The Witwatersrand College for Advanced Technical Education chose a rugby team to play in the inter-college festival down in Durban-by-the-Sea and they didn’t choose me. I can only think the selectors hadn’t had their eyes tested.
So I had to choose myself and find my own way down so as to be able to add to the fun and laughter and educational and character-building value of such gatherings. And the imbibing contest, which was actually my forté, but – for some reason – they didn’t have a drinking span. Strange.
So we had to compete informally, yet enthusiastically. I spose because there were no officials officiating our match we lost sight of the time and forgot to arrange accommodation n stuff, so when it became very late we looked around and found we were in someone else’s hotel – the salubrious Killarney – and in someone else’s room, like Ray Schoombie’s the flyhalf of a less important span that was only playing rugby. We were trying to scrounge floor space to kip on.
Schoeman and the delightful Fotherby were 100% legal and official and legitimately (if you believe that Slim and Pru knew about this) had a room and so we made merry in it. Perhaps too much. Because suddenly someone marched in and very rudely demanded that we shurrup and also that we leave. I stepped forward to help this rude gentleman right upon which he – a man of few words – explained the situation to me by unleashing a mighty klap on my left eardrum, shattering the peace. I immediately understood what he was on about and agreed to leave the premises forthwith. The klap had blocked my ear but cleared my vision and I now could see he was large and dressed like Shaka Zulu and carried a shield and a knobkierie.
All the way down the stairs this burly and persuasive gent’s lips were moving but I couldn’t hear a word he said. I was deaf as a post.
He was like:
I was like:
Don’t worry, compassionate people, I found a place to sleep (as in the photo on top). The next day my empathetic “friends” were singing to me as mentioned above.
Unsympathetic shits. Luckily I couldn’t hear them.
1984 was one of the
very few years since 1960 that Colorado river water from the Grand
Canyon actually reached the sea. High snow melt pushed it past the
point where golf courses and old-age homes drain it of all its water
and so – at last! – the waters of the Colorado reached the beautiful
estuary at Baja California and flowed into the Sea of Cortez again!
Unknown to many, 1984 was also the ONLY year Mexicans would have been able to taste Mainstay cane spirits, distilled from South African sugar cane, mixed into that Colorado river water. Well, recycled Mainstay and river water, as the Mainstay that reached the sea had first passed through the kidneys of a mad bunch of South Africans that Chris Greeff had assembled to paddle through the famous American Canyon.
– Dave Jones’ place – Our host in Atlanta – He paddled for the USA – – See the SAA hooch we had decanted into 2litre bottles! –
That’s because we were on the river sponsored by Mainstay Cane Spirits and South African Airways. The ‘Mainstay’ we drank was actually an SAA Boeing 747’s supply of tot bottles of whisky, brandy, gin, vodka, rum – and Mainstay cane spirits. We decanted all the little bottles we could find into two two-litre plastic bottles to help the stewardesses on board with their end-of-Atlantic-crossing stock-take. We had resolved to drink the plane dry, but man, they carry a lot of hooch on those big babies. Maybe in case they end up with all 350 passengers happening to be as thirsty as paddlers are? Here we are in Atlanta with the loot. Note the Mainstay sticker on one bottle held by our host Dave Jones, a paddler himself. Paddled for the USA in K1, C1 and C2 wildwater, US national champ and also coached the USA team. So we were saddled with not one but TWO national paddling champs who are dentists and military men, like beer and do crazy things!
Personally I reckon mixing guns, boats and teeth with beer can only bring trouble . .
– Saffers busy ‘outfitting’ as the Yanks say –
From Atlanta we jetted on to Phoenix Arizona. There we hired another lang slap car and took a slow drive to Flagstaff where we got ‘outfitted’ with kit for the trip. Fifteen canoeists from South Africa joined our guide Cully Erdman and his delightful partner JoJo Suchowiejko on a trip down the Grand Canyon from Lee’s Ferry to the take-out on Lake Mead three hundred miles downstream. We were accompanied by one other paddler, an Argentine José Luis Fonrouge who was ticking off his bucket list, having climbed Everest. Five rubber inflatable rafts crewed by experienced canyon runners carried the food and the ‘Mainstay’ and hundreds of beers, plus a motley assortment of tag-along raft passengers from South Africa. Talking of motley: Us paddlers ranged from capable rough water paddlers to flatwater sprinters to happy trippers to complete novices. Some had Springbok colours, others had a lot of cheek.
Outfitting was also needed for supplies and Greeff put himself in charge of catering for the liquid refreshments. He was good at maths back in Parys se hoerskool so he did some sums: Seventeen kayakers plus some rafters times 12 days times 10 beers each is, lessee . . . OK, and then after breakfast we’ll need . . .
Apparently the yanks thought he’d grossly over-catered and they were worried about how they were going to carry the left-over beer out of the canyon at the end. That’s if the rafts stayed afloat. Well, ons sal sien . .
– ‘our’ five rafts with the beer – high water had shrunk this beach, but we stopped to walk up a side canyon –– our river guide Cully Erdman shows us how – he has done it before –– massive Redwall Cavern at mile 33 – pics National Geographic and oars.com – thanks! –– Herve, George & Jojo with her bikini ON –
Some twists in the tale:
My boyhood kayaking heroes had been the van Riet brothers, Willem and Roelof, who won the Dusi three times just as I was first learning about the race ca 1970. As I started to participate in the race in 1972 Graeme Pope-Ellis won the first of his eventual fifteen Dusi wins. Both Willem and Graeme were with us on this trip, along with other paddling legends I had met in my recent entry into the world of canoeing. Having ‘paddled lonely‘ from 1970 to 1982, I was now rubbing shoulders with legends!
– legends of paddling – and me – out of respect for them, I’m wearing longs –
Another twist: In the year I first saw the Colorado river after walking/running down the Bright Angel trail from the South Rim to the Colorado’s swiftly-flowing clear green water, 1973, Willem had launched a boat at Lee’s Ferry, done an eskimo roll and come up with ice in his hair, causing him to postpone his trip. Now he was back, eleven years later – in the summer! And so was I.
The trip was put together by yet another iconic paddler Chris Greeff, winner of more kayak races than I’d had breakfasts. One of the craziest races he won was the Arctic Canoe Race on the border between Finland and Sweden. About 500km of good pool and drop rapids in cold water. When he arrived at the start with his sleek flatwater racing kayak the other paddlers and the officials looked at their wider, slower, more stable canoes and thought ‘Ha! he intends portaging around all the rapids!’ They had heard of the Dusi and how mad South Africans run with kayaks on their heads, so they amended the rules: Every rapid avoided would incur a stiff time penalty. You portage, you pay! Chris grinned and agreed enthusiastically with their ruling: He was no Dusi runner and he had no intention of getting out of his boat!
Later: On the trip, our American kayak and raft guides kept asking us about the sponsors stickers we had attached to kayaks and rafts. SAA they understood, South African Airways; but what was this “Mainstay” stuff? Ooh! You’ll see! was all we’d say. At ___ rapid on Day __ around the camp fire we hauled out our two-litre bottles filled with a suspicious amber liquid. THIS we said, was that famous stuff!
Colorado Toekoe – Pre- and Post a shot of Mainstay –
The first thing about Mainstay, we told them, was its medicinal properties. Toekoe Egerton had turned blue from too much swimming, but after a slug of Mainstay he got his colour back as the ‘before and after’ pictures above clearly show.
