gatsien for a play. The wave at Gatsien was large and bouncy, although were not good enough to make the most of it. It was good times however if you missed the eddy you had to walk back up for the next spanking.

We camped at Rocky-ridge after three failed attempt to find free place to squat. We saw the night in with a soup, braai meat and a bit of whiskey.

The next morning we met a bunch of Explorers in town for a river run. The level had dropped but it was still at a good level to run the river, with none of the rapids being too boney or for that matter big. Dave tried out a wavesport Y and showed everyone how not to do a wavewheel on Big-daddy. The trip was run smoothly, we had lunch at paradise before heading down to Gatsien to play.
Gatsien was a little more kind however still very big and bouncy. James, Dave and I played till we were too tired to walk back up to the eddy.
Awesome trip, killer weather, great water level check out some of the photos Dave took here in the gallery.

Beginners Rafting II

2006-04-10T17:16:00.000+02:00

So there we were - on the side of the road... again. After trying to spot the clutch through a million layers of Audi plastic (in the pouring rain) we pressed on with Gareth doing some sterling clutchless changes. This all happened at the end of trip (for a change) which actually went pretty well... apart from being a little on the cold-and-chilly side. A very successful beginners trip from the point of view that the beginners got a chance to captain crocs, flip and even swim a little. Also, Eleanor II (now she has a tan) had a fantastic christening trip...

Bushmans river

2006-03-27T11:27:00.000+02:00

After much organising for Olifants river Dave and I quickly organised a trip to Bushmans due to too much water on the Olifants. The plan was to do a two day stretch with an overnight stop somewhere after estcourt. However this plan went to pot when a slight hum in my engine turned into a blood curdling grind, just outside Warden. We where towed into Warden where I was informed that my gearbox had infact beaten the bullet. The car was fixed at the local garage/scrap yard/petting zoo/fanta bottle repository by a rather suspect looking character. Justin's heart was stolen by a local girl on a four wheeler.
We headed down to Estcourt and stayed a Bruce's (from Xtreme equipment) place. We had a few beers and played French poker, I lost and had to wash the pot.
On Sunday we headed down to the putin and sorted out drive round thanks to Bruce. A low level meant the river was a little boney, Dave can vouch for this after he broke and lost his paddle on a slightly submerged rock. It was a long paddle to the takeout on Weenen road with lots of interesting navigation due to the exposed boulder gardens.

Despite the mishaps it was a killer trip, thanks to everyone who came along. This trip was a classic case of if you want to do it sometimes you just have to make it happen.

Parys town hole

2006-03-14T07:24:00.000+02:00

The Vaal was at about 320cumecs, a sweet level for the town hole. Dave and I headed down at sparrows doing the normal stop Bacon and egg and coffee at wimpy. Unfortunately the tree on river right was still in play, hence removing the right side of the hole from play, unless you fancied an express trip through a willow.
None the less the main wave was steep and fast, a little bit flushy but correct positioning meant you could spin to your hearts content. The wave also had decent blunt potential. I threw down a few kind-of-blunts.

After lunch we marvelled at the SWR course unfolding infront of us, well it was interesting. We saw Piers from ESSA giving a kayak lesson.
Good times all round and now I'm stiff.

Check out the video I made Here

National Rafting Series #1

2006-03-06T15:27:00.000+02:00

A really fun event, even though there were only 5 teams (or maybe because there were only 5 teams...). Explorers had a men's team (the only team there with 6 men) and a ladies team participating on a fairly full Bushmans river. The rapids were nothing difficult, adding to the chilled nature of the event, but still fun. Slalom and sprint were held on the first (very cold and windy) day, with a 20 min downriver on the Sunday - all in all a good time... Gwen graciously put us up for the weekend in Ladysmith, which saved us from being cold and wet at the campsite - thanks Gwen.

Beginners rafting

2006-03-06T09:09:00.000+02:00

The 2006 beginners rafting was held on the Orange river, doing the section between hopetown and Slypstein. 25 people, 2rafts, 3 crocs, 3kayaks, a host of gear and people's personal kit was loaded into 6 cars headed for hopetown. This year a lower putin was used to cut out much of the flat water on the first day. This was fortune as little sleep was had the night before due to a massive rain storm that hit the normal overnight spot. Everyone scramble for cars and toilets, while Daav, Justin (Um-palanga) and myself sat it out in our assortment of rain gear. I see few read my warning about checking the weather report before leaving.

