With JUST enough water coming down the river the start was moved back to the original starting place. I was quite chuffed when the decided to have the normal format of the race and not shorten the race for the low water start.
I was the top seeded junior in A batch which meant I would have a chance of a better start going into the first corner of rapids. A shot gun signals the start of the race which immediately gets your blood pumping for the upcoming 24km of pure awesome paddling.
The first 15km is just jam packed full of tight rocky rapids, its almost like being on a roller coaster for the first hour and a bit. I had a fairly good start which helped alot because its quite hard to pass anyone for the first hour. I was lying 12th when I reached “Black Murray” – one of the first major rapids on the river. But I was struggling with a bent rudder, and had to ask two spectators to knock down my rudder. In a rapid just after Black Murray I spun out, loosing a position to Ryan Louw.
When I reached Trout Hateries a group of 3 caught me which allowed me to sit diamond for a while to recover a bit. It was fairly flat from Trout Hateries to the end +- 7km of paddling. I came into the finish of the first day with the group lying 16th overall and 1st junior but only with a gap of 5 seconds in front of the 2nd junior.
Day2
The longest and last day of the Global Trader Drak Challenge. With a big storm on Saturday night the river changed from being bum scraping low to pumping! I started in elapsed time with the group I finished with the day before. The pace was rather high right from the word go. I dropped off the group after about 5km to settle into my own pace. The other junior (Emile Theunissen) got a slight gap on me. Another two paddlers caught me; I recovered and paddled with them for a while. We eventually caught Emile just before mineshaft weir which we had to portage because of the water level being too high to shoot it. I sprinted the portage to get a gap on Emile, I got in with Kwanda Mhlope, but we were soon caught by Emile and another guy just before Glen Haven.
After Glen Haven the flats hit you hard, luckily a big group containing Michael Mbanjwa and Shaun Biggs caught us. These guys were on a mission. I was hanging on properly. After about 8km or so i popped and dropped off, Emile managed to stay with the group. I was left alone to the end and had to settle for second place Junior. I’m pretty chuffed with that, I wasn’t expecting much as I’m focusing more on Dusi. I had a hard week leading up to the race. Drak is one of my best races and I recommend it to everyone, crystal clean water and you never get board with all the rapids along the tight river! Looking forward to next year already!
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