Trying to make London my new home

Posted by Eric T on

If you’d stumbled upon that title out of the blue you’ll be forgiven for thinking that I had abandoned die vaderland and stowed away on a ship bound for the distant shores of Europe with no looking back. As tempting as the thought of earning a living in the land of the 14-to-1-Pound is, deciding to venture there in mid February, just as a fresh new layer of frost is starting to settle on the old half-thawed slush, proved a good jolt back to reality. The grass isn’t always greener. In fact, sometimes its covered in a layer of white…

The first of the snowflakes on our evening run into Wimbledon

The first of the snowflakes on our evening run into Wimbledon

not quite frozen

At this point it would be a fair question to ask who in their right mind goes to London in mid Feb when all the tourists are flocking to sunny Cape Town. Even the geese have it right – fly south for the summer. How could I possibly get it so wrong.

My long suffering parents will gladly bear testimony to the fact that I seldom accept responsibility for my actions and this time is no different – I have my brother Kit’s dismally-timed birthday to thank for this one, and this year his 40th proved the occasion to get together and catch up again. The entire escapade was conjured up by his loving wife Judie who thought it would be the perfect birthday present to keep the family hunkered down shivering uncontrollably in the UK while blowing the entire family-holiday-in-the-Seychelles-fund on getting the sun-overdosed-kid out from Cape Town for a two week stay. Makes perfect sense if you ask me.

The sentiment was wonderful and the closest Kit got to sniffing those tropical white beaches was peeking over Judie’s shoulder one day and seeing her on the British Airways website. Booking the family holiday, of course. Next thing it was a Saturday morning and the doorbell rang with “a parcel he had to sign for” and yours truly, hereafter known as “the frozen child” thanks to completely underestimating the weather and arriving in sub-zero London in jeans and a t-shirt after leaving under a blazing African sun, jumped out the bushes to greet him. From the look on his face the joy did last at least 2 seconds before the reality of the Mediterranean cruise, or the lack thereof in the foreseeable future, started sinking in but I like to take comfort that in those fleeting moments, he was happy, I was cold, and we were reconnected like it was yesterday. Thankfully compassion took over and I was invited inside without further delay.

The next two weeks proved an interesting experience of soaking up as much of London culture as possible, “soaking” being the operative word. To be fair to the Mud-Islanders, I do recall a few hours in the time I was there when the sun did actually come out and with it most of London, to stare at the unusual phenomenon in the sky, then to desperately try to lap it up before the grey clouds loomed back in. The rest of the time it was either raining, sleeting, snowing, or just plain bloody freezing, somewhere between 1C and -7. And a visit to the Ice Bar on the first night in London was as good as being thrown straight into the deep end. After cutting a hole in the ice of course. Insult to injury, salt in the wound, an African boy in a fridge in London… all one and the same really.

P1000368

London is a truly fascinating place but if there’s one thing I truly try to avoid wherever I go its looking like a tourist. Its obvious that this approach clearly didn’t get off to a good start with the poorly planned dress code on arrival at Heathrow but I wisened up quickly and started immersing myself in every layer I could find. But even the most hardened African can only take so much before succumbing to the surroundings, and, excruciatingly, I had to go and invest in more layers. (My 14 to 1 Rand-to-Pound comment earlier refers).  The moment of glory came towards the end of my stay when I had perfected that Londoner look so well (essentially dressing in the darkest, most depressing outfit you have available, i.e. black) that a tourist come up to me asking for directions. I knew then I had done well and outperformed all expectations.

I experienced all the sights and sounds of London from sun up to sun down, from catching the crowded trains in to the city centre with Kit during his work week, and ambling the high streets and back alleys, acting like James Bond outside the MI6 building, moseying into galleries and coming face to face with walls lined with Van Goghs and Monets and Cezannes that left the frozen child staring in absolute wonder. It really was like being a kid again. Outside the sleet and snow continued to drift down lazily, providing a beautiful floating white respite from the otherwise cold greyness that is London’s infamous legacy. It never settled into anything worthy of building snowmen but somewhere on a run across Wimbledon common we did get sidetracked from Womble hunting for a brief snowball fight.

