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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

Vaal Run

The Vaal was up and quite frankly I didn't had anything better to do, well most other people has something better to do, as a large amount of teeth pulling was involved to get people to come. In the end Laura, Richard , Richard's bint (hmmm going to take slack for that) and myself drove of to the 50cumec flow of the Vaal. Astute readers would figure out that four people equals one car, which equals no drive round. I chose the Run/Hitch option, with the hope that there would be many cars to pick me up, which there weren't. Eventually I was picked up after a little jog and we were off down the river. At 50, running the Vaal is a rather pleasant experience, with far fewer rocks crocs can make it down unhindered. Richard had a swim at Big-daddy, and a almost-rap-into-flip later on, good times. When running down Theater a sneaky rock jumped up and broached me, after a painful dislodgement and hand slog roll we arrived at Gatsien it relatively one piece. The hole was sweet , and I had one of my best plays every, Snoo threw down her bag of tricks including a nice crogan-so-hard-you-get-water-in-your-nose-through-your-eyes.

- Nortis

Onseepkans Gorge - Orange River - 2-9 December

So.... back from the Orange and already the post-trip depression has set in.
A pile of email and an even bigger, scarier pile of work-that-should-be-done stares you in the face. How much would I rather be on the Orange? A whole bunch. Anyway, nothing for it but to contemplate the next trip, and reminisce about the last one... What an awesome trip! Personally my longest river trip ever (consecutive days on the same stretch at least, but let's not get technical) - which I think had a lot to do with it, and also an awesome group of people - which I think had even more to do with it. Enduring memories are of absolutely breathtaking (sometimes literally) scenery, laughing a lot (mainly at Chris, but sometimes at Nick's Kukoi/sarong/skirt/anus), 38 degree heat, lunchtime naps, fish eagles, 20:30 Sunsets, OBS, early mornings, tarpalising, untarpalising, Richie Falls, building a raft-yacht and the occasional gale-force headwind... not not good times (Nick Tye/Nortis, 2005). Water level could have been higher, but a low level meant a more relaxed trip which was also pretty cool. Sorting out a proper river-file folder for the Onseepkans stretch sometime (probably next year) but in brief, for those of you who couldn't make it:

Take-in: Onseepkans Border Post
Put-Out: Klein-Pella (largest Date Palm plantation in the S. Hemisphere)
Distance: 60km... about 4 full river days at 50 cumecs
Rapids: A couple, most were not quite so big with the low level. Watch out for Richie Falls (~15km) which should be portaged on the right bank. Little Falls, just above Richie Falls, was very bony and consisited of a semi-drag into a pool and a small drop on the extreme right.We lowered most of our kit into the gorge below Richie Falls from some fixed anchor points, and found most of the Gorge rapids to "not-be". "Big Bunny" required a scout, but has an easy line down the left - lots of heavily-loaded croc-wrapping-potential though. "Dolly Parton" had a sneaky siphon on the left, fairly easily avoided though. Couple of I/II's followed on the last days - mostly a lot of flat, channely stuff. Hats were awesome for the flat stretches.
General: Heat could have been quite an issue, we were careful though - lots of suncream and 2-3 hour breaks in the shade at lunch time. Hats were awesome for the flat stretches. Crocs were the ideal boat - rafts would not have got through some of the channels, especially near onseepkans and also would probably not have got through Dolly Parton.

- Daav

Formal Dinner - Swaziland 26 - 28 November

Formal dinner this year went to Shewula Mountain Camp in the north eastern corner of Swaziland. We left at 5am on Sat 26th November full to the brim with everything to make our two nights there super comfy and luxurious.
The actual formal dinner was delicious (thanks to Lisa and Mark Shaerer) but of course the weather had to play a part and it blew the entire time we ate. Floor length dresses were quickly abandoned for tracksuit tops and pants and the candles were mere decoration. But it was a fantastic dinner nevertheless (with many a toast given to 'the Animal') as only an Explorer's Formal dinner can be. The traditional game of cricket was played on the local community's soccer field. Lots of alcohol was consumed and many a 'bat bat bat' and 'viking' and 'bunny bunny bunny' was played.
Here's to next year's Formal dinner being just as awesome!

- Brigitta Annegarn

Team Dufli goes for a play

Wendy Eleanor and Stacey had a play with James, Daav and myself repectivly, at Gatsien. The bottom hole was working nicely and gave us all time to work on our spins, some clean, and ends. I am happy to report that our crogan (window shade) to trick ratio is improving. At the end of the day James and I concluded that we may just be crappy kayakers (opposed to not quite crappy yet)
Daav played so much he could hardly stay awake on the drive home, he looked like a kid with a new toy.

Eleanor's first day at playschool

So Bryden Soekie and I went to the Vaal; with Eleanor a croc and a stubby with a leaky splashdeck. Soekie was a little intimidated by the run in to the hole, which resulted in a complicated run/paddle around. The hole was awesome, I did a loop (well according to bryden i did a loop) and a couple of phonics-tortis's. Bryden had one swim but a lot more succesful rolls (roll to swim ratio was pretty good...) We forgot the camera, so only some crogan photo's from the camera-phone.

-The Daav

Eleanor Arrives

Dave Rice or as we affectionately know him ou-Daav or Dawie, purchased himself a brand spanking new Large Fluid Flirt in yellow. He bought the boat from ex-explorers member Hugh du Preez owner of Whitewatertraining in Parys. After which Dave, Bryden and James went for a paddle at Gatsien which was the lowest it has been for a while now, flowing 10 cumecs.