The paddle was pleasent with no spills on the first noteable rapid "Hubbly-bubbly". We chose to get off the river early and get some much needed shut eye, food and OBS. Mark headed off up the mountain with a harem of girls for sundowners, various couples headed off to bush while a shelter was constructed and supper was prepared (I suppose the couples would have had each other if it rained). Nick however did a super job covering the most important aspect of a river meal, lots!
Sunday morning saw the running of "Hells-gate", which all went to plan.

The rest of the paddle section comprised of smallish wave trains and a few flats. We came across a "Lobatse Hinged Tortoise" swimming across the river, on one of the longer flat sections.
The drive home was marred by a rather interesting sections of road, which resembled a road in Mozambique after a flood, where "crabs" punctured and a tire-swap procedure was needed.
At the end a great well organised (thanks Al) trip was had by all.

New Blog

2006-02-22T14:40:00.000+02:00

Hey all, I have started this blog. Hope to replace the news page on the site

Beginners hike

2006-02-14T08:03:00.000+02:00

So beginners hike headed of early in the morning of 11th Feb after spending a rather raucous night in the pub. We expcected a very wet weekend, so had many a plastic bag, poncho, drimac, anything waterproof
to keep our kit dry. Destination: Hebron near Carolina. The hike was supposed to be 8km on Sat and 9km on Sunday but due to unforseen circumstances, like getting lost, we decided that a 11km hike on Sat and a 6km hike on the Sunday would be far better, the extra 3km on the Sat being totally unplanned. We started hiking at 11 on Sat as the rain stopped (I wore my poncho for nothing). We reached the overnight huts at 4 after many a bundu-bashing and circle walking. Only one major incident happened, Ryan slipped on some rock and drenched his shoes and broken two ribs (though we didn't know this until after we got home). And the getting lost part, but that was all part of the experience. The major non incident of the trip was the complete lack of rain. Not a drop. A definite highlight was swimming above the 30m high Kolkrans water fall on a Sappi farm after the hike. I hope that everyone had a great time on the trip.

- Brigitta Annegarn

Town Hole

2006-02-13T08:00:00.000+02:00

Nothing like a whole bunch of water to bring out that little-kid grin in sleep-deprived kayakers... which is what we were afterleaving Jo'burg at the crack of dawn to go and investigate the Parys "town hole" at 500 cumecs... The wave was basicallychannel-wide, a little on the diagonal side - which meant it was a lot like grinding along a steep hand-rail - but good times nonetheless... (Turns out that the best level for playing is 400 or 1300... in between is not great). There was a sweet glassy bit of wave on river left, conveniently placed just above a bit of a strainer, but where you could sit in a front-surf for as long as you liked.

We spent pretty much the whole day either on the wave or on the bank, with plenty of local onlookers (some with their own chairs) and also some local paddlers every now and then (this made it a little difficult to find a good pee-spot). We took a lunchbreak (at about lunch time) just in time to watch a few large trees and other random debris float through the hole - luckily no one gotpole-axed... After a long day playing, we took a short drive up to check out a rather interesting looking rapid just upstream of the wave... the entry looked a little tricky and the best line we could pick was "aerial loop over the river-wide strainer/bridge, down the main tongue on the right to miss a willow tree strainer the size of tennis court, and then quick jink left to miss the gigantic raft-flipping hole". Good Times.

Good Things:
- Boofing through the very boily eddy line to get to the wave was awesome practice
- Grinding along a diagonal wave is actually quite fun - it forces you to "use it or lose it"
- Front-surfing-as-long-as-you-like
- Right-spin-into-stern-end is a great way to learn to cartwheel
- One-hand-on-the-paddle roll-in-the-hole into front-surf and casual replacement of paddle isn't as hard as it looks...
- Little-kid-on-christmas syndrome
- Ham Rolls
- playing with our makeshift foamy - knobhead - when we were too tired to paddle any more
- being too tired to paddle any more

Bad Things:
- few good pee-spots

Good Things 9, Bad Things 1.