But the real excitement of the trip came by two wheels. My trusty bike travelled the daunting long houred flights and proved a good travel companion, being dragged over hill and down dale, through the British country side and quiet country village lanes, through London rush hour traffic at 5pm, through those fleeting moments of sun, and mostly through snow. The two highlights of the trip were heading east to the coastal village of Whitstable where we traced the trails around Canterbury, Sandwich (where ironically we where starving come late afternoon and couldn’t find the beloved things and had to settle for stale rolls instead) , Margate, Ramsgate and back along the coast path well after nightfall… off the radar with no means of communication, and poor Judie wondering how wise it had in fact been to get the African child from across the oceans to come and live it up with her husband for 2 weeks.

London 02 - 27

evening riding along the coast back to Whitstable

Finally back in one piece!

Finally back in one piece!

And the last ride of the trip – from London to Brighton with the ambitious plans to ride back the next day. There is no short way of telling this story, suffice to say Kit was at work that day and would catch the train down that night to meet up in Brighton. In our brilliant planning, he had all our puncture repair kit on his bike back in London at pretty much the same time as I was pushing my bike for 10kms through the snow, with a puncture. A long day out and few lessons learned along the way but I do believe I have since ridden many hundred kms through the Karoo on that same tyre, still held together with the super-glue picked up in a little Pakistan general dealer shop north of Gatwick, this along with a huge thanks to Phil in Merston who is in the beginning stages of setting up a community bike repair project and who opened his doors to help a complete stranger in need of some basic bike repair tools. And needless to say the pizzas in Brighton that night will go down as one of the undisputed highlights of the trip!

London 03 - 15

How happy to finally see this sign, my first sighting of anything Brighton

How happy to finally see this sign, my first sighting of anything Brighton

pizza in Brighton

pizza in Brighton

London 03 - 23

I’ll be the first to admit I was dreading the farewells at the airport the following day, and managed to only just scrape through the formalities without it falling apart, but I couldn’t help but smiling when I read this a short while after returning…

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes…for those who love with their heart and soul there is no separation.”

And if you’re curious, the title comes from this song, really sick tune that had my feet tapping on many occasions while walking alongside the Thames

happy days!

happy days!

Nog ‘n een

Posted by Eric T on

an ominous sign for a paddling trip…

Luck favours the prepared. Or rather, in my case, a spirit that cant resist an excuse to drop tools and leave town for a few days on another adventure.

If my memory serves correct the invite to join the trip actually came months ago so the ‘prepared’ part really had no excuses. My immediate reply at the time – it’s a no brainer, a river to paddle? Count me in.

A few days before departure date and I suddenly remembered I had committed and the usual frenetic trolley dash for biltong and duct tape followed. And with the standard issue graceful family farewell in the chilled, rain soaked pre-dawn darkness  that reeked of an adventure in the waiting, we were on the road north again. This time it was a bit different, our destination – the Doring river. Lying on the edge of the Tankwa Karoo valley, one would hardly expect the driest place in South Africa, officially, to provide anything more than a trickle to paddle. I’ve heard we get more rain in one winter’s morning in Cape Town than this desert valley gets in a whole year. But apparently there is a river out there somewhere and we were going to find it.

how it looked

and how it should have looked…

beyond the boerewors curtain?

Out there exist’s a beauty beyond belief in a barren world of its own, and just a bit more extreme than its bigger brother over the escarpment. The Cedarberg on the left of the valley is the end of the Cape rains coming in during winter, and the Roggeveld escarpment on the right is the border to the great karoo, and there is certainly no rocket science needed to know there’s not much rain coming from there either. So in-between you have this absolutely peculiar, lunar like landscape that just somehow exists in its own eddy of life passing by on each side. The thought of anything surviving out here beats me, and if it wasn’t for the Tankwa Padstal, strategically placed on the roadside, I fear we may not have made it through either.

The drive in on the infamous dirt road 355 between Ceres and Calvinia didn’t give much away to be optimistic about either – dry, stark, barren, it’s the karoo way. The manne with their vier-by-vier’s were out in force, loaded to the brim with everything that opens and closes and folds and unfolds and clicks open and clicks shut, but I can say without doubt that we were the only ones out there with boats and paddles that morning. No one goes paddling in the Tankwa. You only go there to get roasted. To stand with a Klippies and Coke in one hand and to rub your naked bulging belly with the other. Fact. Or perhaps fashion, a karoo equivalent of being seen on Clifton beach in your speedo?

