Barbel
The evening started off well. The tide running in quietly, susurrating against the sand banks, the
cries of night birds hunting and day birds shifting nervously in the dark. It was so dark that the stars
reflected and scintillated on the river water as it rippled on its slow leisurely way to the Indian
Ocean.
We stood just on the edge of the estuary, rods in hand, fishing bags, coffee, sandwiches on the river
bank behind us.
My father was a conservative when it came to fishing. Centre pin reels, no clutches, gears or fancy
gadgetry. Gave the fish more of a chance, increased the chances of an exciting fight. The Penn reel I
was using was "like using dynamite in a barrel of fish". The Penn was a good reel and in the hands
of an expert may have been as lethal as my father indicated, but I wasn't a good fisherman, so the
fish very often won. In any case it was just an excuse to stand in the warm east cape water, feel the
warm wind blow through my hair and chat idly with my father. To give the fish more chances, I
didn't bait up as regularly as I should have, it didn't matter if I didn't catch a fish, it was the
experience that mattered.
Then things started to happen. Suddenly as fish runs do, the fish started biting. I missed the first few
bites entirely, day dreaming, or possibly night dreaming, but whatever, I missed. My father didn't,
on the first bite, he struck, hard and hooked. There was no fight, no sudden dashes, nothing. he
reeled in a sea barbel. Ugly fish, rough shark like skin, square, flat heads with whiskers under the
soft white chin. Grey on top with a lethal dorsal spine. They ate the bait, we pulled them ashore, de-
hooked them and tossed them back and still they kept on coming. I got bored with the process and
stopped using bait, the bites stopped and I continued admiring the evening. My fathers frustration
grew as every barbel was dragged ashore, dehooked, the line and hook deslimed and new bait
added. The bait levels decline rapidly and soon we were in trouble, almost no bait and no end to the
barbel run. It was at this point that my father made a mistake and a particularly lively barbel,
twisted as he dehooked the fish and the spike got him squarely in the thumb. That was the end of
fishing, we packed up and went back to the shack, empty handed, my father grumbling about the
existence of barbel in a world where clean fish were to be expected.
As was usual for him, my father did the minimum to treat the wound. A dab of antiseptic paste, a
bandage that rapidly became dirty and tatty and was discarded by Tuesday morning.
The next weekend we were due to walk the Valley of Desolation near Graaff Reinett. The Valley for
anyone who hasn't experienced it first hand is an enormous cut in an otherwise pristine mountain
and is about 100 m above the plains that surround the mountain. It looks almost as if a god had
attempted to cut a chunk off the mountain using a hack saw with a loose blade and given up the
attempt in disgust, leaving the saw dust in the form of boulders strewn all over the place. The walls
of the valley are verticle and at most 500 m apart. You enter at Hells Kitchen and exit a the other
end of the valley onto the lands of a friendly farmer. You need to know if the farmer is friendly in
the Karoo. They tend to take a dim view of anyone on their lands due to the high levels of stock
theft and the difficulty of policing the enormous farms whose road fronts stretch for up to 50 kms.
We had been told about the hike by the local scout troop and had offered a place to stay on the
evening before. When we got to Graaff Reinett my father went in search of first aid, the thumb that
the barbel stabbed was now starting to swell and was in serious need of attention. He would not
hear of cancelling the hike, he was "all right". I didn't argue.
The next morning the sun rose bright, early and hot as we set out for "Hell's Kitchen", the entry to
the valley and by the time that we had got there, the temperature was in the low thirties and it was
still early morning. To appreciate the issue of heat you must remember that the valley is slap bang inthe middle of the Camdaboo plains and right on the edge of the high Karoo. The temperature in December and January can easily reach 40 degrees and stay that way till midnight. One awful night
in Cradock about 80 kms from Graaff Reinett the mercury stayed at 45 degrees till nearly dawn and
reluctantly slumped to 40 degrees, only to climb upwards again as the sun rose. In the valley, we
expected it to be high and to climb more, purely because the eternal Karoo winds cannot get in, the
steep walls blocking all outside influences but the sun.
Our informants told us that the valley was about 5 km long and acting on that information we
expected it to take us approximately 3 hours "at worst" and so we packed sufficient water for at
least four hours giving us lots of lea way.
What our informants had not told us and which came as a complete surprise was the fact that the
floor of the valley, if you could dignify what we found as a floor, was actually a rubble strewn hell
of rocks that ranged from football sized rocks to house sized rocks, there was not a flat area to rest
on and if you dropped a stone, it seemed to rattle until the sound faded out of hearing rather than the
stone coming to rest.
There were, obviously, no paths, each metre forward needed to cheched out for safety and for the
ability to keep going forward. Time and time again, we found what appeared to be an easy path only
to come up against a dead end and we would have to retrace our steps and try again. Our speed
dropped to less than 1 km an hour and the temperature was murderous which immediately affected
our already meagre water supplies and soon it became a matter of survival.
Our problems were exacerbated by my father's deteriorating condition. His thumb was now hugely
swollen and showing signs of blood poisoning, blackened skin and a red line heading wristwards.
The poisons in his system made him weaker than I had ever seen him and he was stumbling along at
the back rather than leading. The stumbling was the most dangerous part. There was nowhere to
walk easily and comfortably and a simple stumble could lead to a broken leg. We protected my
father as best we could, but being heavier than any of us, stopping him toppling into an endless hole
would be almost impossible. Evacuation would be a nightmare and I found myself considering the
unconscionable, splitting the team. Sending two of our strongest legs ahead to get help while the
rest of us moved slowly forward. The worst part of it all would be standing up to my father, telling
him he was incapable of completing the hike and endangering all of us. I delayed and delayed and
then almost without any warning, an opening in the valley wall appeared as if from nowhere. We
edged our way toward the gap which seemed to recede from us as we walked toward it a sort of
nightmarish Alice in the Looking Glass scenario. Then we were out, the temperature dropped and
the Karoo wind came to great us. We were not completely out of trouble, our water supplies were
almost gone and, as we had dropped out of the valley early we were nowhere near the appointed
camp site. The, as we stumbled slowly down the hill we saw a sheep watering trough just below us
and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was then that the event I had dreaded for the last 5 hours
happened, my father fell. What had happened was that the rope he was carrying in his pack caught
on a tree and started to uncoil itself. He continued walking, not noticing until the rope tightened and
so he lent against the pressure. Then the tree branch whipped back. He landed on his back and had
to be helped to his feet. Before he could argue someone grabbed his pack, another grabbed the rope
and we helped him down the slope and to the safety of the watering trough and the shade of the
trees that opportunistically grew around it.
We slept the sleep of the totally exhausted and the next day set out for where our car was parked. As
we hit the first public road the police were waiting. It was apparently illegal to do the trip without
notifying the authorities so that they could have a rescue team and possibly even a helicopter
available. We double talked the policeman with our terrible school boy Afrikaans and even
persuaded the cops to take our kit to our car.