Skips, Slips, Skeletons and Sacrifice

What a weekend! We knew it was going to be a new experience of camping, using the second hand tent we shipped out (which did well but as it turns out definitely isn’t waterproof) but we didn’t expect to have so many moments where we contemplated death!

As we’re clearly alive to tell the tale, perhaps all our fears of dying were unwarranted and just a sign of being too used to red tape and risk assessments in the UK.

You may have already seen Bumble, the ex-army truck, we travel in as a team - it’s quite something to be in the back of it (a modified shipping container) for several hours, particularly as it has to be locked from the outside. But if you’re not claustrophobic then you get used to it fairly quickly.

👆🏻Quite hard to get a photo as it was quite bumpy - also note: no kids present (!) as they were given a lift by someone with a car.

What Abigail and Hannah were present for though was actually a lot more frightening - the ride down to the bottom of Lusemfya Hydro Power Station. It’s not that it was fast (it took around half an hour to decend) but the being pretty much vertical in a ‘skip’ with no harnesses or hand rails (particularly at the front) while being lowered down to the bottom of the gorge was like nothing else I’ve ever known. I (Tim) honestly found it more frightening than both bunji and parachute jumping - maybe because there’s more time to think or maybe I’m just getting old?!!

You can watch a video of that experience here: https://youtu.be/HGVIiq_NiL4

Once at the bottom of the gorge we were then given the task of finding our way along the river to a waterfall, each taking turns to lead the rest of the team. It took quite a few hours of climbing, scrambling, and crossing forward and back across the river to make it. There were quite a few slips resulting in wet feet and sore bodies, as well as moments of wondering if it was all worth it. - Questions like ‘What was that skeleton we just passed?’ and ‘Did it die naturally or is was it killed by something bigger?’ maybe didn’t help the situation, but as with our journey in the ‘skip’, Abigail and Hannah seemed unfazed by it all.

Answers on a postcard 👇🏻

At one point, to avoid more people hurting themselves as they tried to cross the river, I decided to move 6 or so large rocks (the biggest I could lift) into the water to make a better path. I got about half way across before I realised there was still one large gap that people wouldn’t easily jump without slipping into the river. With my shoes still dry it didn’t seem worth the risk and so somewhat frustrated we found another (longer) way around. On the way back though, having actually made it to the falls, we arrived back at that same stretch of river.

We really didn’t want to take another detour and this time we didn’t have to - standing in the gap, one of the team sacrificed themselves, getting into the water to help us all make the jump! It was so kind of them to do that and made me rethink my own approach for the next time. After all, my shoes would dry out much quicker than someone’s bruises heal!

As with everything on this DTS, there’s lots to experience and lots to learn.