RI7ER JOURNAL POSTS

Up early this morning, knowing in the back of my mind that Upington is not far away (70 km).  I had originally planned to take 2 days to get here from Grootdrink. The river had risen about 3 foot overnight and rose another half a foot whilst I was preparing to get on the water. The release had arrived.

A cup of tea and cereal helped me decide to go for Upington. The main deciding factor was knowing that i had 3 weirs on the approach to Upington. I wanted to get past these before the water got too high.

 Weirs are tough enough obstacles. What makes these river-wide weirs in this section very dangerous, is that the reeds along shore grow well over the perimeters of the weir wall. There are no eddies to get out and scout . You either hang onto the reeds and attempt to lift yourself as high as possible in your boat and try determine the height, towback and depth and hope like hell they had the good sense to build a fish chute. Or if the river is low and just creeping over the weir, you can ferry/hover above and make a decision. With the higher flow, the fish chutes are the bomb (steep tongue-ride into 2/3 maybe 4 crashing waves). Getting your line is the hardest part. I have also skidded and scraped over a couple at lower flow upriver. Compulsory portages require a sense of humour and a machete to get through the reeds and thornbush.

At Lambrechtsdrif I ran down the fish chute and then stopped on shore and shot an hour time-lapse of the river rising, hoping this looks good later. Then I realised I still had 60 clicks to go and it was 11:15 am. With the water flow so strong, I dipped my blades for the last few strokes into Upington at about 5:00 pm. Have just eaten an Italian pizza at an Irish bar in an Afrikaans city ... lekker bru!

Was plagued today by the miggies (blood sucking spawn of the devil!), and will continue to be for the next few weeks. They wake up and go to sleep at the same time as me. They enjoy the soft bits of skin behind knees, wrists, waistline. They enjoy riding on my hat for miles and then when it suits them, fly behind my sunnies, in my nose, zzzzzz around the ears, then attempt to bite - get waved off - sit back on the hat and wait patiently for the next pissing me off session.

Have arrived at Die Eiland (The Island) campsite. An appropriate name as to the formation of the river in this last and the next 100 km’s.  Islands, islands .........