Pungwe Low Level

30 Dec 12 - Minimum Flow

Of Nigerian Scams, Head Rolls and Long-Gone Lane-Mitchell.

After a disappointing run on the Nyagui, it was decided that the Pungwe would have more water.  So, undaunted, Andy, Squash and I set off in search of the elusive elixir.  What we found, after some of our party were parted with their cash by a local operator, using the old-fashioned "give me your $20 and I'll make your life a pleasure" line, was a very low river full of trees.

Aside from spending the morning cussing said local operator about money well-invested, the lads set about perfecting the head-roll (best performed in very small puddles) and renaming Andy for his habit of disappearing down the rapids without waiting for the camera to be set up.

Squash and I ran Four-clowns-folly, which is less gnarly at low level, but still has the potential for a good workout.

From there we ground out a steady pace through the widening river, finishing with a braai on the river bank, before the long drive back home.

Nyagui Low Level

29 Dec 12 - Low Level 5cm over Mukore Weir

A season opener, with very little water.

Andy, Squash and I, with Ken and Harry in support, visited the Mukore section and found the water to be extremely low.  Harry watched with Ken from the rocks;

and joined me for a surf.

 Squash had a good look at Z-Bend, which we'd all run earlier.

We look forward to more water - but the skies remain empty!

Buzi Access Check

Buzi Access Check

16 Dec 12 - Minimum Flow

Checked out access and egress options.

Chipinge commercial farmer Brendon S kindly drove with me down to the Buzi to check out access and egress options.  According to Brendon and other locals, the best time for flowing water will be March.

The challenge was to find access to the best part of the river, from approximately  20°19'26.78"S, 32°49'40.39"E to approximately 20°26'50.72"S, 32°51'30.61"E.  The complication is the international border, which means we can't start at the South Downs Bridge (20°17'29.31"S, 32°48'18.76"E).

I'm happy to report that we've managed to work out a simple way to make it all work.  So it's all set for a new river to be explored!

Umwindsi and Nyagui Mukore

26 Mar 12 - Medium Level 12cm over Mukore Weir


Three Petrians have a great day out, with kayaking, swimming and a riverside braai.


It was Ken's turn to delay everyone with a hang-over induced oversleep.  After a slightly late start, Max, Taps and Ryan thoroughly enjoyed the day on the Umwindsi and Nyagui, starting with a paddle down the grade 2 Umwindsi, and capped off with some body surfing at the Nyagui Wave.

Dave and Tom ably assisted me in guiding the novices down the Umwindsi, with it's impressive rock slides and gentle rapids.  The lads acquitted themselves very well, with 1 swim by Taps, who also ran an entire rapid backwards.  Ryan had a bit more of a challenge as the Fluid Vaya sit-on-top isn't really designed for white water.


At the confluence the youngsters rejoined the vehicles, leaving Tom, Dave and I to paddle the long flat section to Mukore.  There are still a few bits of very impressive riparian forest, so it wasn't all dull.  The Mukore section was thrilling as usual, and I almost ended up in the big hole halfway down.  Z-Bend takes on a whole new character at lower levels, but the lads had no trouble there.  The wave was as good as ever, and lots of surfing was enjoyed by all.

The lads jumped in to body surf the wave, and we all ended up giving it a go.  Nick H probably managed the longest surf, with Ryan a close second and yours truly not doing much of body surf at all. I think I'll stick to the kayak.

Ken had a hot meal prepared and gang made light work of the excellent steaks, boerie, gravy and sadza, before the long drive home on a steadily decaying road.


Click here for more photos

Shavas Gorge - First Descent of Quadratic

26 Feb 12 - Medium/Low (0.95m at Old Bridge)


At last one of us had the nerve to run Quadratic Conundrum.  And it has now been renamed: Quadratic Kermit.


A late afternoon run of the Shavas gorge, with Tom, Andy and David, was proving pretty uneventful.  I was drifting backwards towards one of the smaller rapids in the gorge, chatting to the lads, when something slithered up my leg.  With a very girly scream I exited my boat like a cork from a champagne bottle, much to the mirth of the lads, and swam the rapid backwards for my trouble.  The humour and ribbing increased in tempo after Tom fished a small frog from from my boat.


We all took another long hard look at Quadratic, and I decided to run it.  I jumped in the Solo and just went for it.  The first hole was nearly my undoing, and I missed the planned line at the second, ending up on track for a proper mauling in the bottom to holes, but I managed to punch through them.