Our reason for being in this foreign world of alien creatures in an alien landscape? We had set out to tackle a lesser known stretch of the river – from near the confluence of the Matjies and the Groot river, paddling downstream on the Doring for three days. With the gate to our planned put in padlocked closed we were forced to set off a few kms upstream where we could get down close enough to the river. Boats pumped and drybags lashed down we set off in good spirits. It didn’t take long for the ‘River’ part of the deal to disappear and for the Doring to emerge, in full force, and the next few hours became an interesting tussle of forcing our way downstream through what seemed like endless channels and treeblocks. All filled with dorings of course. And if there is any doubt as to what this beautifully descriptive Afrikaans word means, the skin, or rather what’s left of it, on my arms and legs will gladly bear testimony to the endless onslaught, along with the worlds biggest snotklap received from one thick, thorn filled branch that wasn’t going to give way in a hurry. I will remember that one for a while and I have fond memories of that section – of gliding alongside the foliage and being raked to pieces and wondering, seriously, how I had not learnt my lesson yet. Once again – Mother nature 1. Ignoramus 0.

Eventually the massacre eased and we glided down open water to find a magnificent campsite at the beginning of the canyon. On the edge of a small rapid we ate ourselves full around a roaring campfire and were rocked to sleep to the tune of water cascading down seawards in this unbelievably stark and hostile world.

The horizon growing gradually lighter signalled the end of an interesting night’s sleep in an upturned boat – a new one to tick off the bucket list that I can’t quite recall being there in the first place. A brisk walk up the mountain to get a beautiful perspective on the lie of the river meandering through the mountains, and then we were off again. Many hours of rapids, swift faster flowing water, and stunning scenery of cliff faces dangling their precariously balanced rock formations over the water as we ventured deeper into the canyon. It was a magnificent day, soaking up the upper Doring in its glory while fine-tuning my croc-paddling skills – most of my paddling life has been spent balancing in racing canoes and kayaks so these took some serious getting used to. Its like sitting on a balloon floating down a river, they are horrendously useless on flat water, and even more so into a headwind, but brilliant fun through rapids once you’ve figured out how to steer them and after you have realised that you can actually spin them on the spot like a ballerina on a moving stage. By late afternoon we were all a bit weary and were happy to scout for campsites along the bank. Through a final series of bony overgrown channels and we stumbled upon a beach in the wilderness – the perfect setting for a magic night under the stars in the canyon, tucked in by the steep craggy mountain faces on both banks. The soft sand was blissful underfoot and I started feeling completely at home out there.

Day 3 provided a few fun moments in amongst the wild barren scenery. Spotting leopard spoor on our morning coffee stop and knowing we’d shared this little piece of paradise with such an incredible creature though I will confess to being less enthusiastic about trying to guess how fresh the spoor was. Watching a troop of baboons swim across in front of us to safety on the bank, and judging by the chorus of barking that followed they weren’t impressed with us being in their territory. As any self respecting bunch of campers would do we naturally barked back, louder, and so the arguing match continued until we had drifted past and out of earshot so I’m guessing they had the final say and I’m guessing it wasn’t polite either. The hour long haul across the dam eventually followed to finish off another great paddling trip, filled with loads of good memories, from starry campsites and roaring fires to hourly coffee stops and river cappuccinos, to feasts of sweet potatoes marinated in mushrooms peppers and onions, and to not so feasts of soya mince and spaghetti, and to sharing another magic experience in the fine company of Athol, Clare, and Ant and enjoying many funny stories and laughs while drifting down the river along the way.

I think I can openly confess that I could just be getting hooked on wilderness river trips.

snowmen and trails

Posted by Eric T on

It was early afternoon in August last year. I was back down at the car beaming a broad smile after one of the most spectacular trail run. I had just been introduced to a new area and a new range of absolutely breathtaking mountains and scenery.

