Tina River Expedition

 It has almost become a midsummer tradition that a small, hardened band of explorers head for the hills of the "T" in the cluster of banana republics known as the TBVC countries, to raft a new stretch gf the Mzimvubu River system over a period of two to three weeks often to the dismay of many a Transkeian who can cover the same distance far less laboriously by taxi. The end of the Christmas Vac.has been chosen for these missions so that not many people get to know about them and to give potential undesirables more than enough time to become penniless after spending all their cash in holiday mecca's like Margate and Plettenberg Bay.

This year the Tina River was tackled from the N2 bridge to the sea. After recce'ing the biggest obstacle on this stretch - The Tina Falls we began our two week trip with the new red beauty and the old grey bitch economically laden with modest supplies. Indeed Economy was the dominant factor in preparing ourselves for this trip, bringing the final cost down to R250, in keeping with renewed safety consciousness, life-jackets were upgraded, new 10 m throwlines were sewn up and diving knives sewn to the lifejackets.

It was at the desolate N2 campsite that the volleyballing tradition was born. we played for hours with our brand new neon ball taunting the soccer hungry underpriveleged kids who thronged to watch the match. Volleyball enthusiasm waned as energy levels dropped and naffinese get in. we turned instead to other afternoon activities such as team vomiting little white beans, playing cricket with sharpened mugs, watching Peter and I do battle with bread knives and other nasty objects eating tons of chocolate in one day(Mike's 21st), watching Mike unpack and repack his camera and sundry photographic aids into a little cute bucket, bird watching, brewing a diabolically bad tasting porridge/beer substitute called MNANTI , ridiculing other crew members or just watching Steve T look pale and pathetic.

Under Paul's experienced leadership and his ever alert, ever roving eye we negotiated challenging white water never rafted before by anyone. Few punctures needed patching and even fewer rapids necessitated portaging allowing us to raft until 12 and then rest in the afternoons.