Gariep.Orange.Senque Expedition

An expedition I contributed to during December 2009 with two amazing, very talented people, Rob Wilson and Ine Skortjen.

We knew it wasn’t a first decent but also knew only a handful of paddlers have made the effort to get into this gorge to experience its magical rapids and steep granite walls.
Our first day was spent dropping into the gorge. We paddled, carried and then abseiled our heavy boats. The twelve hours in the desert sun took its toll on our bodies as everyone looked and felt dehydrated. We made it down to the river and looked back up our decent line, a side canyonfilled with house size boulders, we were all pleased the abseiling and zip lining of the boats went well without any hiccups. All safe we spent the evening drinking liters of water watching the stars glimmering over us. The next day we paddled up the gorge to the rapids we had missed to have a peak. The size and gradient was mind blowing. We started descending down the river, rapid after rapid showed us that this was no easy run. Just as we had worked so hard to get into the gorge it’s rapids were steep, technical and pushy.Robs ladened boat made for some very startling lines. The force of the water was strong and the steepness of the rapids was very impressive. By the time we hit camp Rob, Ine and myself were searching for any shade we could. Our first coffee for the day saw us through a conversational dinner. Our last day was a surprise, we walked up the Droeval canyon to find a perfectly still pool at the bottom of a 30meter slide. The fish Eagles called while we swam in the cool water. We left the canyon and paddled through two steep and fun rapids. A trip like this doesn’t come around every day. We were lucky to have experienced the gorge and all its beauty. This trip will be remembered for a long time.

For a full report of Rob Wilson’s Source to Sea expedition of the mighty Orange River check out: http://web.mac.com/wilsonrob1/ROB_WILSON/SENQU.ORANGE.GARIEP_JOURNAL/SENQU.ORANGE.GARIEP_JOURNAL.html