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.
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