Berna's travelblog Marco Bernasocchi's adventures blog

3 days in the wild

So here I am in a pretty cool restaurant in Swellendam called Drostdy enjoining my reward, a beer while waiting for my big rump steak. Soft super nice cuban son in the background and a rather astonishing collection of coca cola memorabilia surrounding me. But wait a second, you don’t even know why I’m rewarding myself, so let’s go with order…

Friday early afternoon, I’m standing right next to Tim discussing a new message dispatcher framework for InaSAFE, he looks sickish and it’s unfortunate because we’re just about to leave for a two nights wilderness trip. He decides not to go, but his two buddies take us with them, around 15.00 we’re ready, lets go and find out what Bosmansoos wilderness reserve has to offer us :)

A short drive, an hour and a half of walking on a very nice trail and we reach the river, yes that is going to be our playground for the next two days, but for now lets camp here. Hammocks up and we start making a nice fire, a perfect fire for grilling a steak, if I only didn’t misunderstand Tim about the fire size… I only have freaking 2min noodles :(
A nice wood fire evening, some night shots at the river and we are all ready for bed, well hammock :)
It’s an amazing night, an amazing almost full moon, a comfy hammock, no technology (I decided that these five weeks I’ll be without cellphone to reduce the amount of emails bothering all the time) the only noise we hear is the river and well Werner seems to be having interesting dreams :)

Saturday “early morning” (10 :)) a smoke wave reaches my nose and I get out to go eat my cheese and pumpernickel.

Time for action, the mission today is going upstream till we like it :) the first section will be a wet section, veeeery wet and cooooold. Reluctantly I take off my clothes and put on my surf shorts… pity it’s autumn, the temperature is around 20°C and the river 14… whatever, we go… uhhhh ahhh ihhhh brrrrr… the canyon becomes bizarrely noisy :) the water stings the skin and cuts your breath but eh… wanted it wild? here u go :) Potty and I decide to go as fast as we can through the various pools and not to wait for John and Werner which due to material issues (no nice bag and no water shoes) are slower. We’ll make a very appreciated fire after the wet section.
After some more walking we reach a super nice spot where we set camp, it is mid afternoon, we start some water and after “first ascending” my first south African boulder problem my noodle marathon starts again :)

After going to bed pretty early, I woke up at 7 but decided that my new sleeping bag is way too nice and so I “turned around” and kept on sleeping till 10 :) wow, this no technology thing works, a 12h night :) fire, breakfast, packing and we’re on our way downstream, I feel super fit so i kind of start running from rock to rock, nice and fast. we eventually get to the wet section and even more reluctantly I get ready, what a surprise, the water is warmer warmer today, mmm no wait a second, it is just that outside is colder (17°C) and the water is only 3°C colder today… whatever. I’ll run through it!

Another warm up nd tea break and we’re on our way up the ravine to get back to the main trail, I’m still fit and I decide to keep on running the ravine and then to go 15min further without my bag while the others still walk up gently.

What a nice feeling, running around the south African Fynbos with no obligations and stress, definitely to redo :)
foremost since the reward was sooo good ;)

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