Teebus 2 Grahamstown

250km over 5 days .
“We are F@&king Pioneers Bro “
Having paddled the Fish River Canoe Marathon 15 times and being based in Grahamstown I become very interested in what was above and below the start and end of the race . Initially I wanted to paddle from the outlet to the ocean but hippos have been introduced on the lower stretches and on such a small river not knowing exactly where they are I thought it would be better to end above them, Teebus to Grahamstown was born !
Before day 1
“If you go down S Bend Rapid you will die “
While Fishing on Rob Southey farm at a bridge 6 km down stream from the outlet we were approached by a neighboring Farmer Tyron . He had heard about our adventure and was extremely concerned about our safety on the river . Tyron urged us to start at a bridge 14 kms down stream as he had seen the river with no water in it and said their are siphons in the rapids that would hold us . This warning turned my butterfly’s into ostriches. Lucky we had done our homework . We had spent countless hours on google earth measuring out distances from obstacles and marking them . I had also ready up on Celliers Kruger book “ Run the Rivers of Southern Africa" and knew if we played by the rivers rules we should be ok . This is a big powerful river just after the tunnel , no farmers have taken out water , the river is full and demands respect . I knew that if something did go wrong it would go wrong fast ! The river is full and fast at the beginning and if we swam before a rapid or got stuck in Tree , bridge or weir it was not going to be an easy rescue