As more Mainstay was swallowed, hilarity and a bit of insanity ensued. I have a picture frozen in my mind of Willem sprinting past me, running nimbly across the pontoons of a raft and launching himself in the darkness into the swift current of the Colorado running at 50 000 cfs shouting Yee-ha!! – A bit like this, but at night and in the summer:
– Willem could stay as he was for the rest of his life; But he chose to change to Mainstay – Mainstay –
IQ’s soared:
– George, Allie, Swys & Toekoe, full of Mainstay –– John Lee of Lee’s Ferry – a striking resemblance to our own John Lee – obviously separated at birth –
Besides this fortified and fortifying SAA loot, Greeff had also arranged for beers on the trip. John Lee tells the story:
I recall how our Yankee rafting crew were somewhat taken aback at the rather large drinks order they received prior to the departure from Lees Ferry! Despite the huge stocks, somewhere downstream in the depths of the Grand Canyon, to their utter disbelief, the only liquid left was the raging Colorado River. Stocks had run dry .
There were some thirsty, desperate river runners in camp. We were way upstream from the next available beer at Phantom Ranch’s shop.
Desperate times call for desperate measures …….
Some of us (hello Felix!) resorted to performing like trained seals, executing dashing eskimo rolls for passing J-Rigs, and being rewarded with frosties for our efforts!
One Captain (PF) Christiaan Lodewikus Greeff called quietly for volunteers, and assembled a raiding party – could also call them ‘SEALs’, one was a parabat – to address the situation. This unbeknown to our unsuspecting, law-abiding river crew.
In the dead of night, wearing beanies, faces blackened, they slid silently into the icy waters of the flooded Colorado River and headed into an upstream eddy towards the distant sounds of happy laughter from a neighbouring campsite.
Reaching tethered rafts, they found the holy Grand Canyon grail . . . multiple nets strung from the rafts, laden with tins of sunset amber liquid.
Their return to our camp was triumphant.
I cannot recall the composition of that courageous group. Suffice it to say, that I am certain that it included one Lieutenant-Colonel A Gordon-Peter (SAB with bar).
The reaction of our guides, later, was somewhat different!
Mules heavily laden with liquor were later cajoled down the treacherous track from Phantom Ranch, and our evenings were once again fueled with fun, laughter and Willie’s moerse yarns!
In closing, who will ever forget that wonderful mirage in the middle of the shimmering Lake Mead – a very naked, very tall and statuesque blonde River Goddess on a drifting raft … … or was it ?
– some of our wonderful American rafters – law-abiding folk – – lawyer lee ponders –
Well, I dunno – but there was at least one naked lady that I do know of: JoJo posed butt naked for a stealthily-taken pic on George’s camera. What a sport, she removed her bikini top and bottom for the gentlemen doing research on just how much trouble George would get into with his wife back home.
Lee plans his arguments for the court cases sure to follow: YaRonna! These were just Merry Pranksters, M’Lord . . .
– Felix – looking semi-naked – caught trout in the Little Colorado –– Foreground and background: Muddy and warm water of the Little Colorado. In the middle: Clear cold Colorado water from deep down in Lake Powell. Ryan practices the roll that didn’t work in Lava Falls a few days later –
At the confluence of the Colorado and the Little Colorado the Little was flooding and massively silt-laden. We stopped on a skinny sandbank and had mud fights and mud rolls. The muddy water from the flooding Little Colorado was so thick that the two trout Felix Unite caught thanked him for rescuing them!
It merged here with the clear water coming out of Lake Powell – seen behind Felix – and from here on we had traditionally red-coloured water – ‘colorado.’
Just downstream of the confluence I got sucked under by a big whirlpool that formed under my boat that I couldn’t escape. As I went down I set up to roll but stayed down until I thought ‘I’m outa here’ as I was now loose in the cockpit and my splashie had leaked. So I bailed. Up on the surface the guys told a more dramatic tale: ‘Swanie! You disappeared for AGES! Then your boat popped up; Then your paddle popped up; And still there was no you! Then at last you popped up!’ So then they started calling me Pete Whirlpool. Lots of that muddy water stayed up my snout and I had a few bad sinus headaches but Wendy – Dave Walker’s connection – very kindly stepped in and saved my butt with strong painkillers and nightly TLC. Back in Durban a month later I was rushed into theatre by another very kind lady, my boss at Addington Hospital, ophthalmology professor Anne Peters. She took me to her ENT friend for an emergency sinus washout! As Saffeffricans say ‘Ah neely dahd!’ Some Little Colorado River mud was washed down Durban’s St Augustine Hospital’s outlet pipes into the Indian Ocean that day. Probly also had a smattering of Mainstay in it.
– lunch on a small sandbank – five rafts, seventeen kayaks squeeze on – the water level was up – – seated among legends as I was, I wore my langbroek out of respect – Graeme & Wendy Pope-Ellis; Wendy Walwyn; John Lee; Cully Erdman; Me; Willem van Riet; Jannie Claassens; Herve de Rauville in red cap – – Expedition Leader Greeff bombs through – – Me in Crystal rapid –
Hikes up the side-canyons:
– Thunder River Falls up a side canyon. Canyon lore has it that the ‘river’ flows into a ‘creek’ which flows into the Colorado River –– splendid desert scenery; and always the river’s presence below – – council of elder map readers – see my map at the end of this post –
Map reading: I had a lovely large-scale map of the river through the canyon showing all the rapids. We would pore over it, going over the day and plotting our tomorrow. Here Jannie Claassens stands left, Swys du Plessis is prominent in red shorts, I am just visible behind him, Dave Walker wears a cap, Willem van Riet sports a ducktail probly cos of his last swim, Herve de Rauville kneels like a good Catholic, Allie Peter lying down in the background cursing his shoulder, Chris Greeff in the Mainstay cap ponders his next move, Bernie The Jet Garcin has a beer in his hand and a sock in his speedo, Wendy Walwyn is planning her first eskimo roll soon, and Cully Erdman in blue shorts thinks ‘Wwho ARE these okes? and where was that huge rapid Willem is talking about!?’
– internet pic – river at a lower level –– Bernie Garcin – great mate; – – and WHAT a campsite! – nice paddle, too –
Happy daze drifting in the current, lying back gazing up at the cliffs and watching the waterline as century after millenium of geological lines rose up out of the water and each day rose higher and higher above us. Willem the geologist would explain some of it to us. The latest view seems to be that the river is around six million years old, and it has exposed rocks up to two billion years old as it carves downwards, aided also by wind erosion.
– at 50 000cfs, Vulcan’s Anvil, one mile above Lava, was covered up to where the dark grey meets the brown –
Then every so often you would sit up and listen intently. Then peer ahead with a stretched neck and drift in a quickening current as the roar of the next rapid grew in the canyon air. The river was running at an estimated high of 50 000cfs – that’s about 1650 cumecs, big water. 1984 was a high year. Once you could see where the rapid was, you pulled over and got out to scout it and plot your way through it. It was no use asking Greeff. His stock answer was ‘Down The Middle!’
– Lava Falls –
For days before Lava, the bullshit build-up built up: ‘Rain? That’s not rain! That’s the mist from LAVA FALLS!’