Andy showed us again how not to run Andy's drop, and the chaps all had a go at Terminal Slide, mostly pulling off a good line.  Some repairs were required to Tom's running board before we could get underway for our trip home.

Nyagui Gorge

19 Feb 12 - High (30cm over Nyagui Weir)

A late start, adrenalin rush before even getting to the river, and high water all combined for a fine day on the river, capped off with a superb braai at the finish.

After a hard night I overslept, waking up 10 minutes after the rendezvous time.  Needless to say, the cussing was hard and continuous.  A hasty departure and collection of Ken saw us depart town only 30 minutes late, Troy having calmed to a level of mild annoyance after Squash fed him some tea.  Of course, a host of miscellaneous items such as wallets, water bottles and changes of clothing, plus the all-important maps for the put-in and improved take-out had been left behind - but let's not digress too far.

The Shavas and Nyagui looked pretty low, despite all the rain in Marondera over the past week, so the decision was made to do the Nyagui Gorge as planned.  The trip to the river proved pretty uneventful, and I was pondering whether we could find the put-in without maps.  We drifted out at about 110km/h to overtake a very slow-moving vehicle and as we came up on its flank, the driver turned right! Squash and I howled simultaneously and time stood still for the next few seconds.  I swerved hard right to avoid collision, narrowly missing the front of the turning vehicle, and then swerved back to try and stay on the hard shoulder, but the Landy was starting to skid, so I changed direction and ramped the Landy into the roof-high ditch, executing a very clean landing in what fortunately turned out to be a soft and wide bottom, with no obstructions.  Giving the Landy a few milli-seconds to settle and straighten up, I hit the brakes hard and we all debussed to relieve ourselves.

With only one easily corrected missed turn, we arrived at the weir - just where we wanted to be.  Alas, when we saw the weir we had our second scare for the day - the water was massive!  Troy offered to stay with Ken, but we convinced him to persevere.  Later on he regretted his decision.

We ran a fairly simple drop, and at the bottom Troy went over and failed to roll.

We eventually got him out, but struggled to get his boat into an eddy for a long way - it almost went over the waterfall, but Squash and I worked together to jam it on a rock, from where I rescued it. The waterfall is pretty impressive, and not runnable.

We opted for a sneak down the centre, which rejoined the right channel, the right channel looking like it may be runnable.  Just below this the river forks, with the right option proving difficult to scout (it has some big holes and a massive wave), so we opted for the easier left option.

We ran a few minor drops (videos coming soon), with another swim from Troy, before getting to Rapid K (there is a large "K" painted on the rocks and we wondered if Laurie had been there), which Squash ran left and I ran centre - narrowly avoiding a thrashing in a deep hole.

Rapid M was the next big one - a very long rapid with multiple challenges which Squash and I talked about and then ran without any major mishap.  The third hole was dynamic - Squash caught it when it was open, while I almost got flipped as it closed on me.  I screwed up the line towards the end and narrowly avoided yet another very big hole - thanks to directions from Squash.

The "Horeshoe-and-nail", which Wayne styled on the previous outing, looked too gnarly, so we portaged.

The next portage was quite tough, so Squash opted to run the last drop of the rapid - another dynamic hole, which if caught correctly was OK-ish, but if you missed the line or caught it at the wrong time you'd have yourself a real challenge.  Needless to say, Squash was having a red-letter day and made it look easy - not enough to convince the rest of us though....

"Hey Squash, are your Cajones really this big?"

The Slide was possibly runnable, but with deep holes on either side if you strayed, so Squash ran a left line and Troy and I slid down the rocks centre.  Just beyond was a deep hole which I ended up in.  Knowing I did not want to swim Hyena's Bottom which was just below, I rolled upside down, stuck my paddles in the green water and waited what felt like ages to be hauled out.  Only when I knew I was well clear did I roll back up.

Hyenas Bottom was three times as ugly as before, and there was a bonus hole halfway down at this level.  We opted for a very hard portage involving ropes and much cussing.

Slide 2 looked scary with a must-make left turn, but this turned out to be easy and the run was even better than before. (Videos to follow).

"Steiger's Untoward" was just after the end of the Slide 2 chicken run, but was fortunately flushed out.  At this point it started to rain, and we kept a sharp eye out for Ken, who we found tending the fire and cooking the meat, to ensure a fine finish to the day (except for the long walk out afterwards).

