Stormsrivier

I slept quite well in the tent, but woke up with a headache and feeling tired and queasy. It seemed that had picked up the same mild virus that my fellow traveller Brian had been suffering with. However, I was determined to do the planned tubing on the Stroms river and so got up for some light breakfast. My fellow travellers, Grant, Jemma, Graham and I all headed for the reception of the hostel to meet our guides, Richard and Charlie for a debrief and signing the usual indemnity forms. We put on wet suits, helmets and life vests and boarded a old land rover to head out into the Garden Route National park. Two young German men and a chap, called James, who was Bristol born and bred and had the accent to go with it, joined our group. James, like many Bristolians, was an outgoing, gregarious and entertaining character who was very well travelled. The forest on the way to the river gorge was pristine and beautiful with hills and mountains covered in forests as far as the eye could see. After about half an hour of driving we parked up at the top of the Storms river gorge. The guides inflated our inflatable yellow tubes and gave us some brief tuition on how to sit on them and paddle with our hands. We then made the long, steep walk down thr sides of the gorge through the ancient forest. At the bottom we put our tubes in water, sat through the hole and paddled out into the dark. tannin stained waters which reminded of the copper coloured waters of Dartmoor in Devon. The views of the high tree covered gorge with red lilies and other flowers growing in the rock clefts, were immediately beautiful and impressive. The river flowed from nearby mountains and was only 22 kilometres to the sea and so its level fluctuated very quickly. The level was lower today as it hadn't rained for a fee days. This meant that we needed to take out the tunes more often to clamber over rocks to put the tines back in the river for the next navigable section of deeper water. I was still feeling a bit dizzy due to my virus and so found balancing on the rocks with my tube over one shoulder quite a challenge and I slipped a few times on the wet rocks under the water. We continued down the gorge and I loved the longer sections of water where I could float, spin, paddle and look up at the wonderful vertical sided gorge. At a certain point we could climb up the side.of the gorge and jump out into a deep pool in the water. I have a fear of falling in this way but I was able to challenge myself by jumping off the side of the gorge and into the water. As we continued down the gorge, it got narrower with vertical sides of grey sandstone rock with beautifully smoothed and polished layers. The rocks overhung the river at the top in jagged, pointed formations. It was an awe inspiring sight and I was in my element in this wonder of nature. As we were climbing over some rocks we came across a beautiful small green 'boomslang' snake basking on a rock. After some time it leapt into the river waters. We reached a rock where we could leap into the water with the tube held to our backs to bounce back up out of the water still floating in our tube. You had to get the angle of entry just right to avoid being thrown out of the tube. The first time I tried it, i got the angle right and landed in my tube so I could paddle away. Others were not so lucky and either landed too flat with a big slap on the water or were turned out of their tube altogether. We did a second higher jump with our tubes further down the river and this time it was my turn to get the angle slightly wrong and get turfed out of my tube. My fellow traveller, Grant, also climbed about 15 metres up the gorge and jumped off into the river with his legs kicking in the air on the way down - I decided not to try jumping from such a height. Paddling through the river with our hands was quite tiring and we took a break on a large rock to eat a Mars bar and drink some water. M As we continued the gorge got still narrower with caves containing bats and even more impressive polished rocks. Wedged logs high up in the gorge revealed how high the water level gets when the river is in full flood. We saw a few small fish, but apparently only two fish are adapted to live in the tannin rich waters which have a very low ph as a result. Recent research has discovered that these special river networks have many unique aquatic insect species that are found nowhere else and have been evolving there for 140 million years when the continents were still joined as the super continent. Gondwanaland. You could feel how ancient and special this river gorge is. The stretched of water increased as the gorge narrowed and I really enjoyed floating and paddling down them. After four and a half hours of this wonderful experience we were reaching the tidal mouth of the river and we linked up our tubes by holding the feet of the person behind under our arms to form a long chain. We saw a cormorant catch and eat a fish in the glinting sunshine, and later fly low over our heads. We paddled over to a rock in the river mouth, got out of the water and deflated our tubes. We then had a long walk back over two suspension bridges which wobbled and swayed, trekking back through the woodland that we had walked through the previous day. We waited for our transport in blazing sunshine watching huge rolling waves crash into the rocky coast and send huge plumes of white spray into the air. The transport arrived and took us to a nearby shower block for a welcome hot shower. We then returned to the hostel where we were treated to a nice cooked meal of chicken kebabs, potato salad, salad, feta cheese and olives. It had been a very physically challenging activity, but I enjoyed every minute of being on that special river.
I then rested in my tent and went for a drink and chat with my fellow travellers in the hostel bar when my tent got too hot. The evening slowly darkened and we went and sat by the fire pit where a bonfire was lit and helped to keep away the annoying small flies. I had some rum and coke as 'medicine' for my continuing virus symptoms and ate a light evening snack of butternut soup and bread. I eventually returned to my tent and spent some time looking up at the clear starry sky with the milky way stretching overhead and down to the Southern cross constellation that is so indicative of the Southern hemisphere. I slowly went off to sleep with dogs barking in the distance. The night became very cool and I needed all my layers during the night to keep from getting cold.Read more