Arriving at Lava we hopped out and checked it out, butterflies no longer flying in formation. After scouting carefully most of us went left; a few went right. One – Ryan – went snorkeling straight into the big hole and got chomped, rinsed and spat out. His blue helmet can be seen in the picture if you have a magnifying glass.
– Lava Falls – there’s a paddler there somewhere –– an all-girl team gets coached down Lava Falls –
And then typical ladies: As we strutted and boasted of derring-do, they quietly commandeered one of the rafts and rowed it ladies-only down Lava! They took one yank with them, just to show him they could . .
– Team Mainstay SAA from South Africa; At the usual take-out before Lake Mead –
At the usual take-out at Diamond Creek before Lake Mead, we stopped for a rest and some team photos. The high water had washed away the road. We had to keep going. Some miles later we hit the dead waters of Lake Mead. The river ran out of push, tamed by a damn dam. Paddling was over for most of us! We piled our kayaks onto the rafts and lay on them – there were still a few beers that needed polishing. Our five-raft flotilla was tugged out by a motorboat to another take-out point, Pearce Ferry on Lake Mead miles downstream.
– final take-out on the lake at Pearce Ferry – the river bottom right, flowing right to left into the lake –
Downstream? Except of course there was now no longer any ‘stream’ – we were on flat water. Greeff and a few other crazies – including Wendy Walwyn – you know, the types who weren’t issued with handbrakes, brains or limits, paddled the whole flat water way! Holy shit! I drank beer lying on a raft, gazing at the blue Arizona sky.
Too soon, it was over.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Drifting downstream, Dave Walker led the singing:
The canyon burro is a mournful bloke He very seldom gets a poke But when he DOES . . . He . LETS . it soak As he revels in the joys of forni- CA-TION!
and (to the tune of He Ain’t Heavy):
Hy’s nie Swaar nie
Hy’s my Swaer . a . a . aer
~~~oo0oo~~~
We went down the Canyon twice
I always say we did the Canyon twice. Once we would bomb down in our kayaks, crashing through the exhilarating big water; The second time was much hairier, with bigger rapids, higher water and far more danger: That was around the campfire at night when Willem would regale us with tales of his day on the water. ‘Raconteur’ is too mild a word! The word ‘MOERSE’ featured prominently in his epic tales and his long arm would be held high to show you where the crest of the wave sat. And this from a man who bombed ‘blind’ down the Cunene River in 1963.
~~~oo0oo~~~
When? I wanted to know when exactly we were on the water to look up the flow on those days, but no-one knew. Now! Aha! I found an old letter (or Sheila did) written just before we flew to Arizona). I think we paddled – near as dammit – from 18 to 30 July 1984.
– Monday? 16 July in 1984 was a Monday –
Postscript: While we were paddling Chris spoke of attempting to beat the record for the fastest non-stop descent of the Canyon – the 277 mile stretch we had just done from Lee’s Ferry to our eventual take-out at Pearce Ferry.
– The Dory ‘Emerald Mile’ – our 12-day trip in 36 hours non-stop – no thanks –
Only
a handful of boaters have been crazy enough to undertake such a
mission. After all, doing it non-stop means having to shoot Lava
Falls at night! The Riggs brothers made what could be considered the
first speed run in 1951 when they rowed a cataract-style wooden boat
through the canyon in 53 hours; Fletcher Anderson, a pioneering
Southwestern boater, made a 49-hour solo kayak descent in the late
1970s; and then in 1983, just a year before our leisure trip, Kenton
Grua, Rudi Petschek, and Steve Reynolds completed a now-legendary run
on a flood of 70,000 cfs in a wooden dory named the Emerald Mile.
Their record of 36 hours and 38 minutes was the time to beat.
– Ben Orkin – saw little of the canyon –
Nothing came of it – it would have been a very expensive undertaking from South Africa for an obscure record only the small expedition rafting and kayaking fraternity would have known of; and anyway, why do it? But the record is ever-present in some people’s minds. In January 2016 the record was beaten twice. First by ‘Team Beer’: Ben Luck, Matt and Nate Klemas and Ryan Casey in three Piranha Speeders and a Perception Wavehopper, boats much like the ones we used. Then three days later by Ben Orkin, paddling solo in a composite Epic 18X sea kayak, a boat lighter than the models Team Beer had used and with a metre longer waterline. He reduced the time to 34 hours and 2 minutes. The Emerald Mile’s record, which had stood for over three decades, had been broken twice in three days.
I do (sort of) understand the quest for records (sort of), humans always will go for fastest; but for me,
. . floating down in awesome wonder is really the way to do it.
Before the river became crowded and the park service slapped restrictions on trip lengths, private boatmen in the ’70s vied at ‘slow-boating’, or making a trip last as long as possible. The crowning glory of slow-boating has gone down in river history as the Hundred Day Trip. Legendary boatman Regan Dale and his extended family floated away from Lees Ferry and spent a whopping 103 days in the canyon. They hiked every side canyon, spent as long as a week in favorite camps like Nankoweap and Granite Park, baked their own bread and wallowed in the vast silence of stone cathedrals broken only by the rustle of the river. The moon waxed and waned three times while they were there. It was roughly as long as the very first trip down the canyon led by John Wesley Powell in 1869, over a hundred years earlier – and 150 years ago now; and this over 300 miles whereas Powell had done 1000 miles. So the Regan Dale trip really was the slowboating trip supreme. I wonder if there will ever be trips like that again.
Later: A letter from Cully and JoJo – “do come again!” and “boknaai!”
John Lee wrote:
…running Crystal Creek down the left , Lava down the right was all complete childs play when compared to what felix , Cully and Bridgette put me through at Havasu Falls .
The four of us did that looooong hike up that pristine side canyon .
When we reached the aquamarine coloured waters below the falls , the travertine rimmed pools below , I immediately saw the photo-opp.
I had them climb to the rock above the falls from which they launched themselves , simultaneously and spectacularly , into space and fell about forty to fifty foot into the waters below .
Magnificent photos it turned out a long time later …….
It took them about half an hour to talk me , in turn , off that ledge .
That is by far the single most courageous thing I’ve done to date !
My fear of heights is a raging mental all-encompassing melt down …..
Still don’t know how I did it .
Then …..there was the Rattler I very nearly stood on, on the way back …..
Felix Unite wrote:
What memories! For me that GC trip remains one of my life’s highlights/milestones!
Location, action and memories of great friendship and camaraderie – not to mention how much I kakked myself!!!
Thank you all.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Chris Greeff wrote in May 2018:
R.I.P Herve de Rauville, Graeme Pope-Ellis, Swys du Plessis, Johan Claassen and Arthur Egerton ! – Also R.I.P Jose Luis Fonrouge
~~~oo0oo~~~
Our quiet, laid-back fellow kayaker from Argentina
Jose Luis Fonrouge had climbed Mt Everest, we heard. He had done much more:
Fitz Roy: First Alpine Style New Route
By Marcelo Eduardo Espejo
January 16, 1965 two climbers accomplished what is still today considered as one of the most remarkable climbs on the Patagonian spires. Jose Luis Fonrouge and Carlos Comesana reached the summit of Fitz Roy for the second time in history.
They had climbed the virgin super-couloir known as the Supercanaleta. For summit proof, they retrieved a carabiner left there by the 1952’s French expedition and left an Argentinean flag in its place. See route 18 below.
