On the edge of the Cederberg hides this little gem of a river. It is a short run made up of five prominent drops with some fun class 2 rapids inbetween. It is quite far from Cape Town, but it is worth the trip if you stay at the guest farm, they have some fantastic camping facilities. It is a great place to spend the weekend with family and friends where a bit of kayaking can be enjoyed.
- Ideal for: Creek boat, or playboat if you are feeling brave
- Grade: 2-4
- Length: 3.6km
- Duration: 6 hours
- Type: Pool drop with waterfalls
- Put-in: Low level bridge at the start of the 4×4 track 32°41’10.6″S 19°16’44.4″E
- Take out: River right where there is a short walk back to the track. 4×4 is necessary.
- Levels paddleable: Usually paddleable after good rains in the Ceres region
- Permits: Ask the owners of Suikerbossie nicely and they should let you in
The first drop is right at the put in. It is a three step waterfall that should only be attempted by expert paddlers. After that you may need to do a bit of bushwacking, because alien vegetation has claimed many of the pools on this river unfortunately.
The second drop is a clean 3m waterfall and an ideal place to introduce paddlers to waterfall running.
Just downstream is a fun double drop. Some more bushwacking will get you to a slide with a curler running down the length of the rapid, good fun but watch out for the auto-backender by the curler.
The take out is marked by a horizon line. It is a 12m waterfall that hides a rock shelf at the bottom. There may be a line down it at very high flows, but it remains unrun at the time of writing this.
Special thanks to Scott Reinders for supplying this river description.
This river description is taken from my book “Run the Rivers of Southern Africa”.
If you have any pictures or recent information on this section of river to share, please contact me:
blog@cellierskruger.com
I appreciate any contributions to keep this content up-to-date.