Chapter 4

Sue :

The early morning sun woke me early next morning and, while I was a bit stiff and sore, I felt great and glad to be alive. All this exercise and fresh air was definitely not doing me any harm and I found that I was actually enjoying our adventure, even considering the seriousness of it. I could hear Dad moving round outside and I soon smelt the smoke from the fire and knew that coffee and breakfast would be underway and it ws time I was up I crawled from my sleeping bag and fumbled a clean set of underwear from my pack, my activities prior to sleep the previous night making a change of panties imperative. We had allowed ourselves one pair of shorts, one pair of longs, two tee-shirts and two changes of underwear each, room and weight being of paramount importance, and the only other items of clothing we had were boots and jackets. I had sneaked a couple of extra pairs of nickers and a third tee-shirt in but even so I would have to do some washing at our next stop.

After I had had my morning piddle in the bushes and a wash in the lake, I joined Dad for breakfast and the fresh trout and coffee went down a real treat. We decided that the best way to get our equipment to the bottom of the falls and the river, about eighty feet below, was in two stages. Our rope was only sixty foot long and would not reach the bottom in one drop so we would secure everything on a ledge about halfway down and then start again We had our two packs, a bundle of paddles, tents and bits and pieces and finally the raft to get down after we had packed everything up and moved it to our chosen start place and, with the rope tied around me and Dad belaying me, I half climbed and half got lowered to the ledge. I freed myself and Dad pulled the rope back up and lowered, one at a time, the three bundles down and I made them secure. When the raft finally reached me I had a bit more trouble with it but I was finally able to release the rope and watch Dad climb down the doubled rope to about fifteen feet above our ledge.

Unfortunately the rope was too short in its doubled state to allow him to get right down so when he had a secure footing he released one end and pulled the free end up, over and free, and, as there was nowhere for him to secure it, he dropped it to me and sort of climbed, slid and fell the rest of the way to our foothold and luckily all he did was take a bit of skin off one knee. There was no-where on the ledge to tie off the rope so this stage was going to be a lot riskier as Dad would have to take the full weight of everything himself. The only good thing was that the cliff was not as high as we had first thought and we were only about thirty feet from the ground. I was worried about how Dad would get down as he would not have the rope to help himself with this time, but he reaasured me that he would be OK and anyway we did not have any choice.

I was lowered without a hitch and we had no problem with our gear so finally the only thing left to get down was Dad. He called out,

"How deep is the pool at the bottom of the waterfall?" I went and checked.

"Its about 10 or 12 feet deep about 6 feet out from the edge. Why?"

Without answering Dad began to slide down the steep cliff beside the waterfall and after he had slid about halfway he pushed himself off and droped into the pool with a mighty splash. I stood there with my mouth open, too terrified to move and when he finally re-surfaced I nearly cried with relief. He told me later that the reason he didn't tell me what he planned was that he was frightened I would be able to talk him out of it, which I would surely have tried to do.