January 14, they went for the Supercanaleta. It took them only three days to summit and climb back in alpine style, fixing 20 pitches on the way. This was a big difference compared to the French expedition, the only ones who had summited Fitzroy before. The French team, led by the European climbing legend Lionel Terray, worked the route for a month and aid-climbed most of the wall to get to the top.
Carlos Comesaña and Jose Fonrouge went on to other amazing climbs – the Poincenot spire, Aconcagua’s South face, Torres del Paine, South face of Cerro Catedral and climbs in the Antarctic Peninsula. In 2001, the saga ended when Jose died in a plane crash.
Journalist and mountaineer Toncek Arko, from Bariloche, said that “Fonrouge animated the last romantic period of Andean Andeanism, when Patagonia was still unexplored and most of the mountains unclimbed.” “Argentina had to wait two decades before other Argentine mountaineers repeated the memorable climbs of José Luis,” said Arko. He recalled that Fonrouge began climbing in Bariloche, when he arrived as part of a group of young backpackers.
Fonrouge also reached the top of Aconcagua (6,989) through the complicated South Wall and in 1971, Fonrouge participated in the second Argentine expedition to Everest.
..
Happiness, always close to danger. At the beginning of the eighties, he saw on television two English climbers descending in a kayak down the Dudkhosi river, which comes down from Everest, and began with this white-water activity, along the Limay, the Traful rivers, El Manso or El Atuel. So at the age of forty he began kayaking, an activity that he developed for seven years and then returned to the mountain, through the production of television programs and documentaries. Together with the journalist Germán Sopeña and the businessman Agostino Rocca, his fellow travelers, he tirelessly toured our Patagonia and the most remote places in the world. This vast trajectory earned him the appointment as director of National Parks, a role he had held for a little more than one month.
His life was always in contact with nature: near the mountain, as a mountaineer, and on his kayak he crossed the most turbulent rivers in the country: “I find parallelism between both activities”, he mentioned on several occasions. “I consider myself a self-taught person,” said Fonrouge, for whom nature was a mystery to be unveiled, which would only be ajar for some and gave them a moment, a state of grace. “That state was given to me when I reached the summit of del Fitz Roy, it is a combination of happiness and extreme danger (…) Yes, I find my balance with the Universe in nature,” he stated years ago in a report. In November 1999 Fonrouge presented his first and only mountain book in Buenos Aires, entitled “Vertical horizons in Patagonia”, in which he recounted his Andean ascents during the fifties and sixties.
..
April 2001 – Shock caused by tragedy: Ten dead in a plane crash: All the passengers lost their lives when the plane in which they were traveling fell over a flooded field, in Roque Pérez, province of Buenos Aires.
The businessman Agostino Rocca, president of the Techint company, the General Secretary of the newspaper La Nación, Germán Sopeña, the director of National Parks José Luis Fonrouge and seven other people died yesterday when the private plane in which they were traveling over a field fell. flooded the town of Roque Pérez. The tragic accident that shocked the entire country occurred at 6.15 am when the Cessna 208 Caravan, registration LV-WSC, with nine passengers and a pilot, crashed on the “El socorro” ranch , in the Tronconi area, about 17 kilometers from Roque Pérez, near Route 205.
..
The death of José Luis Fonrouge, who died in the plane crash registered in Roque Pérez, where his wife and daughter also died, is mourned by the entire mountaineering community of Argentina, which still remembers among the exploits of the mountaineer when in 1965 he reached the summit of Fitz Roy. Born in 1942, Jose Luis Fonrouge was married to María Elena Tezanos Pinto and had three children.
~~~oo0oo~~~
– Jose (foreground) chills after another day paddling with us in 1984 –
In 1968 some climbers shot a movie in Yosemite on climbing El Capitan. They needed another climber. Tompkins suggested Argentine alpinist Jose Luis Fonrouge, who was staying with him and climbing in Yosemite that spring. Although Fonrouge was just twenty-six, three years earlier he’d made the second ascent of Fitz Roy—putting up a new route, alpinestyle, on that fearsome peak. (Fonrouge died in 2001.) When they filmed a screen test of Fonrouge climbing, the rest of the team was unimpressed. “Colliver and McCracken refused to climb with Fonrouge,” says Padula. “They thought he was too cavalier.” “I liked that Fonrouge was from a different place,” adds Tompkins. “It would put some spice into the film. But it didn’t work. He didn’t talk much.” (Sounds like our Jose! Of the few words he spoke in the Canyon, these I remember: He had flipped in Lava and semi-rolled up three times while we watched. I asked him about it and he said, roughly, ‘Every time I looked up it looked crazy, so I thought I’d just stay upside down – it was more peaceful underneath.’)
~~~oo0oo~~~
Old-Fashioned Photo Album
Pics from my photo album – copied and now discarded:
That Map
And here’s my famous map that was such a boon on the trip. Fifteen pages each 30cm long, the map was 4,5m long all told. Lots of detail. Which I then added to!
Sundry reports in the SA press afterwards
(all uploaded here as the hardcopies are being tossed)
I was going to ski – we would have called it snow ski! – for the first time in my life. Wolf Creek Pass in the San Juan mountains in Colorado. We’d be catching a bus from Oklahoma, driving there and staying at the lodge. Jim Patterson was taking me on a host-Dad and Son special treat. It was 1973, and in the previous summer he and Katie had taken friend Dottie Moffett and I on a steam train ride nearby – the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge railroad.
My pic of the Animas River out the train window:
That was a glorious summer. But now we were going in winter:
As the day approached we watched the snow reports with bated breath. Nothing. No snow. The day before we were to leave the bad news came: Trip cancelled.
True to form Jim looked on the bright side – he always did! – and invited me to join him in drowning our sorrows as he opened up the big heb cooler full of Coors beer he had packed for the trip! Jim always put a good spin on everything!
I would have to wait fifteen years till 1988 before my first snow skiing – in Austria.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Also, another new sport I had started but wouldn’t really get into for another nine years, took place on the Colorado rivers next to that railway line: White-water kayaking:
In 1971 I decided I wanted to do the Dusi. Charlie Ryder (who gave me his boat, a fibreglass Limfy K1 with nylon deck and his left-feather paddle) told me it was tough, I’d better train.
So I did. Every morning a few of us (Louis Wessels, Tuffy, Leon Crawley, who else?) got up at 5am, cycled a mile to the boys hostel and then ran the X-country course. About 3km up a hill past the jail, across, down through a donga/stream bed and back. Probably a 20 minute run. After school I would cycle to the mighty Vulgar River and paddle Charles’ boat (which I left “hidden” under a willow tree) for about a km or two. The cycle back home was uphill.
I’m not even sure I told anyone I was I was aiming to paddle the Dusi! I must have, surely? They knew about the boat anyway.
I have never been as fit in my life, before or since. Running I felt like I could fly. I would run hard, then even harder and still think “I could just carry on like this!”
Today I re-read Graeme Pope-Ellis’ book. The part about his training in 1971.
He ran at 4.30 am for two to two-and-a-half hours; He ran hard. In the afternoon he paddled for two to two-and-a-half hours; He paddled hard. Plus he did half an hour of hard, targeted gym work.
My total training was an hour a day and only parts of the running was done hard. The cycling and paddling were leisurely. To this day, I chant, No pain; No pain!
