Today I managed to take the day off and go and watch the
first day of the 2009 Berg River Canoe Marathon, and am I glad I did.
The racing up front was awesome, even though the Berg does
not boast the depth it once had, when come July everybody who paddled seriously would line up in Paarl
to see who was the best ultra distance river paddler in South Africa. The front
end of the field is still highly competitive, having missed the start my first
glimpse was of a large bunch of 8 sprinting for the hot spot at Lady Loch
bridge 15km into the race, Hank won this comfortably and Robyn Kyme had a good
lead in the ladies. By the half way mark, 30km at Grensplaas it was down to 6
paddlers.
We then tried to watch at a few of the places on the way to
Hermon(46km) but the paddlers had now caught the flood waters and the main flow
was miles from the banks(not much use watching).
At Hermon it was down to 4 paddlers (Lance King, Hank, PW
Basson & Graeme Solomon) and by the end the front three were covered by 10
seconds having dropped PW 10min from the
end , with Lance winning from Graeme and Hank and PW not to far back. Tomorrow
they start as they finished today, all link up and so another day of Quality
racing should take place.
In the ladies race Robyn had got lost somewhere between
Grensplaas and Hermon and lost 5 min on the new leader Lindi Harmsen who kept
this to the finish…race on tomorrow.
Tomorrow is 46km of really nice river paddling from
Zonquasdrift to Bridge Town.Not really a
town and no bridge in sight but a spectacular finish non the less!
I’ll keep you informed even though I will be stuck in the
garage I have some spotters out!
Hi and welcome to my new site. As you can see it is still unfinished, but a work in progress. My name is Alexa Lombard/Cole and through this site I hope to bring you lots of different information and content about all types of paddling (my past time) and paddle manufacturing (my business).