We had run the Jonkershoek valley outside Stellenbosch, and ascended up onto the high peaks and into beautiful white snow that was our playground for the morning. I came back with the most vivid images in my mind, made even more crystal clear by the incredible photographs taken by Owen, a professional photographer and mountain goat of note who has been running these mountains for years.

Ironically there is also a quiet and unspoken sense of sadness that comes with doing something like that. A kind of melancholic acceptance that those kinds of experiences are seldom repeated. Everything happens at the right time, in the right place, and for the right reason, and you have to take the best of those moments and leave them as memories, for trying to recreate them will only result in disappointment. I’ve been blessed with many incredible moments and memories over the years, and it is something I am acutely aware of, each experience is there to be savoured and enjoyed with arms wide open. And then left behind.

I knew that I could never hope to have the same experience as that day, the weather gods were clearly on our side, dishing up an absolutely perfect combination, a  mountain of fresh soft snow, bright warm sunshine, and no wind. I know that rare moments like those are very few and far between and you have to be in the right place to catch them at the right time. Even lucky.

A year later and I got lucky. It’s been a year of waiting patiently, scouring weather websites for the area, learning the patterns, and trying to understand how and when the snow comes. In-between we’ve made a good few many trips out that way again, in all kinds of weather, from crystal clear scorchers to rain to pea-soup mist to sleet to icy winds and falling snow, trying to get an understanding on the routes, of the peaks, the deep gorges, and the valleys that connect Stellenbosch to Franschoek to Grabouw to Somerset West. There is still much learning to do, but at last I’m beginning to feel like I have another playground to romp in, to fall on my back and gaze upwards at the dark rocky crags between the cliffs and smile and feel at home.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, leaving home long before it got light to be at the gate as it opened. With no expectations and no assumptions trying to remember the beauty of last year, it was another new experience, and great to be able to introduce running & adventure racing teammate (if I can call him that after being conned by him into the most insane race around!), Rob, to the area.

By mid-morning we were on top in the snow, the cold front forecast to hit Cape Town a day later was making itself known and an icy north-west wind whipping off the top ensured we were dressed in every possible layer up there to try and keep warm. We had the top of the mountain to ourselves for at least 2 hours until a few groups of hikers started emerging over the ridge. Enough time to make the highest cappuccinos around with melted snow (they somehow do taste better that way!) take in the surrounding views that stretch endlessly in every possible direction, and even to build a snowman before leaving the solitude behind and heading down the jarring descent back to the bottom of the valley.

frothy cappuccinos in the making

our trail running companion, Witbooi

knocking on heavens door – Orange River ’06 to ’12

Posted by Eric T on

We all have a place we can go to hide. To run away. To find ones soul. To be lost, even if just for a while.

For some it is in the mountains, the slow lingering beauty of the landscape beneath in reaching the summit, or in those brief few moments of absolute focus found while precariously hanging off a vertical cliff face as fingers crawl over the rocks searching for a hold. For a musician it is in the union of notes tickled out on the ivories of a piano or the emotions wept through the melancholy words of a sax. For the athlete it is the feeling of absolute harmony when the body and mind flow as one, legs outstretched in a simple, fluid motion of stride, and return, and the mind is left free to wander. For the artist it is in the focus on the creation in front of him, the canvas drawing him in one brushstroke at a time, or the sculpture around which his hands are wrapped in a constant interaction.

And for some it lies in the faraway places we dream about returning to, over and over. A place on this earth so special that we fall asleep at night thinking about it, returning by day to let our thoughts wander and take us back.

For myself I feel I have been more than richly blessed in finding this place. For me it is the mountain summit, the rock face, the music strummed out, the harmony of running, and the creation of an artwork all rolled into one beautiful place on this planet earth that I know I can return to over and over. To find my soul. To find that peace. And that place lies on the edge of the Kalahari desert through which a beautiful river called the Orange, or !Gariep*, runs. I feel eternally grateful that, despite starting high up in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, it chose not to simply drop 300kms down and come out on the south coast of KZN but rather to meander its way over two and a half thousands kilometers across South Africa, through some incredibly harsh and equally beautiful terrain, to flow out into the Atlantic.

Rewind to 2005.