I didn’t have a clue what “train hard” meant! Talk about chalk and cheese! Quite an eye-opener.
I didn’t do that race in 1972. My boat was stolen shortly before – around New Year. I hitch-hiked to the race and followed it down through the Dusi and Umgeni valleys (with friend Jean Roux), sleeping in the open and bumming rides with paddlers’ seconds. Graeme won the race. His first win. He went on to win it 15 times.
Later I got to know Graeme and many of the guys who dedicated their lives to winning the Dusi. They trained like demons. Some of them did beat Graeme. Occasionally. But usually Graeme did the winning.
Me, I became a tripper! One of the trips was with Graeme and other fast paddlers who geared down and bumbled down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in leisurely fashion. My style!
~~~oo0oo~~~
In my first Dusi in 1983 I politely waited for the okes in a hurry to move on over the flat water in Alexander Park and when I go to the weir I paused to tie a shoelace. Jerome Truran (world-class whitewater paddler) was spectating that year. He spotted me and said “Hey Swanie, you do realise this is a race, right?”
It was the Eastern Free State athletics championships, and we were three kranige athletes, in our prime. Well, so far . . we would get better at some things as time went on.
Here’s the line-up!! It was 1970:
In the triple jump we had Steph de Witt, matric. Long legs, big springs. In with a chance of a medal. The driesprong.
In the pole vault we had Richter Hoender Kok, Std 9. Feisty competitor, but probably not a contender as his short aluminium pole looks ancient and stiff next to the long, whippy fibreglass poles the boys from Bethlehem Voortrekker school are sporting. Fullback for the rugby team, he was nicknamed “HO Ender” after HO de Villiers, the Springbok fullback (hoender, geddit?). The paalspring.
In the javelin we had Me, Std 8. New to javelin, just discovered it that year and loved it. Unknown factor, only frown wif a spear once before – at the recent Harrismith Hoerskool Atletiekbyeenkoms, where I had won the Victor Ludorum very unexpectedly. The spiesgooi.
The school bus was naturally available for us to get to the metropolis of Senekal. That was the usual and expected way, so we naturally declined, Steph organising that we drove ourselves to Senekal in Gerrie Pretorius’ white Ford Corsair. Actually we weren’t licenced – to drink OR drive – so one of the guys who worked for his Mom Alet at JN de Witt Hardware drove us. I dunno why I think his name was Charl. Maybe it was Charl.
Accompanying us was Larry Wingert, Rotary exchange student from Cobleskill New York and keen athletic spectator. That day.
The white Ford Corsair’s engine roared off in the pre-dawn heading west, the rising sun behind us, to Senekal, city of song and laughter – and horror.Tiekiedraai songs, probly. As we pulled in to the dusty dorp Steph had our chauffeur pull over outside likely the only cafe in town, where he asked the Greek owner, who became his mate in two seconds flat – Steph is like that – if he’d please keep our beers. ‘MY FRIEN’! Of course I keep your beers cold for you!’ Stuck them under the eskimo pies, he did.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention: Steph’s gardener had procured a sixpack of Black Label Mansize cans for us from Randolph Stiller’s Central Hotel offsales, Mom & Dad losing the sale at Platberg bottle store because of their unreasonable “No under 18’s” policy. Also known as “the law.”
Now at this juncture, please don’t come with any stimulant or performance-enhancing accusations. Let it be noted that we did not partake in our stimulants until AFTER the athletic meeting was over. During the competition we were clean, nê? And anyway those mansize cans were only conversation stimulants and personality enhancers.
Let the games begin!
Steph’s event was first and we watched, moedig’d him aan and coached him. He won the driesprong! We had an event Gold Medal in the Corsair! The beer was legitimised: It was celebratory! True it was only a paper certificate, but it said Eerste Plek and to us that = Gold Medal 🏅
A long gap followed before my event after lunch. It didn’t look too good and I was languishing, but then I didn’t have any expectations. My last throw came and the whole thing is etched in my memory. I can still today feel the quickening run, the cross-step, the full-strength launch, the perfect flight of me – and of the javelin – and my landing, right spiked foot digging in one inch behind the wavy, hand-drawn white-wash line on the grass and having to push back to not lurch over it and get disqualified. I just knew it was perfection and it flew on and on, second stage booster firing halfway, soaring past all the markers of the langgatte from Voortrekker in Bethlehem and pegging perfectly. The word ‘exocet‘ flashed across my chuffed brain. Another Gold Medal 🏅 for the Corsair! Spiesgooi. This one out of the blue, even though the skies were grey (which significant fact would come into play later that day).
Hoender’s event was last and we went to cheer. It didn’t look good. One short stiff aluminium pole vs a bunch of long whippy fibreglass poles seemed unfair. He was offered the use of a newfangled pole but he declined. They take some getting used to.
Then it started to drizzle. The grey sky got wet. Suddenly everything changed! The langgatte with the whippy poles started floundering and slipping. Hoender soldiered on. It made no difference to him what the weather was like. On the last height there were two competitors left. Whippy pole slipped and gly’d and got nowhere. Hoender went over to a roar of applause from all four of us. He’d won! Our third Gold Medal 🏅 ! Paalspring. A clean sweep! The orange vest trifecta!
– Eerste Plek – – Eerste Plek – – Eerste Plek –
The music from Chariots of Fire swelled over the once dusty, now damp, dorp, rising to a crescendo. Sure, the movie was 1981 and this was 1970, but WE HEARD IT.
We hastened straight to the white Corsair, parked in the drizzle under the nearby bluegum trees, skipping the official podium pomp for Hoender.
– Senekal under-bloekom parking looked much like this –
We had our own unofficial celebration waiting. Off to the cafe to rescue the beer from under the eskimo pies and away we went “with the windshield wipers slappin’ time, n Larry clappin’ hands!” We roared off in the twilight, heading east, the setting sun behind us, slightly pickled after glugging the 450ml of contraband nectar, conversations stimulated and personalities enhanced.
– with the windshield wipers slappin’ time, n Larry clappin’ hands”! –– our HS Hoerskool pavement star –
AND: We got our name up in lights and our handprints pressed in to concrete next to a big star on the pavement.
Well, the Harrismith Hoerskool equivalent: On the Monday morning we were mentioned in dispatches by Johan Steyl at assembly in the skoolsaal. He sounded rather amazed, but was generous in his praise, tempered by a mention that we hadn’t taken the bus, as we should have. Right . .
~~oo0oo~~
kranige – excellent; and handsome
hoender – his nickname; he looked a bit like a scrawny old rooster, I guess?
Harrismith Hoerskool Atletiekbyeenkoms – renowned school athletics meet, widely known in the district, like . . famous
tiekiedraai – Like, lame dancing that adults approve of; you were allowed to tiekiedraai, so who would want to?
nê? – y’unnerstand?
moedig’d him aan – told him ‘C’mon, Move Your Arse! JUMP!’ Also coached him by saying the same thing
driesprong – triple jump; hop, skip, n jump
langgatte – long arses, tall chaps; the opposition is always way larger than ‘us.’ Probly also older.
spiesgooi – spear chuck, javelin; Seems all that practice frowing fings wif a stone of my youth translated well into frowing wif a spear.
gly’d – slipped
paalspring – pole vault; see how we pole-vaulted in the tough old days, with stiff poles and the ground ploughed over and a sprinkling of wood shavings and sawdust to act as a “soft” landing;
skoolsaal – hall where you assembled; often to receive criticism
HO de Villiers – Henry Oswald de Villiers (1945-2022) “HO – Aitch Oh” played 14 Tests and 15 tour matches for South Africa. Made his Springbok debut against France in Durban in 1967 and scored four conversions and a penalty as the Boks won 26-3. His last international was in 1970 in the drawn Test against Wales in Cardiff. He also represented UCT and Villagers at club level, and played in the blue and white hoops of Western Province from 1965 to 1975. HO revolutionised fullback play at the time with his counter attacks.