Umwindsi and Nyagui Mukore

12 Feb 12 - Medium Level 15cm over Mukore Weir

We found a lovely new piece of river, quite by accident.  I though I'd try a different way to get to the pumphouse put-in on Riverbend, but ended up much further upstream in the Umwindswi, which turned out to be a very nice piece of river.

We portaged the first weir, then ran a slide and some gentle rapids, before hitting the long flat section of Riverbend.  Shane, on his first river trip, really made it look easy.  He rolled a couple of times and hung on for rescue on the occasions he couldn't roll.  Margie had a few swims, but seemed to enjoy the day nevertheless. The take-out for the novices at Mukore was quite tricky so we decided to run the first section, which in hindsight may have been a mistake.  Margie had a long hard swim, and we had to rope her back across, after Troy and I chased her boat all the way to Z-Bend (through some big stoppers).

The wave was working really well so Troy, Andy, Dave and I had a good surf, before and after lunch.  Dave entertained us with yet another variation on the Z-Bend line, but he finished the day without a swim.

Photo's and videos coming soon.

Shavas Gorge & Novice Trip

5 Feb 12 - Medium water, 1.04m at the Old Road Bridge

Troy arrived his usual (punctual) 1 hour late (partly my fault as I'd forgotten to collect the boats) so the two of us completed a lightning fast trip down the gorge section of the Shava's, before meeting the novices for a run between the bridges.

The gorge is starting to take on quite a bit of "character" with several waves and holes developing with the extra 11cm of water.  The third hole on Quadratic (Q3) looked particularly nasty, reminding us why we have so far not run this rapid.  Troy had some interesting moments on Andy's drop: first he headed left which meant he lost me and the line.  Making it back onto the line he flipped and rolled halfway down, and then took the far right option for the final drop, with no real problems.

The kicker at four-FIVE-six is starting to develop, but we both ran it without incident.  I wedged myself up against a rock at Blind Faith in order to video Troy, and then I ran the rapid backwards - unintentionally of course.  Troy had a good look at Terminal Slide, watching me run it, after which he gave it a go, managing to completely screw up the line.  This resulted in him going over partially, but fortunately he has a strong metal paddle - click here to watch the video.

Ken had a fire on the go, so after cooking lunch we wedged the sadza pot between the seats and shared a fine meal of sadza, braai mealies and steak, while racing to meet the novices at the main road bridge. We arrived late and in the middle of a very heavy downpour.  Undeterred we set about preparing for a trip as there was no lightning in evidence.

Of course, as soon as we were on he water the rain stopped...  The group pressed on down the river without too much delay, maintaining a steady pace to stay well ahead of a thunderstorm.

Garth D, Jan L, Margie G and David C acquitted themselves extremely well and ran everything, with only the occasional swim.  All tried their hands at surfing, and Troy captured a video of the group running Island Rapid.

Ken decided it was high time he gave it a go, much to his own and the crowd's delight.  Click here for the video.

Boys Will Be Boys

29 Jan 12 - Shavas Gorge low level 0.93 at the Old Rd Bridge

Wayne and Jan tossed themselves to the mercy of the river, playing in the last hole of "Quadratic Conundrum" and in the hole below "Terminal Slide".  Wayne got off lightly, but Jan renewed his lapsed membership at the local swimming club.

Andy and Nick H were in for a treat.  Aside from the usual great day on the river, they were much entertained by Wayne and Jan.  Wayne started off with a little religious ceremony, in which he called to the great grey spider resident in the back of his boat to treat him kindly - and it seems to have worked too!

The water level was about the same as the previous trip.  After much speculation it was decided to walk around Quadratic again - but Jan took the liberty of running the last hole.  And then went back in to play.  The second play session went out of control pretty quickly, ending in a swim (click here for the video). And Wayne only made a very half-hearted effort to get into the hole before choosing discretion as the better part of valour.

Andy entertained us with a swim halfway down Andy's drop (centre zig-zag line) and we managed to get him to slow down occasionally for a play in the odd wave.  Jan and Wayne (click on their names for video) ran Terminal slide again, but Andy and Nick opted to take videos and manage the rescue equipment.

Jan talked Wayne into surfing the hole at the bottom of terminal slide, using big words such as "no it's not very retentive at all" - click here to watch the video and watch for the shaking of the head.  Click here to see what he had to say afterwards.

Riana capped the day with a fine picnic lunch, while Aiden entertained us with a pellet gun target shooting competition.

