RI7ER JOURNAL POSTS

Long soaking rain through the night. Had a running battle packing with the 1 000 000‘s of ants who made camp in my most of my gear. They sense the water is coming up and I just happened to be the highest point.

 A fair-sized swell had picked up on the dam with the afternoon headwinds, and what I initially thought would be a relaxed 20km flat-water paddle for the day, ended with me arriving soaked and pretty knackered. I think I got some interesting shots from the waterproof housing.

 I definitely chose a rainy year for sure, and something tells me there is more coming. The lady who runs the campsite here at the Boegoeberg Water Reserve confirmed my thinking earlier in the day. The water is currently at 320 cumecs. She says it is going to double by Friday.

Scenarios, game-plans, mind spinning a little with thought of bigger water coming. 1 day at a time - we’ll see when it comes and where I am.

The campsite here is great. R30 to have my own football-field-sized lawn with plenty of shade from the sweet-thorn acacias, berried syringas and weeping willow. Only other people around is work-crew busy with a new coffer dam below the current wall.

I met a fellow about 2 km’s upstream camping. He was just checking on his 6 fishing rods cruising around in his underpants, with a body that has seen more sun than a breakfast raisin. He comes here for 6 weeks a year and just fishes, although he was a little concerned as the higher water level was dragging his lines into the water grass.

I had no luck with the fishing either, so opted for the hammock instead .