Umkomaas - Impendle section

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

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

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

"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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beginners hike

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

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

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

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

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

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