Click here for the photo album.

Big Water - Mupfure Ijapo (Masengeza) Section

22 Jan 12 - Medium Level 1.0m at Gauging Weir

[Update: This section of river has apparently been run in rafts before.]

A series of waterfalls dropping a total of 50m in 300m creates a most spectacular sight, especially set amongst the pristine riparian forest.  This leads directly into another series of rapids, climaxing with the "Big One", a 400m long mass of boiling rapids, holes and pressure waves.  The section we explored (running a few of the rapids) is about 6km long.

Troy, Andy, Ken and I set off to explore the Mupfure, a well-known large river in central Zimbabwe, having heard about a particularly steep section of an otherwise flat and heavily dammed water-course.  Armed with scant information and Google Earth, we set off for this new river.  Troy made a few calls to track down a farmer on the river, who confirmed the large drops, and that the river was in full spate.  Andy hung on for dear life as I navigated and Troy drove like a man possessed.

After a few hours of driving to check out various egress points we finally arrived at the gauging weir, downstream of the section we intended to run. Suitably impressed we set off for the put-in, and met up with a local fellow who wasn't sure if his name was Innocent or Joseph (something to do with a recently adopted religion from the East.)  Innoseph showed us the way to the waterfall section, and the three of us needed little convincing that this section was runnable, but only by real men with real cajones, and skills that we were still in the process of acquiring.

Troy took a long hard look and decided to get rid of a few butterflies:

We put in just below the big stuff (in fact, we skipped another fairly large rapid below the big stuff) and, thinking that the worst was behind us, we told Ken to make sure he was at the egress point in 2 hours time.  We ran several interesting rapids, some after scouting, and there were many lovely play waves to enjoy (pity that Andy is always in a bit of a hurry).  We kept thinking there couldn't possibly be another large drop, but every few hundred meters there was one.

I stopped to scout a moderate rapid and Andy followed my instructions to the letter for an easy run.  Having set up for the video I gave Troy the same lines, and finished with "If you go over, just tuck in and wait - there are no rocks for you to hit.  You can roll on the flat water!" Here's the result:

And then we came upon the "Big One".
What a rapid!  400 meters long, dropping at least 20 or 30 meters, the river is tortured into a granite/basalt channel which results in several large drops, with ensuing stoppers and holes.  Below is the top section seen from about halfway down, looking back upstream:

The middle section looked particularly imposing, yet runnable by the "experts":

Being the brave heroes and budding rock rabbits that we are, we decided to portage most of the rapid, with Troy and I running the last two drops.  The portage was long and hot, and was exacerbated by the loss of most of our drinking water (mine simply de-bussed and Andy left the cap on his bottle open).  Andy also managed to break the strap on his helmet, so, being unable to stand on the hot rocks, we sat in a lovely rock pool adjacent to the main river to affect repairs.  The pool reminded me of one of those fancy infinity pools, with a fresh supply of warm rain-water running down the basalt and into it:

For reasons of public decency we asked Troy to remain in his boat and not join us in the pool.

Having repaired the helmet, Andy and I resorted to drinking the fresh water running down the rock to resupply our parched bodies in preparation for the anticipated long hike to the Landy.

A little further on I handed the camera to Troy as he was going to take the chicken run of a fairly substantial rapid, to video Andy and I.  Andy being Andy didn't wait around and before we were even back in our boats he was running the main rapid.  He managed to fluff the line, but held on to complete it in style.  Troy set off and completely screwed up the line after rolling in the eddy, ending the last gnarly section with a swim.  Wise to Andy's errors, I followed and managed to run a pretty good line, except for the sideways drop into the last large hole, which was fortunately quite forgiving and flushy.

A little way further on we met Ken and, after cooling ourselves thoroughly in the river, we set off to drag our boats the 1.5km to the Landy - Ken having failed to secure porters.  Andy set his usual blistering pace, taking Ken with him, while Troy and I toiled with bruised hip and injured knee, taking turns to drag his heavy boat.  Fortunately Andy's boat left a good trail of yellow plastic where it was dragged over the rocks, so we avoided getting thoroughly lost in the bush.  Of course, Andy managed to outstrip Ken and overshot the Landy, so we still beat him there.

Great gulps of water were consumed by all before the trip back to Andy's for a superb sunset braai and beers.  A flat tyre on the way home did little to dampen our spirits after a truly enjoyable day on a spectacular piece of river.

