After waking up and having our first breakfast together, we hopped back in the truck (whose name is Mara, btw!) and headed towards the Gariep (Orange) River. The river is named for the Dutch version of the White House, in case anyone is curious! The Orange River is en route to the Namibian border and our campsite for the day/night is on the South African side. Named Umkulu, we pulled up around lunchtime, speedily unloaded everything we needed to eat, and scarfed down lunch before six of us were whisked off for a kayak down the river.

As we were in the 4×4 heading towards the start point, our guide casually mentioned that it was a 12k route. We were a bit surprised, but excited because we figured we would get a good value for the cost. Then, a few minutes later, he casually mentioned again that we’d be kayaking over rapids.

Ummm SCORE!

We arrived at the start, popped our kayaks in the water, and we were off!

Somehow, Emme and I ended up with a kayak that veered to the right no matter WHAT we did. Even if we SOLELY paddled on the right side. The result of this was that we were the little runts of the litter for the first leg of the row. Every few kilometers, our guide would stop us to hop out for a swim or a little break, and at about the 6k mark, he told us that there was a rock for us to jump off of into the river.

Now, I’ve never mentioned this, but on my Birthright trip with Sachlav, on our FIRST day there was a rock jump into a river that I skipped because of my underwater dilemma, and I’ve always been a bit sad about it because it looked like so much fun.

I wasn’t about to miss out on this one, even though I was terrified.

When we arrived at the jump rock, we climbed up even though it was kind of steep and a bit difficult… but that turned out to be a blessing because when I got to the top and looked over the edge, I did NOT want to jump. Emme was up there with me, and we reckoned that going back down the way we came was actually MORE dangerous than leaping off the rock into the water.

So I stood at the top with Emme, considering my options, and from the bottom Lauren started counting me down. At 1, I actually jumped.

Still am sort of in shock that I did it.

But I am SO proud. I was adrenaline yapping about it probably for half an hour.

After everyone jumped (and the boys capsized from standing in their kayak), we continued on.

Kayaking through the rapids was totally awesome, and Emme and I owned that ish. When we got back in the kayak after the jump, we switched spots so I was in the middle, and we were actually in much better paddling shape, but we still had the right-veering issue.

However, we had an amazing afternoon, probably a 3 hour kayak with swim and jump stops, plus rapids.

When we got back to camp (our site was actually named “Sausage Tree” – why, we’re not sure) the camp pups were there playing and dinner was almost ready. We pitched up our tents, showered, and then sat down for family dinner.

After dinner the kayakers were pretty tired so we chatted for a bit around the fire and then turned in for the night. Jane and I shared our tent today (setup was MUCH quicker, fwiw) and we chitchatted a bunch before we passed out.