Two races were run on the same weekend with similar names, but miles apart in terms of location, look and feel, numbers and age profiles.
Congratulations to the Midmar Canoe Club, Jaques Theron and team on the 2025 Lions River Descent. With a lot of hard work, clever use of local venues and sponsors, they’ve turned a narrow, what seemed unpaddleable, tree blocked river, into a mini-Drak. Billed as having great rapids with nothing too testing and a great way to get into river paddling, they attracted almost 100 boats for the different race options. First home from our pond for the main two day race was Benjamin Mntonintshi who was 4th overall, then Wongama Makasi, Kyle Armdorf and Ethan Cockram squeezed into the top 20. Also there were the likes of Ryno, Rob Levick, Kevin Hunt, Darryn Koertzen, Matt Cockram, Cayden Wilson and Karen Field. Well done to Kyle and Cayden, the only U14 paddlers to do both days. Here’s hoping we have a much bigger squad of Dabs and SCARC paddlers on the Lions River next year.
And more congratulations to the Midmar Canoe Club in that they also lured 73 guppies to race on the dam. Fantastic! Well done to SCARC’s Amile Mzolo who won the U12 Girls, while Kaylen Armdorf and Nkosi Mzolo were 5th and 6th in the U12 Boys.
While the numbers in KZN were good, the Orange River Descent only attracted 16 boats, and the average age of all paddlers was well over 60. Ouch. Day 1 was paddled on a new route at a low and bony level, and day 2 was paddled in the haze of a late night and another Springbok victory. First home from our pond over the two days was Malcolm Belkie Stothard, paddling with Mike Barry, followed by Bryan Scatter Slater paddling with Patrick Reeves, and then we also had Andy Lethal Leith there, being paddled by his Fish friends Herman Chalupsky and Colin Copper Simpkins. Well done to Waldo van Der Linde, Mr Stroke2max, who organised and won the race with Heinrich Scholms, and we hope that this race regains its strength – who wouldn’t want to see and enjoy the unique natural beauty Northern Cape river paddling?
This coming weekend we have a whole lot of paddlers off to run / walk / hobble / crawl the Sky Run over some majestical and massive mountains in the middle of nowhere, and then it’s the Vaal, a K2 race and a qualifier for the 75th Dusi Canoe Marathon. Find a partner, make a plan…
Till next time – Go Dabs!