Tuesday 19th July

Tuesday 19^th July – Day 3.   Mile 16 – Mile 30.5   Fence Fault Camp

13 Rapids today:

House Rock (7), Redneck (3), North Canyon (5), 21-mile rapid (5), 23-mile rapid (5), 23.5-mile rapid (4), Georgie (24-mile rapid) (6), 24.5-mile rapid (5+), Hansbrough-Richards (25-mile rapid) (5),

Cave Springs (5), Tiger Wash (6), MNA Rapid (1), 29-mile rapid (2).

I slept reasonably well considering we were camping.  I slept in my tent because rain threatened and also to avoid creepy crawlies climbing over me in the night!!The ground was hard and stony but, despite waking often, I always drifted off again quickly.  We had been told that the “coffee conch” would be sounded at about 5am with breakfast approx 30 minutes later.  I got up at 4.20am and immediately went to “The Groover” which is the name given to the camp toilet.  This was a metal ammo box and a bucket, both with toilet seats perched on top.  The briefing we were given when we arrived in our first camp was that we should urinate in the river but when in camp you could urinate in the bucket.  However, you must not urinate in the Groover, only poo in that and urinate in the bucket!!!  I found it incredibly hard not to urinate and poo at the same time and found myself hopping from bucket to Groover all through the trip!!  The Groover was always situated away from the main camp site and the entrance would be identified by the “Wash Station” where there were 2 buckets of water, one “clean” river water and the other dirty water, with a foot pump between the 2.  There was also liquid soap and “The Key” which comprised a tupperware box containing a toilet roll.  If, when you got to the Wash Station, the key was missing, then you knew someone was using the Groover and you waited until they had finished and brought the key back with them.  The Groover was always situated with a commanding view of the river!  When using the Groover at night, your torch would attract all manner of flying insects, moths etc, to the delight of the bats which swooped and dived around your head.  Surprisingly these did not bother me at all!

I had all my gear packed up and ready to load on the rafts by the time they blew the breakfast conch at 5.30am and our tents were the first to be loaded on the oar boats.

We did some great bumpy rapids and had a 2-hour trek up North Canyon at mile 21 to an amazing bowl with a very murky pond which contained some huge tadpoles.  It was a difficult trek for me without poles but I managed it with a lot of help from Kevin who was always there for me.  We had lunch on the beach then ran North Canyon Rapid, a grade 5.  Tania fell out on Georgie Rapid, a Grade 6 but she soon got back in the raft. That evening after supper she was presented with a Swimmers’ Duck!

We were the first of the 4 paddle boats to get into our evening campsite at 3pm and we started off loading the support boats, but not until we had selected our tent site so as not to be left with the dross of the spots (at least ¾ of the people on the trip are a group of friends who regularly raft together and who have done this trip so many times that they know the best spots to erect their tents and usually grab them while the rest of us are working unloading the support rafts).

J, K and I had a bath in the river today and washed our hair – it was numbingly cold but oh, so, refreshing!!

Some of the guys started a game, involving everyone, called Assassin.  In this game, one person has to go around ‘killing’ everyone else without being found out.  After the assassin winks at you, you have to theatrically stage your own death.  It made you want to avoid eye contact with anyone and everyone!!!

We had fresh salmon steak, grilled on the BBQ, for tea – huge pieces but extremely tasty and well cooked – but served with fruit salad, broccoli and quinoia – this was the first time I had tried it and I found it somewhat nondescript.  After supper Tom gave a talk on the geology of the Grand Canyon.  I retired to bed at 7.45pm, after his talk, to write my journal.