50 Miler History: Andre Hawarden
I did my first 50 Miler in February of 1966 with the late Bob Templeton after an unsuccessful attempt at the Dusi in January. The start was at Mfula’s Store with an overnight stop on the left bank, just upstream of the old Khumalo’s Store Causeway.
I last competed in the 50 Miler late ’80s which makes it 40 + years ago. I have never paddled the section past the first saddles take out so I am very excited to be doing the race this year! Thank you Euro Steel for the sponsorship that has allowed me to race this year!
We used boats that were 15’long by 24”wide which in metric terms is 4.57 x 60 cm compare that to today’s craft which are generally 5.20 x 39 cm. The old river boats had fibre glass hulls and vinyl decks.
My first boat, note the high cockpits and huge width!
Only the real hotties were paddling the new Lymfi shape, which was 518 x 53 cm. I can remember that the river level was very low that year and that we were instructed to move aside for the faster boats that started after us. It always used to be a reverse order batch start. The beauty of that course was the absence of any major portages! We elected to walk around Tops Needle, Island and Five Finger rapids, that first year, because firstly there was not enough water and secondly because Bob could not swim! I can remember being amazed by the distance of flat water from the Pump House weirs (Oh ja, we walked these as well!) to the finish. What a grind in those old boats!
My second 50 miler was a completely different race, fancy new boat left over from the Dusi, a Lymfi with a ski cockpit and lots of water! I had just finished the Dusi with Bob and thought I was the greatest. I could sit in my boat well enough to paddle through the middle of everything. When the waves got too big and I got washed out of the ski cockpit I just clung like a monkey to the back deck and crawled back into the seat! What a hoot, no emptying for the whole day! That boat made a huge difference to the length of the flat water at the finish.
Ski cockpit Lymfi upper Umgeni.
The next year, I think, the overnight stop was moved down to a spot on the right bank between Khumalo’s and Top’s Needle. It was at this venue that we had the terrible night of drums and singing. The locals were holding a major baptism the required a whole night of worship with the actual procession down to the river and the immersion as we started the next morning. The other thing I remember was the incredible party that developed at the overnight stop. It got louder and louder until at 2 am I could stand it no longer and went into the tent and asked then to be quiet. At that stage Tuku (the late Arthur Edgerton) was singing through the loud hailer. I must have looked quite cross, and said the right thing because the whole tent full of huge drunken canoeists didn’t turn on me and beat to a pulp, which is what I expected at that stage, but became completely silent and left without a murmur.
I suspect that by then the race had changed hands. The 50 miler was first run by KCC but was later handed over to the fledgling Umzinyati CC who was a very much more social club than KCC.