Montrose Falls

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

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.