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Looking back towards Cape Town from Waaihoek. You can make out Table Mountain. Ian Ian |
The Witels is a 5-day self-support kloofing/canyoning trip.
It’s a place where magic seems to happen.
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The team - Chris, Alec, Skip, Dave, Jay, Laura, me. Ian Ian |
This was only my 4
th trip
down this river and in that time I have noticed that the place can have
profound influences on peoples lives. For my friends and mentors Alec (The Vegetarian
Hunter) and Poly Moly (The Roti World Champion) both mentioned in previous
blogs, this is a reference point for them, their measure of time. Both blokes
are sixty and have over 50 Witels trips between them. Surely the annual promise
of the place helps keep them bouncing about like spring chickens. It simply has
to. Then there is my perhaps dearest friend Moose, (who is instrumental in The
Urban Hunter Gatherer video blogs) who decided it was time to have offspring,
while on the Witels. His delightful boy Mathew, is now my Godson
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Too much fun to be had to care about cooking Ian Ian |
Oh yes! The food part of the blog. On trips like this people
either cater for themselves or maybe team up with another member of the party,
so it’s a kinda ‘each man for themselves’ thingy. Laura and I paired up on the
chow front. We threw a list together and split the buying load. True to form we
didn’t really think things through too well and ended up with a MOUNTAIN of
food that we had to carry up the MOUNTAIN. On the first night our enthusiasm
for good food was bubbling over. We made pasta with dried porcini mushrooms
(left over from autumn foraging missions), delicious dehydrated olives Alek’s
wife Gill had processed and given to me, chorizo and sun dried tomatoes, all
finished off with a little parmigiano. Ian Ian and Laura snapped away with
their cameras knowing I was going to do a blog. Well, that was pretty much the
last time any major interest in food took place on the trip, apart from jamming
our faces full of whatever was easiest to get to in our bags, so as to reduce
the weight of our packs. All those dream images of frying freshly caught brown
trout, never remotely came to be; I mean how could they, when you don’t even
unsleave your fly fishing rod that you bought? You see, this trip was not about
food, but about the greatest amount of fun that a person could ever have.
Laura, Ian Ian and I for various reasons, aptly became known as the delinquent
bunch. We were the last to leave camp and very definitely the last to arrive at
the next.
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Plenty of boulder hopping. Ian Ian |
I have these endearing images of looking back and seeing the
hugest smiles plastered on the faces of Laura and Ian Ian. I mean, was it
possible to have even more fun than we were having? I think not… I can’t
remember when last my happiness levels were last peaking as much as on this
trip
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The Delinquents Ian Ian
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A final word on food, but only coz itz a food blog. Our last
meal, lunch on the final day, was chunks of torn cheese on chunks of torn bread
(we were too lazy to even get the pen knife out of our packs.) This Neanderthal
meal tasted every bit as good as our big effort first night meal. It just goes
to show, that sometimes it’s not about food.
May the magic of the Witels carry into our everyday lives.
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Awesome Awesome Awesome Ian Ian |
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It gets pretty chilly Ian Ian |
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Make a chow, get it in and go have even more fun. Ian Ian |
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Just another waterfall Ian Ian |
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The Hunter Gatherer resisted temptation Ian Ian |
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The Lovely Laura squealing her way down a rapid. Ian Ian |
Thank you Alecs, for allowing the delinquents on your trip. You
are a very fine leader.
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