Day 11 - Today was a very early morning. The whole camp woke up before the sunrise and headed over to one of the cow baits in hopes to catch sight of a leopard. Although we didn't see any leopards, we still had an exciting day of travelling to the South Africa-Namibia border to start out white water rafting adventure. We met our guides, Max and Heinrich, and began to prep for our expedition.
Day 12 - Setting off in pairs, we began rafting down the Orange River today. Our rafts were loaded down with all of our camping supplies for the next three days. Approaching our first rapid, Abby and Nina quickly became stuck on a rock, while Adolph and Will took the more adventurous route, completing the the rapid backwards. Our first campsite was on a beautiful shoreline of the river, and we enjoyed swimming in the river and sitting around the campfire.
Day 13 - Our second day of rafting begin with our risk large rapid. After successfully completing the rapid, we carried our rafts on foot to our lunch location. In order to launch for our afternoon of paddling, we repelled the boats down a cliffside. Our camping site for the night was near a beautiful large waterfall that we got the chance to check out, and some even got in the splash zone! We spent the afternoon fishing, swimming, and lazing around.
Day 14 - Our last day of rafting was concluded with the largest rapid of the trip, Big Bunny. After a briefing and demonstration of the rapid, our teams set out. Adolph and Will once again completed the rapid backwards, while Abby and Nina had a textbook run.
Red and Beth completed the rapid as well, but got caught up in the excitement and continued down the river without us! When we arrived to the pickup location we unloaded our rafts and began the hour drive back to the rafting camp. Arriving back at the rafting camp involved beers, chocolate, and large amounts of food.
Day 15 - We had a long drive back to camp in the morning. The rest of the day was a lot of lazing around which went down a treat. Will, Abby, Adolph and Beth climbed a mountain near camp. Raul our camp chef was absent so the team cooked an interesting meal.
Day 16 - To start the day off we collected some camera traps we'd previously set up which had some great zebra, Orix and Kudu pictures. In the afternoon we sketched out a water hole design then marked it out and began to dig. With the chef still missing Adolph stepped in and made a German dish called spaetzle which was lovely.
Day 17- Once again we were back digging out the water point and making a few final adjustments which seemed a lot harder than it should've mainly because of a freakishly hot wind that just wouldn't seem to go away. In the afternoon we collected some flat rocks which we will use to make a base for the water point. This time Will stepped into the kitchen to make a vegetable curry and a sag aloo with the help of Abby and Nina.
Written by Will and Abby.