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.
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