-Daav

Mkomazi River 3-5 February

2006-02-07T07:57:00.000+02:00

What a great weekend! The river turned out to be at a perfect level for us (1.7m) and despite some almost serious car-trouble (we only had 3rd and 4th between Tugela Toll Plaza and PMB) which resulted in a running pull-off followed by A-Team dive into the car at the Mooi Toll Plaza and an excellent "landing" (if I do say so myself) at the Shell in Hilton). Here we met Bry-Bry who had organised an excellent overnight bivvy with some snakes and a nice lady named Sue. The landing here was slightly more troublesome with low visibility, a strong cross-wind and a difficult final approach which required a dramatic side-slip maneuver... In the morning Bri-Bri's little 1300 towed our rather laden car back up the massive hill to the highway, and we landed safely (still in 3rd) outside Baby and Company on Victoria Road in Petermaritzburg. Bry-Bry and Snoo set off on a mission to find the missing link while Neil and I tried our best to make the problem more complicated than it was... Bryan-Snoo soon returned with the missing link(s), followed shortly by ace car-mechanic/bob-the-builder Mike Price, who promptly (well prompter than any of us could have done it anyway...) replaced our broken (plastic) gear linkage. With all 5 gears (and reverse too) back to working order, we set off at a furious pace to Richmond and Hella Hella to have a look at what we suspected was going to be a bit-too-high-river... Turned out it was just on the high side of perfect and dropping - not not good times. We managed to get on the river by 12 or so and ran 1 to 8 in about 5 hours (3 kayaks and 2 crocs) with minimal drama... Excellent stretch of river. Everyone did pretty well and the crocs flipped/swam once each (apart from the obligatory swim at Number 1). We ran the "commercial" stretch on Sunday - which had a pretty sweet wave (not great eddy service though) and some nice (relatively) easy rapids (except for the last one) to finish off a pretty awesome weekend...

- Daav

Gatsien 100 cumecs

2006-02-02T07:56:00.000+02:00

Daav and I headed down to what turned out to be a massive Gatsien play wave. Sure it looked a bit meaty, but we went for it anyway. After the first ride we both realized that this was not the same Gatsien wave we have become accustomed to, the face was wide enough to park a car in and we both started to bounce. I soon found out that the pour over below the wave was a wee bit sticky, as I turned my getting too long to hold anymore side surf into getting worked upside down/ pulling unintendo ends. Once we go used to the wave and the tiresome ferry to get back in, we opened our small bag of tricks.

-Nortis

O week kicks off

2006-02-01T07:55:00.000+02:00

Wits awoke again yesterday with the start of o-week, the library lawns where transformed into a hub of activity with that addition of a marque and a beer garden. All the clubs and societys where there signing students up, if you haven't made the trip to the lawns I suggest to do so, only two days left. The atmosphere was festive, however the level of control imposed on the students, clubs and societys bothered me somewhat.

- Nortis

Vaal Run @+-300 cumecs

2006-01-13T07:54:00.000+02:00

Abundant rain turned the normally placid Vaal into a big volume river. Dave, James, Laura, BD, Heather, Dash, Alun, Bryden and myself headed of, a little skeptical about the level, to go paddle. When we arrived it was round 300 and dropped somewhat through the day. After looking a Theater and Gatsien at the take out it was decided to run from the normal putin to Theater. Big-daddy lived up to it's reputation with massive waves forming providing the "Kid at Christmas" syndrome. The rest of the river was largely washed out, with a few nice wave trains and sneaky holes to provided extra excitement. After the run, we headed of to the town play wave where Dave, James and myself worked on our rodeo skills in this awesome wave. Paddlers all around had gathered and we where treated to some awesome paddling by some of the countries best.
All round a great trip,
P.S don't complain about the rain!

- Nortis

Vaal Run

2005-12-30T07:53:00.000+02:00

The Vaal was up and quite frankly I didn't had anything better to do, well most other people has something better to do, as a large amount of teeth pulling was involved to get people to come. In the end Laura, Richard , Richard's bint (hmmm going to take slack for that) and myself drove of to the 50cumec flow of the Vaal. Astute readers would figure out that four people equals one car, which equals no drive round. I chose the Run/Hitch option, with the hope that there would be many cars to pick me up, which there weren't. Eventually I was picked up after a little jog and we were off down the river. At 50, running the Vaal is a rather pleasant experience, with far fewer rocks crocs can make it down unhindered. Richard had a swim at Big-daddy, and a almost-rap-into-flip later on, good times. When running down Theater a sneaky rock jumped up and broached me, after a painful dislodgement and hand slog roll we arrived at Gatsien it relatively one piece. The hole was sweet , and I had one of my best plays every, Snoo threw down her bag of tricks including a nice crogan-so-hard-you-get-water-in-your-nose-through-your-eyes.

