...walkwherewaterwould... V

Sometimes water walks uphill. In 2012, I joined the short-lived Fearless indoor rock-climbing gym, spent my friday and sunday afternoons there, and whenever else I could as well, and obtained my belay certificate. (...Not that I can now remember how to belay anymore, or merely just attach a rope to a harness, for that matter.)
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I managed to complete all the indoor climbing-routes from the lowest grade 13 to about half of the grade 17s on the South-African Ewbank grading system (max. 35) before the gym had to close due to lack of interest in the Garden Route region. However, the skills I learned there... always maintaining three points of contact, leaning in, more contact-surface gives a better contact-friction sloper hold, drive with the legs and steer with the arms, hanging on straight arms doesn't becoming tiring, don't clamp up, how to pinch, how to drop-knee, how to knee jam... have all stood me in good stead ever since, and for that all-to-brief educational experience, I am ever thankful.
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Rock-climbing is like Maths. It requires the same problem-solving skills, and the breakthroughs are just as euphoric. It's about seeing the line... Mathematicians Understand. Climbing Rocks!

​​George Peak XI
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At the end of 2013, a former home-school student of mine, John-Marc, and another friend, Jano, and I decided to go climb Cradock Peak again. I hadn't done it in a very long time, because of my knees, but J-M and Jano managed to pursuade me, and so we went.
 
It was a beautiful summer-morning. We started early. The day grew hot. Eventually, we ran out of water. Sucking pebbles under your tongue, doesn't help. Thankfully, from the T-junction on the neck between George and Cradock Peaks, some way down towards Breakfast Rock, there's a small, muddy puddle. If you don't disturb the pool too much, the thin layer of water on top is clear enough not to taste too much of mud. That was the sweetest water we'd ever drunk!
 
However, the day was far from done yet. Jano had weak ankles. J-M's shoes were too tight around the toes. I was shuffling along like a crab, first one way and then the other, trying to allow each knee to work a little bit less from time to time (while the other, admittedly counter-productively, necessarily had to work a little bit harder).
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We were all three in pain, and we knew it. ...And Breakfast Rock didn't seem to be coming any closer! We also knew that complaining about it, was useless, beyond the general moans and groans under our breath, and the occasional, reflexive, torturous yelp from any one of us who just so happened to step slightly skew at that moment. None of us were in a state to help anyone else. So, we just limped along as best we could, J-M listening while I preached about the higher ethics and morals and philosophies and truths of life, in an attempt to keep our minds otherwise occupied, and Jano walking way up ahead, just trying to cope by himself.
 
Pretty much exactly fourteen hours later, I was finally back at my front door - and, oh, so very glad of it. J-M lost both his big-toe nails due to the pressures of the day. Jano... probably wished he'd had a more extensive swear-word vocabulary, because there's only so much you can say with a mere three or four letters per word at your disposal before it becomes repetitive. Despite the hardships we suffered together, we nevertheless also survived together, and we remember together, fondly... "It's the hardship what makes the friendship."
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Knee Injury VI
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Eventually, I came to the conclusion that perhaps it was not so much the crash into the athletics hurdle that caused my knee trouble, but that, according to the interwebz, I possibly had a condition known as ITBS (Iliotibial-Band Syndrome), the second most common knee injury, which is caused by inflammation.
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The IT band runs on the outside from the top of the ilium (hip bone) to the top of the tibia (shin bone) just below the knee. On the outside of the knee, there is a bony protrusion called the lateral epicondyle of the femur ("the bony protrusion on the knee on the outside of the thigh bone" in English). As the knee bends back and forth during walking, the IT band apparently slides back and forth over the epicondyle. During a hard climb, a shortened, tighter IT band eventually becomes inflamed due to the repeated, continual, increased friction with the epicondyle.
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Generally, it takes a while for the inflammation to set in, usually during the up-climb, I suspect. That's probably why I've always experienced it on the down-climb only. Which mountain is climbed down first, and then up, anyway?

All of this sounded about right, the way the pain was described, and the explanation of the possible cause, but I'm not an orthopedic specialist. So, who really knows?
 
Apparently, a short IT band can be lengthened surgically, but, from what I understand, it requires almost impractically-careful measurement and planning in order not to induce an imbalance on the other knee in return. It seems to be generally taken only as the last resort, when even ordinary walking becomes too painful.

At one stage, the knee pain would flare up when the weather changed, but then that phase passed. Strangely, though, later the knee seemed to be affected negatively when I ate any kind of yoghurt - even merely just a yoghurt-frosted cookie. Although I don't dislike dairy, I'm not a great fan of it either. Milk is actually for baby animals and baby humans.

New Friends III
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In 2015, I was going on a morning hike to the Swings (when the old swings were still hanging, before the fires of 2018oct) with a big group of home-schoolers again: J-M, Ruan, Cassidy, Raynhardt, the Fauls, Sharné, Gabriyel, and I don't remember who else besides. Mid-morning, we were all still standing at the gate at the top of First Avenue, Fernridge, waiting for some more friends to arrive, when a gentleman and a lady came down the track from the mountain, and asked if we could direct them to the Old Dam.
 
