This was by far the best trip ever! I would do it for a life time if I could! - DATE POSTED 9 DECEMBER 2008

Well, the fun filled 10 hour trip was finally over! Tiffany and I went with my father in the land Rover and the others
went on the bus. At about 4pm we had reached Provenance Camp, where we were introduced to our guides. One was being Tarry!
A.K.A Crab man!!! Most of our group knew him. Then there was Richard… our soon to be God on earth. He was always there
when you needed him. And was always up for something you were!!! =) Then there was WULA!!! THE MAN OF ALL MEN. He was
quite the entertainer and was addictive after the first hour. AWSOME!!!!!

We unpacked and got into our swimming costumes and went for a swim. That night Wula gave us a short briefing about our
trip and the major things we are going to encounter on the way. RAPIDS AND LIVING OUT OF A BUCKET!!!! We had supper
and afterwards we were just sitting around playing the CAN GAME!!! Lol! =) The camp gradually got quite and everyone had
there last shower and went to bed. That seemed quite possible until the next morning; the guides were already looking for
trouble by putting a cool box out in front of us with the most hideous spider you could ever see. And it was HUGE!!!

Deflated the mattress and stuffed the sleeping bags into one of the three buckets allocated to every two people. We got
dressed into our intense day gear consisting of LOADS of sun block … maybe some shoes if you really wanted to, your
sarong which was totally compulsory for unknown reasons. Whenever there was something wrong. You would just use your
sarong =) and finally your bikini.  So here all the girls have a tog bag. We have toiletries which really are needed.
Half of then are not even bio degradable, but that didn’t matter because it was one of those MUST HAVES!  You have three
shirts one for everyday even though deep down inside you know that you re only doing to use one of them. BUT YOU DO TAKE
ALL THREE. O, then don’t forget about you pajama top. No matter how hard you try you know that you can’t sleep without
that specific top. Then you have three pants. One for every day again. But again deep down inside you do know that you
only really like one of them. Your got your bras and you panties but those everyone does really need, But you are sure
to take your best ones on the river and leave the ones with holes in at camp for the last night when you are clean and
looking good again. Then you have your slippers. Not the normal ones… the big poofy ones. Now you know that you’re really
ready for this trip! You then have your tracksuit pants, jacket and towel somewhere in amongst all of that stuff. All of
this in your tog bag… you do really need all this stuff. You turn it side ways, stuff it Side ways trying to push all of
the air out of it and then compress all of your clothes to the max! 1 2 3… push and shove!!!! You think I got anywhere???
NO. But hey guess what… no matter how ordinary I was trying to be about the situation. They whole camp started laughing at
me =P. Soooo….. After a moment of silence for my major disappointment. I started unpacking. And filled my bucket to the brim!!!!
Every piece all worth it!

We then had a cooler box!!! One cooler box for every four people. This was filled with sweets and ice – tea. Water… WHATEVER.

We chose our boat and got all our equipment onto the boat. It was now time of the briefing.
PLEASE NOTE: we were extremely happy that we were missing four days of school and that we did not have to sit in a
class like set up listening to someone speak to you on what is right and wrong.
BUT GUESS WHAT - We were briefed for about half an hour on all the do’s and don’ts. No one was really listening; we were
keen to get onto the river. IT was no time and we were off down the first rapid !!!! Happier then ever!!! ****

Being with Anja I must admit… I had a few doubts =) But as Wula always said REMEMBER TO LOOK COOL!!! They were many bumps
and people that ended up rowing backward but that was all good… lol. People started splashing others and soon I was soaked.
We went down a few small rapids which at that time we thought was rather big. Anja and I being as courageous as we are
decided to go first. Now, this was a very simple rapid. There were three rocks in the middle and you simply had to go left
of this… but you know!!! Anja and I wanted to go left… but thanks to Anja’s excellent steering we crashed right in the
middle of all three of the rocks. And we changed the direction of all the other canoes and they went down the right of the
rapid! Tarry not to impressed. We had our yummy lunch break and then carried on with our journey to our evening camp sight.
They wind came howling from the front but Anja and I WITH NO HELP. Made it to our resting site were we were going to sleep
for the night because we were too tired to carry on. Thinking how many hours it would take the others to get to the camp.
They came around the corner with smiles on the faces!!! They were being towed by the guides… how I hated then at that moment
was not even funny! =( THAT WAS SOOO A COURT CASE.

Everyone dead tired we were watching the other group of Felix United pass by … and there he was SIR SEXY JAYDEN!!! =P wow.
All the girls shouted to him and said hi and he gave us a little wave back! We were so happy never mind tired. He made my
day.Everyone went to bed after the court cases for that day and we all went to bed with loads on our mind. It had rained
that night. But no one even bothered to move.

Day 2, we were ready. I was with Landa Panda today. My stomach muscles were so sore for laughing so much the previous day.
It was over cast and cold. This was leading to a hectic rain that I had prayed for. Today we faced the second biggest rapid.
The Examination Rapid!!!! I was hectic scared cause this really looked dangerous. Landi and I were the first group to go
down though. We followed Wula’s instruction and with quite a few skips of my heartbeat, we had made it and had pulled of
the most professional hand break canoe turn ever!! I looked forward to see the others coming down and GUESS WHAT!!!!
Appearance 2.There was Jayden. Waiting for his group to come down after ours. We had no chance to say hi though.=(   (sigh)   .
It started drizzling for a while… we did some hectic Boondo Bashing before getting to lunch. Landi and I got stuck in a few
reeds and paddled backwards for a while … other then that we were fashionably late … but like seriously late. We had lunch WOHOO!!!
The rest of the day was boring. No hectic rapids and no hectic wind! We had now reached our half way point were we had collected
water for the rest of the trip.

