First Descents

Once we left the bridge, we knew that our only way out was to make it to the end, where we would, in theory, be able to walk a short distance up the mountain to where Org would, in theory, be waiting for us. The first section of the river was fun and we could scout the rapids from our kayaks. However, soon after the bridge we realised that we would have to climb out and bank scout a lot, as we encountered big horizon lines. We found some brilliant drops, slides and waterfalls, but also some seriously deadly rapids. Our progress was slower than we had hoped for due to all the climbing out, scouting and portaging around the deadlier of the rapids.

The river was still very continuous and technical, and we had a couple of rather scary moments where we couldn’t eddy out and had to run some parts blind and not knowing what lay below. Our biggest hiccup came on a section of slides. From the top of the first slide we could see what looked like a decent eddy to catch and check out the second slide. So, MJ went first and I followed. He made the eddy, but it turned out to be super shallow. As I tried to catch it, my boat just slid past MJ and I started heading down the second slide, which ended with a blind horizon line. Realising that I was not going to make the eddy, I swung my kayak around and focused on what I could see downstream of me. All that lay before me was a smooth slide and then it disappeared over a horizon line. I started picking up speed and knew there was no way I could stop before the drop. My only option was to make sure I boofed the hell out it and hope that I cleared any danger that might be lurking below. I nailed my boof and cleared the hole at the bottom. When I turned around, I saw that unless you boofed at the furthest downstream point, you would land in a rock-enclosed death trap. I couldn't see MJ or Shaun, so all I could do was wait until they came into view and then give them a signal to show where to boof. Luckily, they also made it through safely, but it was a good little wakeup call to remind us that first descents are not the time you want to take unnecessary chances.

The rapids kept on getting better and there were only two rapids that were not runnable. Our progress was good, so we decided to take a little break. Shortly after getting back on the river, Shaun's kayak started taking on water. After inspecting his kayak, we found a huge crack in the hull. By then he couldn’t paddle more than a couple of metres before it would start to sink. This was a big problem, as we still had a lot of distance to cover and there was no way Shaun could hike out from where we were at that time. We made a plan as best we could and after some time-consuming patch work, we started heading downstream again. Our patch-up job didn’t do very well against the rugged rocks and the crack got bigger. We couldn’t lose another hour trying to patch up the boat again and we'd run out of material to patch it with - this is why you always want to prepare for the worst case scenario, unfortunately we hadn’t. Our only option was to paddle and empty Shaun’s kayak every couple of minutes. This started eating into our time and our progress was very slow.

We finally made it to where our take out road should have been at around 16h00 and we were all tired. We decided our best bet would be to walk up the mountain and then find our bearings to locate Org and our vehicle. I have hiked out of many places with my kayak; probably the most famous walk out in South Africa is the Thrombi hike. For those who know that beast of a walk, walking out of Spekboom made the Thrombi feel like a stroll on the beach. Two hours later and with the light fading rapidly, we made it to a point where we could call Org, and not long after we saw the lights of his approaching vehicle. We made our way to the vehicle in the dark, tired and bruised, but happy as hell to have discovered this beautiful piece of river.

If you ever want to paddle the Spekboom, make no mistake, you need to be a comfortable Grade 4+ creek boater with a precision boof and very competent in swift water rescue because this river is very technical, it has many seriously dangerous siphons and boulder chokes, strainers and the odd sneaky undercut - where MJ discovered his unhappy place. In my opinion this has to be one of the top creeks in South Africa.

So go and find something new out there, but do it safely. Prepare properly and make sure you pack an extra bag of good humour for the trip because you never know what is coming up next.