Learn2Kayak Course

14-15 Jan 12 - 0.99m at Shavas Old Road Bridge

Five excited and somewhat nervous novices, under the supervision of Troy, Ken and I, attended the course on the Shavas river.  The first day was mostly flat water and covered the basics.  We ended with a short trip including a few grade 1 rapids.

The second day commenced at the main road bridge and ended at the old road.  We recapped the basics, practised on moving water, and then took on the grade 2 rapids, repeating Island Rapid. The novices chose some interesting lines and entertained us with a few "jumps" at the end of the Island Rapid.

The day ended with the local kids having a go, and entertaining us an their friends with their antics.

Special thanks to Troy for his help and camera work, and to Ken for his excellent management of the camp and equipment.

Shavas Gorge

8 January 2012 - Low water (0.89 at old road bridge)

We thought the trip would be a lot of bump and scrape, but it turned out to be another superb day on the river. Andy LM, Tom D and I set off from the dip tank just above the old road bridge and eased ourselves into the season with a very pleasant trip.

We ran "Oh Fark Falls" down the two main currents, Tom and I on the right and Andy on the left - uneventful. The first drop into the gorge proved pretty scary as Tom and I committed ourselves to a line past a very significant syphon, with a large stopper next to it - this right to left line is one to be avoided at lower levels - just keep well left (as we do at high water).

The rest of the gorge was fast moving and interesting, but nothing untoward. We exited the gorge and headed off to the big rapid (the only one not run to date). Andy, being convinced that the next drop was actually "Andy's Drop", almost ran "Quadratic Conundrum". We stopped to scout the rapid, and once again decided to engage in the art of portage, due mainly to the two nasty holes, seen at the level of Andy's shoulder in the photo below.

This photo only shows the last third of the rapid, but the preceding section looked pretty runnable at this level. Here's a video clip of the rapid (sadly with no-one running it).

The water was too low for the left line at "Andy's Drop", so we bombed down the centre, which proved to be tricky. We started with an intimidating drop into the unknown, and then had to use a wave halfway down to get us back onto the line, which wound its way around the back of a large boulder before the final drop into the pool below.

"Wayne's four-FIVE-six" was a walk in the park, and the rock which causes the usual kick at higher water was well exposed. "Blind Faith" proved a little more tricky at this level and Andy opted for a difficult line left of centre, while Tom and I took the straighter line right of centre.

Ken had trouble remembering the access road to the takeout at "Blind Faith" so we'd agreed to meet at "Terminal Slide". This was a blessing in disguise as Andy and I decided to run the slide. I led the way, starting centre, almost getting flipped by the corkscrew wave, before following the main flow to the right. A sharp left turn down the bank, being sure to avoid the rooster tail on the far right, and I ended slightly right of the main flushing current in the stopper wave, which meant I was held for a moment, but managed to escape. The (faint) red line in the photo below indicates the line we followed.

Andy was less fortunate. The first wave flipped him, and he had to execute a shallow-water roll, which knocked him offline. He recovered pretty well and ended up in the centre of the stopper, flushing straight through. Here's a video clip showing the action.

In an effort to avoid the syphon under the large boulder in the centre, which had given me a good scare earlier, Andy managed to take a swim in shallow water. See the album for a photo.

We wanted to paddle on to the confluence of the Nyagui, but decided Ken wouldn't find us, so we opted to drive around and agree a take-out point for the next trip.

Gairezi Odyssey Part 2: Full Story

4 January 2011 - Laurie's House. No water in the taps (this is Harare)!

Laurie arranged a dinner to share stories with the paddlers.

Due to the late start they only completed half of the allocated 11km's on the first day (as per previous blog entry). This was made up on day 2 as, after they joined the Ruenya, the water levels increased substantially. Day 2 camp was in the riverbed, which might have spelt disaster if the levels rose like they did on day 3.

Things got a lot more interesting on day 3, with higher water levels and several large rapids and narrow channels through the rock. Squash ran one particularly interesting section, with everyone else portaging. Tom had a swim, which led to a dented boat, which was later sorted with hot water (thanks Ken).

On day 4 the water was higher still and, as there was a logging road right down to the river, the decision was made to abandon the last leg and walk out to fetch the cars. Rob, Joe and Mark duly set off and within 3km's of the 30km walk Rob's shoe broke. This resulted in the use of ample duct tape, and some very swollen feet.

The trip was an all-round success with many fine stories to be told, and no major dramas.