We had to clear out our cool boxes and get more ice. So all of us were sitting there feeling rather uncomfortable because
there were these English people from England looking at us while eating there lunch. Seriously weird. We played the can
game which brought slight silence to the camp cause of what we were doing. After throwing sweets into each others mouths
and talking loads of nonsense... we settled down and were just chilling around the cool boxes. Tarry and them thought it
would be funny to get us totally soaked and embarrassed. And Wula asked us to play the famous can game again. Tarry coming
up from behind us through loads of water on us and got us completely soaked in front of everyone!!!! (Jayden did see this)
and everyone started laughing at us. This declared war immediately. We took mud and water and started throwing the guides.
But they started throwing food at us! Was soooo disgusting, we did manage to fill Tarry's canoe full in water though.

We rowed of to camp. Got our mattresses out and then laid around... (Was sooo tired?) BUT then something or rather someone
came to pick up a life jacket at our camp! It just happened to be THE RIGHTOUS MR>BEAR UNDERWEAR SUPER SEXY JAYDEN! Wohoo! =P   
Landi and Nicole asked for his number and he gave it to them. But we forgot it!! Tarry thinks we are seriously retarded though.
That night was awesome fun and we were left to sleep with Tiks like everywhere.

Our last day on the river and the biggest rapid of them all! THE SHAMBOK!!!! ****
We rowed for a while and then walked up to some or other mine before doing then sjambok. We stopped just before it though
to do a briefing and see how it looked like. Anja and I were really nervous but I swear we were the coolest couple in the
water…! Because when we screamed it appeared to look like we were smiling so Wula as rather impressed. Then there was the
next phase that no one ever saw. It looked dangerous and according to me. We were going straight for the big rock…
(Anja’s Specialty) leading to a tip. I didn’t know what to do and tarry was just laughing at us so I lifted both my hands
up in the air with the paddle, Anja thinking this was the right thing to do , did it, too. Our back scraped the back of
the rock and we were passed. It was time to laugh at the others and Landi and they tipped which was really hilarious. Haha.
Afterwards we were allowed to swim down the rapid which was just as awesome.

It’s the last day and Mrs. N stories which did threaten us didn’t seem to come true on the trip which I was really happy
about. Hehe. So I was shouting out how it’s over and there was not one crab thrown at me or down my shirt, in our boat…
nothing! =0. Next thing you know tarry is reaching under his boat and takes out the ugliest crab I've ever seen.
We were the last canoe to get to lunch because we were avoiding tarry. We couldn’t park anywhere because the only space
was next to Tarry boat where he was waiting! All Anja and I could do was wait and chill on the water waiting for Tarry to
loose interest in us, But he didn’t and before he could do something about it he was next to our canoe with the crab in my
face. Anja and I jumped out the boat leaving it where it was. But then tarry started swimming after us. I was seriously
scare d! =( We parked and had our last lunch on the river, we were sad to see it go past do quickly! The crab incident was
over… well at least I had thought so when they called us for kitchen duty at. Wula and tarry had asked me to please look at
the bottom of the bucket for the knives and forks. I swore there was mud at the bottom of the bucket… I didn’t know it was
the crab though, Soo in the end I didn’t grab the crab as they had hoped me too. But tarry all of a sudden started chasing
me with this thing!!! He was catching up so I ducked down into a little ball. I was lucky de didn’t put it in my shirt! I
was close to crying it was sooo scary!

We rowed the final stretch of this amazing river were no negative memories were established… it was something I would miss
profusely.Nothing would be left on the river and for us it was a history in the making with many more stories to tell.
This was not something easy to do and each and every individual strength shone out in some or other way through out the
trip were it was desperately needed. There were new bonds made and once upon a time friends were even closer. We learnt a
lot about each other in the past few days and benefited from each others strengths, helping them with the negatives in an
unspoken manner. We lived off each others energy when one was down. We lived for the hot chocolate sips we took that burnt
our tongues’ raw, but our friend right next to us would take a sip anyway. We lived for the big crashes and the traffic jams
caused because you didn’t know how to steer. We lived for each others smiles. We lived for the Winnie and the Pooh plasters
that we bought and made sure we when we did fall, there was blood so we had a perfect excuse to use one! But then everyone
would take one anyway! We lived for the little Hariboes and Anja’s chocolate chip cookies that everyone took a bite of. We
lived for our tired eyes and when we snuggles up tight there was no why… but rather a ‘just in case.’

I learnt a lot from the Orange River. I learnt a lot about my fellow scholars that were all sitting around me on the cold
nights of the orange. I saw a different side to each and every person on this trip … the adventurous side. It’s the
personality that will never come out again until you are on you next IYA trip sitting around one attraction… each individual
linking up to one whole IYA body .We act as one.

We were sad to say goodbye... but hey, all good things come to an end.
THE WETTER THE BETTER! Felix united for life.             

Tegan.xxx

ORANGE RIVER EXPEDITION
St. Paul's College
September 2008