~~oo0oo~~
Years later a nocturnalvisit to Senekalinvolving beer would not be as much fun; more dark hillbilly horror than daylight athletic fun!
I canoed the Vrystaat Vlaktes thanks to Charles Ryder, who arrived with Jenny in Harrismith – about 1968 or ’69 I’d guess – to start his electrical business, a rooinek from Natal. He roared into town in a light green Volvo 122S with a long white fibreglass thing on top of it like this:
I asked:
What’s that? It’s a canoe
What’s a canoe? You do the Dusi in it
What’s the Dusi?
Well, Charles now knew he was deep behind the boerewors curtain! He patiently made me wiser and got me going and I got really excited the more I learned. I decided I just HAD TO do the Dusi. What could be more exciting than paddling your own canoe 120km over three days from Pietermaritzburg to the sparkling blue Indian Ocean at the Blue Lagoon in Durban? Charles made it sound like the best, most adventurous thing you could possibly think of. He showed me how to paddle and was so generous with his time. Both in paddling and with Harrismith’s first Boy Scouts troop, which he helped establish.
I started running in the early mornings before school with a gang of friends. Tuffy Joubert, Louis Wessels, Fluffy Crawley, who else? We called ourselves the mossies as we got up at sparrow’s fart. Then I would cycle about two miles to the park in the afternoons and paddle on the flat water of the mighty Vulgar River in Charles’ Limfjorden, or Limfy, canoe, which he had kindly lent me/given to me. That was in 1971 and it was the fittest I’ve ever been, before or since.
Overnight I would leave it on the bank tethered to a weeping willow down there. One day around Christmas time with only a couple of weeks to go before Dusi I got there and it was missing. I searched high and low, to no avail. So I missed doing the Dusi. Not that I had done anything but train for it – I hadn’t entered, didn’t know where to, didn’t belong to a club, didn’t have a lift to the race, no seconds, nothing! Still enthused, though, I persuaded my mate Jean Roux to join me in hitch-hiking to the race.
1972 Dusi: We got to Pietermaritzburg and the next morning to the start in Alexander Par PMB. Milling around among the competitors and their helpers, we watched the start and as the last boats paddled off downstream Alexandra Park started emptying, everyone seemed in a big hurry to leave. We asked Wassup? and someone said, We’re Following Our Paddler! so we bummed a lift with some paddler’s seconds to the overnight stop at Dusi Bridge. We slept under the stars and cadged supper from all those friendly people. They let us continue with them the next day to the second overnight stop at Dip Tank and on the third and last day to the sea, the estuary at Blue Lagoon, following the race along the way.
Back in Harriesvlei I continued the search for my missing kayak and found a bottle floating in the Kak Spruit, a little tributary that flows down from Platberg and enters the river downstream of the weir. It had a string attached to it. I pulled that up and slowly raised the boat – now painted black and blue, but clearly identifiable as I had completely rebuilt it after breaking it in half in a rapid in the valley between Swinburne and Harrismith. Come to remember, that’s why Charles gave it to me! I knew every inch of that boat: the kink in the repaired hull, the repaired cockpit, the wooden gunwales, brass screws, shaped wooden cross members, long wooden stringer, shaped wooden uprights from the cross members vertically up to the stringer, the white nylon deck, genkem glue to stick the deck onto the hull before screwing on the gunwales, the brass carrying handles, aluminium rudder and mechanism, steel cables, the lot. In great detail.
1976 Duzi – In 1976 I entered the race and convinced a friend at College Louis van Reenen to join me. He had asked ‘What’s that?’ when he saw my Limfy on my grey and grey 1965 Opel Concorde in Doornfontein, and ‘What’s that?’ when I said ‘The Dusi,’ so he was ripe for convincing. Later in the holidays he bought a red Hai white-water boat with a closed cockpit from Neville Truran and paddled it once or twice on Emmerentia Dam. In those days that sort-of qualified you for Dusi! Then he loaded it up on his light blue VW Beetle and drove down from Jo’burg to meet me in Harrismith. Only one of us could paddle, the other had to drive as the ‘second’ taking food and kit to the overnight stops. So we tossed a coin. I lost, and so we headed for Alexandra Park in PMB with the red Hai on the roofrack. A great pity for me, as I had done a lot of canoeing, also in flood-level rivers, and had broken two boats in half and repaired one, getting it going again in time for the 1972 Dusi as related above. But – a coin toss is a coin toss. For Louis, the coin toss won him first-ever trip down a river. And what a river!
In that 1976 flood-level high water Louis swam his first Dusi!
He swam and he swam and he drank half the water, lowering the level somewhat, but not enough, as it continued raining and filled up faster than he could drink it down. Evenings he had to hang his bum out the tent door, wracked with ‘Dusi Guts’, but he rinsed and repeated the performance three days in a row and finished the marathon. He was a tough character, Louis!
I drove that pale blue VW in the thick mud of the Valley of a Thousand Hills. Us seconds took turns getting stuck and helping each other out. In places there was a queue of dozens of cars, but one-by-one we’d give each car a shove and we all got through.
Here’s Louis at Blue Lagoon finishing that epic Duzi!
Here’s my orange pup tent and Louis’ red Hai and blue VW at Blue Lagoon after the race, wind howling:
Waiting for Louis van Reenen, probably floating in the swollen Umgeni next to his Hai!
1983 Duzi – It was only in 1982 that I eventually got round to paddling again – and then in 1983 I finally did my first Dusi. On a low river:
first overnight stopstart last day
1983 Umko:
1983 Berg:
Berg RiverBerg River Canoe Marathon 1983
1983 Fish:
a more recent ‘Fish’
and the Lowveld Croc:
– a more recent ‘Croc’ –
All in quick succession, and all at my not-furious pace, staring at the scenery, which was good practice for kayaking the Colorado through the Grand Canyon in 1984.
– Colorado River 1984; Crystal rapid –
When I got back from America I thought I must get hold of Charles and tell him what his enthusiasm had led to.
But I didn’t do it then – procrastination – and then I was too late. His heart had attacked him, he was no more. Thank you Charlie Ryder. You changed my life. Enhanced it. Wish I had told you.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Years later good friend Harry Pikkie Loots forwarded this post to Charlie’s son Bradley. I hope Jenny also got to see it.
Some freezing nights I recall. Funny thing is, most hold such good memories!
