Continued from PART 1

Throughout the time we were accompanied with butterflies hovering across the water and many unseen animals shrieking in the thick canopy of leaves around and above us. During our lunch break we stopped for longer than usual and just enjoyed the peace and quiet of a remote piece of paradise.

The monster ant that came to visit us during lunch :-) Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Our group looking up at the monkeys in the trees!

A random spot.

Celliers Kruger (left) followed by Hugh du Preez as they pass by a deeply undercut wall.

The big wall with the undercut at the bottom.

Hugh du Preez slipping through a hole. 

Celliers Kruger powering through a sticky hole. Celliers (left) and Hugh (right) – very stoked with life.

Puji climbing over the hole. 

Me running a rapid randomly down the river. No scouting, we just went and boat scouted. Quite interesting to see that bottom hole come up :-) Celliers Kruger. (Celliers’ camera)

Me sitting at lunch with Andrew wondering what to eat first I guess… Celliers Kruger. (Celliers’ camera)

View upstream from our lunch spot.

The view downstream of our lunch spot.

Loads of cool ferns growing here.

Hugh almost sharing his lunch with the monster ant :)

The ant having a look at my boat too… I made sure he didn’t find a place to stay inside!

Lovely butterflies chilling around us during lunch.

Me at lunch, happy! Photo by Andrew Kellett.

We navigated some really fun rapids, some of whom sported some interesting holes but the trip went down without incident. It was a really beautiful river, through a remote gorge. When commercial trips finally find this spot, it’ll leave many people smiling I’m sure. I would imagine the rafts would want to avoid those sharp rocks though, ouch.

After a fairly long paddle we sadly reached the end. At the take out was a large bridge constructed entirely of logs felled from the once giants of the surrounding forests; a great engineering feat but also a loss for the once living monoliths. There were many miners here, trying to eek out an existence on the gold which they do actually manage to extract from the sand down below.

Celliers at a random spot downstream. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

The take out. And the bridge. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Mining for gold! Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Deep divers heading down to suck up sand in hopes of more gold. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Quite a few chaps mining and living down there. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Me standing on a HUGE log that made up the bridge. Photo by Andrew Kellett.

The serious bridge. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera) 

Some of the cable making up the bridge. Mount Kerinci on the way back to our temporary home.

More gold mining at another spot further out on the road from the take out. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Action from town.. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Take away food. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Me on the left, with Celliers in the black t-shirt and Hugh in the blue, the tall man entertaining the kids, as always. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Hugh du Preez in centre. The Pied Piper. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

Sun going down. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera)

The owner of the shop and Celliers in a huge battle of chess. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera) Another move. Andrew Kellett. (Andrew’s camera) 

The drive back was long and the road extremely steep out the gorge. We had ‘lunch’ at 16:00 back at the house. Rice, of course, and some delicious beef. We then walked into town. We bought nothing, but the experience, being the only white people we saw the entire time and attracting attention, was interesting. On the way back we visited our friend at the shop and drank several beers. Hugh challenged him to chess but lost. Celliers went up next and it turned out to be a huge game, eventually Celliers won. Eventually we meandered back to the house and we treated to rice and chicken. Man, this was the life!

Photography by: Adrian Tregoning. Unless otherwise stated. A big thanks once again to Celliers Kruger and Andrew Kellett for the use of their awesome photographs in this article and indeed, many of the other articles. There are still two or three more articles in the Sumatra series before it comes to an end – stay tuned!
All Words by: Adrian Tregoning.