- Nortis

Onseepkans Gorge - Orange River - 2-9 December

2005-12-11T07:45:00.000+02:00

So.... back from the Orange and already the post-trip depression has set in.
A pile of email and an even bigger, scarier pile of work-that-should-be-done stares you in the face. How much would I rather be on the Orange? A whole bunch. Anyway, nothing for it but to contemplate the next trip, and reminisce about the last one... What an awesome trip! Personally my longest river trip ever (consecutive days on the same stretch at least, but let's not get technical) - which I think had a lot to do with it, and also an awesome group of people - which I think had even more to do with it. Enduring memories are of absolutely breathtaking (sometimes literally) scenery, laughing a lot (mainly at Chris, but sometimes at Nick's Kukoi/sarong/skirt/anus), 38 degree heat, lunchtime naps, fish eagles, 20:30 Sunsets, OBS, early mornings, tarpalising, untarpalising, Richie Falls, building a raft-yacht and the occasional gale-force headwind... not not good times (Nick Tye/Nortis, 2005). Water level could have been higher, but a low level meant a more relaxed trip which was also pretty cool. Sorting out a proper river-file folder for the Onseepkans stretch sometime (probably next year) but in brief, for those of you who couldn't make it:

Take-in: Onseepkans Border Post
Put-Out: Klein-Pella (largest Date Palm plantation in the S. Hemisphere)
Distance: 60km... about 4 full river days at 50 cumecs
Rapids: A couple, most were not quite so big with the low level. Watch out for Richie Falls (~15km) which should be portaged on the right bank. Little Falls, just above Richie Falls, was very bony and consisited of a semi-drag into a pool and a small drop on the extreme right.We lowered most of our kit into the gorge below Richie Falls from some fixed anchor points, and found most of the Gorge rapids to "not-be". "Big Bunny" required a scout, but has an easy line down the left - lots of heavily-loaded croc-wrapping-potential though. "Dolly Parton" had a sneaky siphon on the left, fairly easily avoided though. Couple of I/II's followed on the last days - mostly a lot of flat, channely stuff. Hats were awesome for the flat stretches.
General: Heat could have been quite an issue, we were careful though - lots of suncream and 2-3 hour breaks in the shade at lunch time. Hats were awesome for the flat stretches. Crocs were the ideal boat - rafts would not have got through some of the channels, especially near onseepkans and also would probably not have got through Dolly Parton.

- Daav

Formal Dinner - Swaziland 26 - 28 November

2005-11-29T07:44:00.000+02:00

Formal dinner this year went to Shewula Mountain Camp in the north eastern corner of Swaziland. We left at 5am on Sat 26th November full to the brim with everything to make our two nights there super comfy and luxurious.
The actual formal dinner was delicious (thanks to Lisa and Mark Shaerer) but of course the weather had to play a part and it blew the entire time we ate. Floor length dresses were quickly abandoned for tracksuit tops and pants and the candles were mere decoration. But it was a fantastic dinner nevertheless (with many a toast given to 'the Animal') as only an Explorer's Formal dinner can be. The traditional game of cricket was played on the local community's soccer field. Lots of alcohol was consumed and many a 'bat bat bat' and 'viking' and 'bunny bunny bunny' was played.
Here's to next year's Formal dinner being just as awesome!

- Brigitta Annegarn

Team Dufli goes for a play

2005-11-26T07:41:00.000+02:00

Wendy Eleanor and Stacey had a play with James, Daav and myself repectivly, at Gatsien. The bottom hole was working nicely and gave us all time to work on our spins, some clean, and ends. I am happy to report that our crogan (window shade) to trick ratio is improving. At the end of the day James and I concluded that we may just be crappy kayakers (opposed to not quite crappy yet)
Daav played so much he could hardly stay awake on the drive home, he looked like a kid with a new toy.

Eleanor's first day at playschool

2005-11-23T07:39:00.000+02:00

So Bryden Soekie and I went to the Vaal; with Eleanor a croc and a stubby with a leaky splashdeck. Soekie was a little intimidated by the run in to the hole, which resulted in a complicated run/paddle around. The hole was awesome, I did a loop (well according to bryden i did a loop) and a couple of phonics-tortis's. Bryden had one swim but a lot more succesful rolls (roll to swim ratio was pretty good...) We forgot the camera, so only some crogan photo's from the camera-phone.

-The Daav

Eleanor Arrives

2005-11-18T07:33:00.000+02:00

Dave Rice or as we affectionately know him ou-Daav or Dawie, purchased himself a brand spanking new Large Fluid Flirt in yellow. He bought the boat from ex-explorers member Hugh du Preez owner of Whitewatertraining in Parys. After which Dave, Bryden and James went for a paddle at Gatsien which was the lowest it has been for a while now, flowing 10 cumecs.