Mazowe First Descent – Sunungukai Camp to Hippo Pools

6 Feb 11 - 1.2m at Hippo Pools

An excellent piece of the Mazowe river, with awesome scenery and rapids just big enough to be challenging and continuous enough to avoid boredom. There were three or four very good surf waves too.

Squash, Troy and I set off from Harare in the company of Kenny, Mike, Margy and Jen in the Landy, and three other vehicles full of river rafters led by Laurie W. We left the rafters (including Margy and Jen) at the Nyagui Bridge near Shamva, where they ran a 6km run several times, enjoying themselves immensely. 

Our put-in has a road all the way to the river bank, to the now derelict Sunungukai bush camp at the point where the Mazowe does a 90 degree left turn through a range of hills. Eager locals pointed us at the river and gave us directions on how to (expertly) run the waterfall about 400m downstream. We disappointed the locals by taking the centre line on the approach (right and left would also have worked) and opting to portage the last drop. An easy portage on river right was followed by a few more drops, nothing too difficult, and a very nice wave further down.

The next big rapid may have been possible to run left of centre, and Squash, having opted for a difficult portage river left, ran the last part very successfully. If you screw it up on the approach or first stopper you'd be in for a hard swim or a workout in at least two holes. Troy and I opted for the chicken run river right, which took us about halfway down the rapid, before we rejoined the main rapid. Rejoining the main flow is much easier from the right, if you could avoid the two pour-overs, which I failed to do, receiving a small beating from the first, and spending time negotiating my release from the second.

Troy, observing the treatment I'd received, pretended to drop his boat which made it's way through the first pour-over, skirted the second and landed in the eddy where Squash and I were waiting. This qualifies as a swim Troy! I got bored with waiting and used the time to build Troy a nice sand-castle on his seat – which he was inexplicably grumpy about. Some people have no appreciation for art.... He complained all the way to the finish about the sand getting into his undies and chafing him.  Focus on the positive things in life Troy!

The rest of the run was eventful, with several more rapids, all of which we were able to boat-scout, completing the 9km trip in under three hours. Sadly, Kenny had misunderstood our instructions and we had to wait about 2 hours for the vehicle to arrive. Squash, whose pink ticket expired at 4pm sharp, was therefore in the soup, and my better half was also getting a little concerned for our safety, though just enough to appreciate me more when I got home...

Apparently there is a better road for egress on river right, which we'll try next time. The road via Shamva and Madziwa to Hippo Pools is rather long and rough.

Thanks Laurie W and Iain J for suggesting this run – according to them it hasn't been run before (and Iain has been at Hippo Pools for 29 years, so should know.)