Adrian Tregoning

The Doring River, Alone – Day 1: Out into the Wilderness

The Doring River has its source within the Swartruggens Mountains, about 25km north east of Ceres in the Western Cape, South Africa. In a little valley to the south of a mountain called Kwarrieberg at an altitude of 1437m and west of Saalberg at 1362m. From here the river flows north east through the Ceres Karoo, then more north and slightly west as it wraps the base of Northern end of the Swartruggens Mountains and then north again. More than 100km later it heads west through the Cederberg to join up with the Olifants River and then finally into the Atlantic Ocean. Note that this is a different Olifants River to the one shown on my site in the past.

The Molenaars River – The Cold and Fast One

I had heard many things about the Molenaars River. Many stories of exceedingly long swims, lost boats and people scared out of their wits. These were all attributed to the fairly continuous nature of the river and the fact that the sides are covered with thick bush which people claimed was impossible to climb through. The river drops 100m in a distance of 8.3km. This gives an average gradient of 12m/km. This is not really very steep at all but bear in mind that the first third of the trip is reasonably flat so the next third would effectively have a slightly steeper gradient. Combine this with almost guaranteed cold, rainy, snowy type weather and you’ve got a recipe for fun!