ITsitsa Umzivubu river trip

I guess you've heard several versions of our iTsitsa/Umzimvubu trip already,but as you've missed out on mine, here goes (the abbreviated version): ' Well, the trip began in chaos. One would think that if you have a bunch of experienced Explorers, things would run smoothly at least, BUT...The fact of the matter is, if there is no Generaal Paulus to moan about hanne-hannering, that's what you get - in style. So, once we were off, inefficiency was the rule. But I can't really complain; it made an agreeable change. Only the cars didn't co-operate, and were inefficient enough NOT to work Well, anyway, when we got`to the iTsitsa, we discovered there was too little water in it. I was disappointed, I must say, doing iTsitsa meant a lot to me. But we decided to try putting in on the Umzimvubu ( at Dikela, where there is a huge cliff-face, and you people bought beers that time you were there). Well reaching Dikela involved three hours of driving over a 40km stretch of road. At Dikela, Chris and Garth went down to the river to see what it was like, and the rest of us made (and had) lunch. Oh don't worry, we kept some for Garth and Chris as well. Anyway, those two came back to pronounce that the river was unraftable. But we all decided to check for ourselves, so everyone waddled down to see. What we discovered was that Chris and Garth were lying. When we told them so, they got embarassed, and told us they wouldn't come with. They eventually maneged to overcome their pride, though and join us. So the following day was spent carrying the kit into the gorge. That is quite a big war-story,because it meant carrying the stuff down over 5km, then to go back up again to fetch more stuff, and then obviously down again. Chris and Garth did particularly well for themselves, carrying one raft down all by themselves. What a war story. Incidentally, that was the only day we had proper sun and it was hot,hot, hot, After that we had rain daily, and it was rather cold, particularly after going through rapids, and getting soaked. Nonetheless, the trip had it's moments,.particularly around the campfire. Most of the rapids were relatively arbitrary, due to the waterlevel, but some remained mentionable nonetheless. Chris and Bill (both graduates, ie "educated") managed to quite simply throw away at random two brand new throwlines. We had to portage the rapid you were apparently warned about by a local, where the mainstream was split by a large rock and then plunged into a ginormous hole. At the time you took the side~channel, but this year there was too little water in it. I was also allowed to captain a rapid, and we took it backwards, and I managed to get everyone particularly wet. But we didn't flip, though I tried hard. Better luck next time. But I still get an impression, I think, of what it must have been like in '86, when you had successfully ran this major etpedition. Even for us it was an unreal feeling to come around the bend and see the sea. What a sense of achievement you must have had! Last night we had our reunion dinner. It was held at Anne's house, and was formal. It turned out to be quite a party, and the food was excellent.