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
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