I was invited to join friends on a trip down this mighty Orange river. I gave it up for work, worried if something happened I may not get an order out in time. I try to live life without regrets, everything happens for a reason, but this was one that got about as close to regret as they can get. As it happened the trip was not without incident, and two of the four man team had to run out into the brutal landscape to get help after an accident left one of them injured and unable to paddle.

2006

The following year I begged and pleaded and made sure I was back on the invite list and was honoured to experience my first trip north. This time I was frightened. Frightened about this absolute, complete unknown. We had been into the sea off Hout Bay for a few paddles to get used to the kayaks which we would be taking, but it was all very different from a river that was pumping in flood that year. It was the highest it had been in 20 years, and in hindsight it was the worst imaginable introduction to river kayaking.

All too often I was at the back, behind these strong and experienced guys, struggling to keep up, and way out of my depth. Literally. Our boats were so heavy that with enough of a sideways push the momentum just rolled you out and next you were swimming downstream alongside an over turned boat. I will never forget my first swim – and how scared I was – being swept through tree branches and bushes and over rocks, and trying desperately to turn the boat over while treading water and flying downstream at an alarming rate towards the noise of an approaching rapid. Eventually my white knuckles gripped the edge of that boat and flung it with everything I had to get it upright, hop in and discover I’m going in backwards. Note to self – turn the boat around next time. The learning curve continued.

That particular section of river has a stretch of the most ridiculous channels one could find – one moment you are going down a wide river the next there are 4 to 5 islands ahead, dividing the river into any number of channels, all looking completely identical. So you must choose one. The right choice could lead you uneventfully back into the main channel further downstream. The wrong choice could see the river dividing further into more channels. And more. With a bit of luck you might end up somehow back in the main channel. At worst it will narrow down into impenetrable bush and you’ll have to paddle back upstream to try and find a way out.

When a river is in flood and flowing that fast, paddling up into it becomes near impossible, and again the trip ran into trouble late one afternoon, being swept down into dead-end channels and trying to paddle across fast flowing criss-cross currents in an attempt to get out of the mess with one broken rudder in the group to complicate things. We eventually did make it out, but uncomfortably close to nightfall. It had been a narrow escape between finding somewhere suitable to camp, and spending the night shivering on the rivers edge in a thicket of bushes. We got off lightly, and the more time I spend on the river the more I’m learning to recognize that very fine line between things going blissfully well, and things going dreadfully wrong. Crossing it takes an instant. And it’s a dangerous line to cross.

I cant recall how many times I fell in on that trip, how many bushes I got swept through, and how many rocks I got bumped over to remind me over and over that I had a lot to learn on the river and I began feeling horribly accident prone, like a Joe Simpson of the paddling world. It wasn’t a comforting thought at all, but I came out of that trip with a strange thirst for more. The beauty was overriding the danger and before I knew it I was back on the road north a year later.

2007

This time things were very different. From a raging flood the year before the river was now in its lowest that I have ever experienced it. From grinding over rocks mid-stream, to being able to hop out and walk in the river alongside your boat.From the bottom of the kayak scraping over weirs to making slow grinding progress downstream.

As always with the river, it wasn’t without surprise though and on the last day we hit a rapid unknown to us, one moment we were drifting leisurely downstream homeward bound, and the next the paddlers in front of me disappeared down from sight – it was so quick and so unexpected I didn’t even have time to reach forward to put a life jacket on. More fear and more bouncing down into the waters below, out of the boat, over submerged rocks and through white water and going under and coming up until the calmness of the water below the rapid eventually floated up to greet me. I have since learned that this particular rapid is known as ‘Graduation rapid’. And with that it suddenly started feeling like unfinished business. That year was a new section of the river to us and provided more beauty and more experiences that should have quenched my thirst for this unusual landscape of harshness and richness and beauty all rolled into one. But it did exactly the opposite and it was still months after returning that I felt this strange longing to get back.

The following year I eagerly hassled my friends to find out if there was a trip planned but no one was committing and a year dragged restlessly by.