– At home some nights at 95 Stuart Street, getting in between cold sheets in a cold room; Harrismith Free State in winter! In the ’60’s
– On the Wilge riverbank with Claudio – sharing a wet sleeping bag after one swim too many on an overnight canoe voyage from Swinburne to Harrismith; ca.1970
– Above Oliviershoek Pass, under some wattle trees on a stream bank – sleeping bags on the ground, no tent – on Jack Shannon’s farm Kindrochart with Pierre and his cousin Kevin, fresh from Durban. In mid-winter in the July holidays. We rode there on our bicycles – about 19 miles. Kevin thought he was gonna freeze-die; To be fair, Durban is sub-tropical and Kevin’s thighs were not made for long bike rides! We woke up to find the top of our sleeping bags frozen – the dew had turned to ice. ca.1968
– With Tuffy and Fluffy in Bloem in an empty school hostel (Jim Fouche se Hoer Skool?); No bedding, huddled under our school blazers. ca.1970. Apparently Daan Smuts had forgotten to arrange accommodation. But who cared! He had NOT forgotten to arrange a coupla beers for us first – which made us late for whatever accommodation may have been arranged by other, more boring, teachers. That’s how I remember it anyway!
– On the Berg River Canoe Marathon in the Cape. July, mid-winter in a winter rainfall area! Rain sweeping in horizontally on the freezing cold gale-force wind. The night before the race we were given a shed to sleep in and reminded to bring mattresses. I managed to burst my new blow-up mattress and so had a freezing night on cold concrete. That second day, the shortest of four, was the longest day of my life; and the coldest I have ever been. EVER! The first fatality ever in a canoe race in SA happened that day. Novice Berg paddler Gerrie Rossouw died. The third and fourth days warmed up, thank goodness; ca.1983
With Aitch in the kombi in the Kalahari Gemsbok Park. Like sleeping in a refrigerator. The lions knew to wait till the sun was up before getting it on; ca.1996
– Silver fox, Kalahari Gemsbok Park –
With Aitch on Sheila’s expedition up Mt aux Sources. Sheila insisted we camp right in the open, exposed to a freezing gale with our tents leaning at 45º and rolling away if they weren’t weighted down. Pegs didn’t help. The reason Sheila wanted us just there became clear at sunrise; ca.1996
– not warm –
Another cold night on Mt aux Sources with Larry Pierre and Tuffy ca.1970, where we were joined in the hut after dark by two guys who had got a bit ratty with each other on the walk in the dark. They argued about the beef stroganoff and whether the wine was being ‘frozen instead of chilled’ where it was outside in a bank of snow; that set us off into gales of laughter and mocking. When they eventually shut up and settled down for the night Larry started off with ‘100 bottles of beer on the wall‘ and we sang that very annoyingly for way too long. Hopefully they were more cross with us than with each other in the end?
With Aitch on Nyika Plateau in Malawi 10 000ft asl – but then we dragged our mattress to the lounge and got a roaring log fire going using felled timber from the pine plantation that was being cleared! So that night only counts before the fire got going; ca.1993
– cozy after a while –– romantic dinner for two – in luxury accommodation –
Down the Mighty Vulgar River (Wilge really) in a borrowed canoe ca 1970. An Accord double kayak borrowed from the ‘Voortrekkers’ – Afrikaner Propaganda Volks Brainwashing Outfit – thanks to Ou Lip’s kindness. He had a good heart, Ou Lip Snyman, and I’m sure he thought he looked dashing in his Voortrekkerleier uniform.
– Claudio figlio Bellato –
I’m with my mate Claudio Bellato. He’s not a Voortrekker, even though his Afrikaans is bedonderd goed. For an Italian. We embark in Swinburne.
The water’s high, it flows up in the willow branches making some sections very tricky. A branch whips off Claudio’s specs – down into the swirling muddy waters go his 5D cylinders (optometrists will know that’s no mean amount of astigmatism). His view of the world has changed from clear to, er, interesting. He wants to go after them, knowing that Dad Luigi will take a dim view of the loss. I say,“Are you mad!? You’ll drown!”
Later I lose my specs after an unscheduled swim and I go out on a precarious willow limb sticking out over the current looking ‘just in case.’ “Oh!” says Claudio, “I’m mad to think of looking for mine, but its OK for you to look for yours?!” Well, mine are only 4D spheres I didn’t mumble, illogically. I must have muttered something, though. Optometrists will know that even with all my foresight, my view of the world was now also not pin-sharp. Rocks in the river would now be navigated by sound.
We paddle on in the blur, the myopic leading the astigmatic. I’m wearing my PlusFours. We decide we should camp while there’s still daylight. That night we share one damp sleeping bag, as mine’s sopping wet. Little did I know that for decades ever after Claudio would introduce me: “Meet my mate Peter. I’ve slept with him.”
The next day we sally forth, peering ahead and paddling tentatively. Many years later, we learn this is not the way to negotiate a swift current. The river forks to go round an island, and we wrap the boat around a semi-submerged treetrunk. Many years later, we learn the word ‘treeblock.’ Our downriver expedition has ended and we’re marooned on an island. One day we’ll write about this escapade!
This is new to Claudio, but it’s the second time I’ve now wrapped a borrowed boat on a flooded Wilge River. Fording the rushing current, I only just make the right bank and I signal above the roaring water for Claudio ‘SIT! STAY! on the island. DON’T try and cross this stream, its DANGEROUS! I poep’d myself!’ This I semaphore in my best sign language. Then I turn and run off to the beautiful old sandstone house under the splendid oaks of Mrs Girlie and the Misses Marie and Bettie Jacobsz’ farm Walton to phone Charlie Ryder.
Not long after, says me, ‘A hundred years later,’ says Claudio – Charlie comes roaring out in his pale green Volvo 122S in a plume of dust with a long rope. We pull Claudio off the island, but the boat is pinned to the semi-submerged tree. We only rescue the Voortrekkers’ green and white boat two weeks later when the water has subsided.
– Jock shuns the Swanie / Bellato Vulgar River Expedition ex-Voortrekker canoe –
The Voortrekkers take a dim view of my treatment of their flatwater fibreglass Accord craft and rush me R50 so they can buy a replacement – keep the wreckage.
I’m hooked on kayaking! I can do this, I think . . . just a bit more practice . . who’ll lend me a boat?
Fluffy Crawley and I were dropped off in Swinburne on the banks of the Mighty Vulgar in the grounds of the Montrose Motel with our open red and blue fibreglass canoe by my Old Man. We were aiming to head off downstream, camp overnight and finish in Harrismith the next day. This was circa 1970.
But we bumped into the inimitable Ian Grant who persuaded us to spend the night at Montrose. His folks Jock & Brenda owned Montrose. They agreed to let us sleep in one of the rondawels.
– what was left of the motel in 2012 –
As evening fell Ian was up to mischief as always, and soon after dark one of the petrol attendants snuck up and slipped us a litre bottle of brandy. Ian organised a litre bottle of cream soda and we were set for nonsense. After a couple of quick shots I suggested we hang around and let the alcohol take effect and let the laughing begin, but as I was in the bathroom taking a leak I overheard Ian mutter “Fuck him, I’m drinking the lot!” so I came out and said “Pour!”
Well, Ian was first and I stuck a bucket under his chin as his technicolor yawn started. Just then I heard HURGH! from Fluffy so I grabbed the little wastepaper bin from the bathroom and stuck it under his chin. It was a lumpy laughter duet.
Early the next morning I woke Fluffy and said “Come!” and we carried the red-decked boat to the river and launched it onto the muddy waters. Well, actually “launched” it because it touched bottom.
