[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:
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.
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