2009

Frustrated, by 2009 there was still no trip in sight so I figured, how hard can it be. I was desperate to get back and so started organizing it myself. I planned on running the same stretch that we had done two years before, a few phone calls later I had managed to organize transport logistics, where to stay on the first night, and had even made a contact with a guide in that area who was more than happy to share his knowledge of the river conditions that year. How hard could this be I remember thinking. To cut a long story short, the trip was one of the most memorable I had done, the river conditions were a stark contrast to the previous year – rising every day as water was being released upstream. And it was just myself and Lara, 5 months after our wedding. While most would have viewed this as a trial by fire for newly-weds we went into it thinking of it as an extended honeymoon!

It was dicey going so small, while I don’t like big groups this was cutting it fine with no margin for error between the two of us and no outside contact, back up plan or escape route until 90 of the 120kms, and I remember on a few occasions wondering if we had bitten off more than we could chew. It was an exciting and eventful trip – almost losing our camp on the first night to the rising river, having to shoot too many weirs, a sinking boat with a hole in it, and lots of action including a monster 3 hour portage to cover not even one kilometer of river, it had been draining but in equal doses, rewarding beyond belief.

The scenery and the bird life and the feeling of isolation – just the two of us out there in the wilderness – is something that we will cherish and remember for as long as we are alive. The tough moments strengthened the bonds and formed memories and sent us away with an amazing sense of achievement. For the full story click here

I’ll be the first to admit, there were also moments of near panic, where I deeply questioned myself for committing us both to this and swore blind that I would never be coming back, but again it wasn’t long after leaving the river that I found this strange longing to go back. Staring endlessly at the photos and finding any excuse to be distracted by thoughts of being up there again and beginning to wonder if there was maybe a clinical term for this.

2010

And so the planning began again. And the more it developed and gained momentum the more excited I got. This time we had planned on running from Vioolsdrift down. The downside to this is that the first 50 to 90kms are very popular with the commercial operations but a few phone calls later to find out when they were leaving and we managed to time our departure absolutely perfectly and didn’t see another soul on that river.

We had been advised by a local farmer to extend our original trip because the water was flowing well and we had boats that could handle the distance, so we opted for a take-out at Sendelingsdrift, 165kms downstream that would see us paddling through the entire Richtersveld area. Again the trip did not disappoint, from the fine company of Paul – a potter by trade with a wicked British humour that entertained us from start to finish, & Andre – long standing friend and one of the most solid blokes to have along on an adventure, to the always spectacular scenery, to the river sending us packing with a pocketful of respect on the last day after ditching us in a rapid that we appropriately named the ‘b*tch-from-hell” rapid. Battered and bruised and limping I cursed and swore at the river for my foolishness at being thrown out so close to the end, while we fired up a brew to regain some sense of humour, but it only took a few hours of driving back that last night along the Namibian river bank to have time to reflect and start longing for more.

2011

By now I was itching for another trip north, but after very heavy summer rains upstream, the river was in full raging flood once more. Worse than before. The friends I had been with on the first two trips were re-running the section I did in my first trip. In my heart I desperately wanted to go back again but for once, for about the first time in my life, I listened to gut instinct that said it was not a good idea. I had been swept downstream through those channels in flood before and had no desire to put myself through that again. The fine line. Remember that fine line between things going well and disaster. And I left it there. With a heavy heart I phoned and cancelled with them. And I am very grateful for that little voice of instinct that spoke that day as the trip turned into an epic disaster. It is a story for another day but they had nearly met their fate on the second day, at the start of the channels, losing two out of their three boats in an instant in a horrible sequence of events that only they can tell. After being separated and finally reaching the river bank, huddled in a state of shock, they were faced with another long walk out. One boat drifted past and Tony shot off downstream to recover it. The other boat is still up there, most likely lodged high up in a tree somewhere, with everything inside. They were lucky to come back alive.

With their misfortune unknown to us, we still had our sights on heading north, running an entirely new section – slowly piecing in the gaps of what has become a small goal to cover the entire distance form Augrabies to the river mouth at Oranjemund. We could find no one to give us advice on what to expect in this section, and the closer it got to leaving the more we felt the river was not exactly welcoming us with open arms. As news filtered through on the other trip the decision was sealed. It was heart-breaking, we had everything organized, all the food bought, gear packed, and were 5 days from leaving. The disappointment of going home empty handed when we hadn’t even left was just too much to swallow so over a few beers and maps plan B was quickly conjured up – a trip completely on the other end of the scale that turned into a grueling 10 day adventure, tackling the full length of the Breede, from the source above Ceres to the sea, unassisted. (For photos click here.)