– we launched – and ran aground – under the old sandstone toll road bridge – – built in 1884, it was the second bridge to cross the Wilge –
Here’s the boat in picture, with younger sis Sheila paddling it. It was an awkward beast to carry, especially loaded. If you tipped it slightly things would come tumbling out and swearwords would also tumble out.
The river was so low we didn’t even get our shoelaces wet! A long spell of carrying the boat on our shoulders, stopping for a hurl, carrying a while till another stop for a chunder ensued till we found deeper water and a settled stomach and could paddle home.
Fluffy remembers: “The river was terribly low and we did a lot of foot work crossing or by-passing the rapids. We made it in one day, no overnight stop. Your Dad picked us up in town under the old ysterbrug.“
– we finished under the old ysterbrug – the Hamilton bridge in Harrismith – this looking upstream –
~~oo0oo~~
Dave Walker tells of a Tugela trip or race with Clive Curson when they broke and had to carry their boat for miles. They christened their trip Walkin’ an Cursin’.
Mine with Fluffy Crawley would then be Walkin’ an Crawlin’.
~~~oo0oo~~~
The picture of the very fibreglass craft we paddled had been kept all these years by sister Sheila, keeper of the archives. Red deck, powder blue hull, huge single cockpit, wooden slats on the floor.
It was quite a year. I had shot up, my balls had dropped, and I became the tallest blonde in the team. Coenie Meyer was the only other one, but he was a stocky centre and I was a lanky lock in the serious half of the team, the half that did the hard work and won the ball – only for the frivolous half to donate it to the opposition, starting the whole process all over again! Us bum-sniffers suffered while the pretty-boy backs got all the glory. Before this hormonal reshuffling, rugby had not been I.
But truth be told, our real strength lay in an outstanding flyhalf called De Wet Ras; and in great teamwork, determined tackling and a fierce desire to do well by ‘Sir’ – as we called Bruce Humphries, our tennis-playing coach.
We were coached by a bespectacled tennis champ called Bruce who inspired us to give our all. His sidekick Ben backed him up and supported us – a kind soul was Ben Marais. We beat all-comers and moved on to play against bigger teams. We drew one game against Bethlehem Voortrekker 0-0, our ‘winning’ De Wet Ras drop kick sailing high directly above the right upright, so the ref did not award it. We beat them 8-3 or 8-5 in a re-match.
We were the Harrismith under thirteen team of 1967, playing in bright orange, looking for all the world like mangoes complete with little green leaves on top and some black spots below!
– I have no idea what that trophy De Wet is holding was for? –
At the end of the season we were unbeaten and happy.
But then we read in the newspaper, the Engelse koerant, The Friend of Bloemfontein:
Free State u/13 Champs: 140 points for and 0 against!
And they weren’t talking about us – it was an u/13 team from Virginia. We thought: Free State Champs? Like Hell! We also thought: Where the hell is Virginia? That doesn’t sound like an egte Free State dorp.
Bruce Humphries phoned them and challenged them to come and play us. ‘No, we’re Free State Champs,’ they said, ‘Can’t you read? You’ll have to come to us!’
Off we went to Virginia in Bruce’s new 1966 white Ford Cortina and Giel du Toit’s tweede-hands black Mercedes 190, or 190E – about 1959, and Ben Marais’ blue VW Beetle, undetermined vintage.
There we watched their second team play Saaiplaas, a little mining village team with an egte Free State dorp name. We cheered Saaiplaas on and exhorted them to victory! I can still hear our hooker Skottie Meyer shouting mockingly – he was full of nonsense like that, onse Skottie – “Thlaaiplaath!! Thlaiplaath!!” They beat the Virginia seconds 3-0, handing them their first defeat of the season.
Our turn next, and the Saaiplaas boys did their best to be heard above the din of the enthusiastic local Virginia supporters. It was a tight match but we had the edge, our left wing Krugertjie being stopped inches from the left corner flag and our right wing Krugertjie pulled down inches from the right corner flag. Yep, identical twins, find them in the pic. The difference at the final whistle was a De Wet Ras drop goal from near the halfway line. 3-0 to us to complete a bad day for ex-Free State Champs Virginia. Which they pronounced Fuh-Jean-Yah.
What’s Next? Now Bruce Humphries had the Free State’s biggest fish in his sights: Grey College Bloemfontein. No, they didn’t really think they’d want to play us, thank you; they don’t usually play dorpies; and anyway they were off on a tour to Natal that week, thank you. ‘Well’, said Bruce ‘You can’t get back from Natal without passing through Harrismith, and you wouldn’t really sneak past us with your tails between your legs, would you?’
So the game was on! That day the pawiljoen at the park was packed with our enthusiastic supporters and cars ringed the field. Our followers’ numbers had grown as the season progressed and excitement at our unbeaten tag increased. No Grey College team had ever played in this little outpost of the British Empire (yes, we were that, once!) before.
Another tough game ensued, but a try just left of the posts by the tallest blonde in our team was the difference: We beat them 8-3 or 8-5, all our other points being scored by our points machine and tactical general De Wet! Die Dapper Generaal De Wet!
Beating the Rest When it came to selecting an Eastern Free State team, the other schools introduced a twist: Not only did you have to be under thirteen, you also had to be in primary school! This excluded a few of our boys, who were in Std 6 (Grade 8), notably De Wet Ras. Only three of our team were chosen, plus one as reserve player. So we challenged them to a game. Bruce told them it would do them good to have a warm-up game against the rest of us before they went to the capital of the province, Bloemfontein, to play in a tournament. Having only been chosen as reserve, I was lucky: I could still play for ‘us’! Plus Bruce sought and obtained the selectors permission to boost our depleted team by ‘innocently’ adding Gabba Coetzee. He was in Std 6 and just too old to actually be under thirteen. He was a legendary machine of an eighth man! An Iron Man, actually. His matric 1972 shot put record stands to this day, nearly fifty years later. He put that shot into low earth orbit!
Ho Hum! Depleted Harrismith 17 – Oos Vrystaat 0
—————————–
On the LEFT: Bruce Humphries (coach); On the RIGHT: Ben Marais (assistant coach)
All smaller heads Left to Right: Dana Moore, Attie Labuschagne, Leon Fluffy Crawley, De Wet Ras, Redge Jelliman, Skottie Meyer, Hendrik Conradie, Hansie Jooste, Irené Tuffy Joubert, Coenie Meyer, Peter Koos Swanepoel, Kruger, Kobus Odendaal, Kruger, Max Wessels
– I wonder what that trophy is that De Wet is holding? I cannot remember what that trophy might have been for. ‘Handsome Vrystaters Floating-on-Air’ Trophy maybe?
.
We got word that Bruce Humphries passed away in about 2011.
Go Well Sir! We'll never forget that 1967 rugby season. We soared high and grew our self-esteem that year. Thank you!
~~oo0oo~~
Some later memories, blurred with time:
Etienne: Gabba was a mate of Tuffy, De Wet, Pierre, Redgie and was part of that awesome under 13 team that Bruce Humphreys groomed. They were virtually unbeaten in the Free State if my memory serves me correctly. They were really good. Gabba was 2 years behind me. Corrections: Unbeaten, only one draw; and Gabba was just too old for the team. He played his first year U/15 that year. He did fill in for us once – maybe Ets saw that game?
Leon: Bruce’s team even played Grey u13 A’s, and manufactured a draw. Correction: We beat them.
Vrystaat Confessions 