Swellendam

Tradouw Pass.

The pretty town of Swellendam.

Wide open spaces and beautiful vistas of the farm country.

Breerivier River winding through the farm land.

'White' water rafting.

Henning negotiating the 'rapids'.

Colin and Jay enjoying a relaxing moment.

Thursday, December 14^th.

We left by 7:30 this morning and headed out for the daily drive. We stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks as we drove through a couple of passes, including the Tradouw Pass which was 14 kilometres long through the mountains. We also stopped at 'Ronnie's Sex Shop', which was just a silly place with an interesting name so everyone stops there and signs their name on the walls or anything. He makes money buy selling snacks and drinks. Then we stopped in the town of Swellendam where we did another grocery shop and had lunch.

We continued through some beautiful farm country, rolling hills which were quite dry with no trees. We arrived at our new campsite 'Round the Bend' Campground on the Breerivier River about two pm. Some people upgraded to rooms, including Nathan and I got the tent to myself for the night. After we set them up about half of us went for the included activity of white water rafting down the Breerivier River by the camp. This was published in the Intrepid website as an easy, fun rafting experience over category 1-2 rapids. We loaded up into a open backed truck with the rafts and drove on the road for about 20 minutes over a very bumpy rocky road upstream to the launch point. We had 10 people and three guides who gave us a crash course on how to raft, what to do if you fall in, etc. We were using two man rafts which were more like inflatable kayaks, and in fact that was the type of paddle we used. Frank was my partner. We have both paddled before and had no problem but it was fun watching a few others try to control their raft, Manu and Henning in particular. Manu was in the back and trying to give Henning instructions but they were having trouble synchronizing their strokes. There were lots of laughs.

We floated gently down the river which is very low because of the dry season and the drought. As we approached the first rapid we realized there was no rapid. The water was so low that we just floated through and got stuck and had to push it out. Then when we got to the second rapid, which was supposed to be a long narrow channel we saw our guide had to walk in the water and push his raft in front of him. We all followed suit and waded in the knee deep water. At one point Henning said “what is the name of this sport we are doing?” and then Manu found it hard to walk in the water over the round slippery rocks without holding onto the raft for balance and said “I need the boat to walk in the water.” As a rafting experience it was pointless but we had a lot of laughs and the river and scenery were beautiful. Apparently when they have a good rainy season the rapids become level 5 or 6 which are very dangerous. Rafting on the Zambesi, this was not. It turned out that the ride in the truck was the most exciting and bouncy part of the trip.

Back at camp we sat around the truck and waited for our excellent curry chicken dinner. We had a couple of drinks and a cake as we celebrated Irish David's 34^th birthday. I am now sitting at the campfire by myself, with everyone either in their tents or in their room upgrades, and listening to the bugs and frogs and other sounds of the night. The weather has been unseasonably cold for the last week (I'm wearing long pants, a jumper and my down jacket and a toque), but even though it is cool now, I am sitting by the fire and it is quite nice and peaceful. Great way to end the day as the trip draws to an end.