2012

By the following year I was itching for the river up north again – it had been two years and this year the river seemed to be respecting our patience. Monitoring the river flow carefully, it showed a nice steady level and we all agreed it was time, the trip was called and the departure date set. Out came the maps stashed from last year, the crew was assembled – Paul and Andre from the previous trip, along with Craig – an insanely interesting character that fitted in perfectly to round off a whacky crew.

Craig’s years of experience living with the bushmen while filming their spectacular award winning documentary, The Great Dance, proved to be incredibly exciting, and suddenly this trip started feeling a lot different from previous trips, packed with knowledge and lessons and experiences I would never have expected on a river trip. It was a very leisurely time, in stark contrast to previous trips where we had to crank out 35kms a day, on the water from early until late with few stops.

‘

We now had time on our hands and at first the spare time was almost stressful, but by the second day I had eased into river life completely. We went for early morning hikes to see the sunrise from the mountain tops, and from where we could get an amazing perspective on how the river was carving its way through the mountains. Around mid-morning we would eventually be packing up, followed by a yoga session to loosen up then onto the water. Completely different! Fish eagles would be playing overhead, and goliath herons our guide down the river as if following us on our journey. After what felt like an hour, or when reason or urge spoke, we would find somewhere suitable to stop for coffee, basking in the sun while we soaked up the landscape. Another hour or two downstream and by early afternoon we’d be looking for camping spots. And they did not disappoint, providing some of the best camps I have ever had the privilege of experiencing. Raw, untamed, unspoilt. It’s how we found them and how we left them. There were no human footprints in sight, only animal tracks that Craig soon had us tracking and putting together the story of who had visited here recently. There is a place along that stretch of river that I will return to again one day, it’s accessible only by the river and takes a few days to reach but it is beautiful beyond words, the kind of place I could go back to camp for a week, or a month, before paddling out. Back to the world.

Night times were filled with roaring bonfires that were as tall as us, spreading its warmth and light around the camp, until it faded down and we could stare in awe at the star filled skies. Sleeping under this canopy of endless sparkling lights is always a privilege, we lay there watching the millions of stars and constellations moving overhead during the night and seeing shooting stars flit across the sky like fireflies.

Again, this trip seemed all too short, and a week later we were rumbling back straight into rush-hour traffic. That evening we even took a diverted route along the coast road and over Chapman’s Peak to get away from it – my system just wasn’t ready for that shock.

And it still isn’t.

A week later I found myself out for a morning run. I must have been the laughing stock of the suburb, running head first into a road sign, repeatedly tripping over my feet on the pavement, and on more than one occasion crossing the road mindlessly unaware of oncoming traffic until they were hooting inches away. The mind wanders easily.

A month later and I am still reliving the laughter and the memories. The out of this world campsites, Paul’s baboon whispering, the Danie Lama rapid, mastering frothy cappuccinos with condensed milk, photographing time-lapse sunrises, glowing quartz and balancing rocks, reading animal tracks and ‘the 3 hat story’, smokey water, the lava-tree, the nagging urge to torch an entire tree one night (it was dead, dried, and desperately begging for it but we were mildly concerned about the rest of the countryside going up in flames so at the end of the day reason won), Craig’s skirt moment in the super-conservative Springbok lodge for being the first one to fall out, the Dug-&-Tug, and “its-medicine-but-its-not-the-cure” bonfires, and Einstein Lawrence !Kudu and Cookie.

I always used to say it takes a day to get into the river, and a month to get back and settle down. After a few trips that became two months. After this trip it could be a lot longer. I guess we have to come back sometime but I always feel like a bit of my soul stays up there. Or maybe we view it like that by choice, so we always have somewhere to escape to, and something no one can take away from us.

Speak to me in two months time and I doubt much will have changed. If you can find me that is, for I may have bowed out gracefully from life to return to heaven for a while.

* Gariep, Garieb, or !Gariep were the attempts to represent the Nama word “!gari-b” meaning “river”, for the part of the Orange river downstream from the confluence of the Vaal River.