Forget it. Don't even try. If anybody needs directions to get to the Old Dam, they won't find it. Even I, who'd spent so much time exploring in the forest and on the mountain, took years afterwards to find it myself again, after Guillaume had taken me there the first time, one day while we were still at school. Those who know the way, will shake their heads in disbelief at what I'm telling you here. However, take someone there once, for the first time, and then ask them to find it again for themselves, even just a week later... Chances are they might not. Besides, someone had already told the gentleman and lady about the dam, and probably how to get there as well, and still they couldn't. So, there.
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The way to get there is simple enough to walk, though, but just too confusing to describe and explain verbally, especially to someone whom you're not sure whether they actually know what you're talking about, or not, and especially from Fernridge side, around the Woozle bush, and at the bend on the top of the hill. I've tried describing the way myself, and I've heard others describe it, and others and I have tried to help each other to describe it... in the end, we just end up taking the people there ourselves, every time. Those who know what I'm talking about, will simply smile and nod in acknowledgement.
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I offered to show them how to get to the top of the long, straight incline from where they couldn't get confused anymore, but simply had to turn right, uphill, and then had to keep left at each of the next two turn-offs. After taking them halfway, I waited to join the home-school group who were coming up the same way, and who had most of them been to the Swings before, and knew how to get there anyway.
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It turned out the gentleman and lady were search-and-rescue volunteers, and were scouting the area for future reference, I imagine. The lady, Sinead, took my number, and invited me to join the "Hiking in Eden" WhatsApp group. Initially, I wasn't particularly keen, since I didn't really fancy hiking unknown trails with strange people.
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​​...walkwherewaterwould... VI
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In 2017, I took the Sabbath Year, for religious reasons. (A sabbatical, although there might be some correspondence between the two terms, might be more closely associated with academic goals.) Best thing I've ever done! Highly recommended! Will do it again, every seven years.
 
Next one starts, for me, around 2024mar/apr, depending on the sighting of the new moon and the presence of aviv barley in the land of Israel. However, there's no point in tutoring students for the first term of the year only, and then passing them on to another tutor. Therefore, I plan to start my next Sabbath Year on 2023dec01 already, if not sooner. It ends around 2025mar/apr again, around the start of the second school-term, for me. Can almost not wait!
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It also turned out that a former home-school student of mine, was also taking a gap year at that time, and we started doing weekly hikes and jogs in the forest and on the mountain together. I introduced her to the concept of how to ...walkwherewaterwould... which she seemed to grasp immediately, spontaneously and confidently.

Natural Rhythm III

I also introduced her to the concept of finding her own natural jog-rhythm.

Very often, when jogging with someone else, I like to fall in step with their rhythm. I am of the opinion that the sound of our steady, synchronised footfalls and breathing, at least unconsciously, facilitates the maintenance of that rhythm, and increases our endurance and range, at least somewhat.

However, then it also becomes obvious when they have any difficulty in maintaining their rhythm, and I try to make them aware of it. Eventually, they usually do pick up on it, and then our mutual rhythm and endurance do seem to improve.

Running together... like that... with the same stride, and the same breath, and the same rhythm, in single motion... is something... truly beautiful to behold and experience...

Knee Injury VII

One day, my waterwalk student and I were cycling around the forest, and exploring some new routes behind, on the north side of the pine plantations at Witfontein, looking towards Cradock Pass, and we were walking along, pushing our bikes, talking, as we usually did, and the conversation turned, as it sometimes does, and she asked if she could pray for my knees.
 
At that stage, I had pretty much given up, and resigned myself to accepting the ITBS and ever-increasingly painful knees coming down long, steep declines for the rest of my life. However, we both share a similar religion and faith, and I agreed without hesitation. Nothing happened there and then, though. ...And that's OK. We prayed. I think that's what counts.

New Friends IV

Little Waterwalker mentioned that she would like to go on a long walk across the mountains. I replied that I'd noticed on WhatsApp that "Hiking in Eden" was planning on doing the 17km Pass-to-Pass/Cradock Pass hike. That is how, after about two years of lurking on the "Hiking in Eden" group, I met Theunis, the main admin of the group, and started hiking unknown trails with strange people. It was still a painful hike coming down the Cradock Pass, though.
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Then, one thing leading to another, as they often do, what with enthusiastic hikers often being members of more than one hiking group, I ended up joining other hiking groups from the Mossel Bay area as well. Hadn't it been for Wawa's idea of a long walk across the mountains, I probably still wouldn't have gone on a hike with "Hiking in Eden". The first time is nicer with friends, but once you've hiked with a group like that, you'll have made some new friends in any case, and then it simply becomes all that much nicer still.

Knee Injury VIII

After having come down Cradock Pass, I started researching possible therapies again, and discovered and adpated some new, prolonged, short-base split-squats.
 
I go down on one knee, placing my front heel on the ground next to my back knee, and then lift both of them about 1cm off the ground, carrying all my weight on my front and back toes only. I hold this posture for 30 counts, synchronising the counting with my breathing, then take a short break, swap feet, and repeat. On every count, while holding the posture, I also alternately pull and push my feet towards and away from each other, without actually moving them, but merely straining against the friction of the ground, along the line of my forward-facing direction to activate and create some further tension in as many other muscles as I can think of. I also hold out at arm length some big, filled water-bottles, all the while trying to keep my back as straight as possible. I do this and some other light exercises early in the morning, after having made my bed, before breathing and relaxation exercises, and journaling, getting dressed, checking and replying to email, and eating breakfast. Such were my mornings during the Sabbath Year.
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Then, one day... I noticed the difference. I guess I'll never forget the moment it dawned on me...

I was crossing Hibernia Street in the centre of town, when a car approached, and I sprinted across to get out of the way. ...And suddenly I realised that I had just moved much more effortlessly with much more freedom and strength than I had done in many long years.
 
It's not as if I'd been consciously training for this purpose, or anything like that, during the year at all. Oh, I might've started doing the split squats shortly before, but I definitely wasn't expecting any such drastic improvement; not so quickly, at least, and especially not considering my previous track record with all the other treatments and therapies. ... It was astounding! ...and wonderful... Yes, the apparent correlation between prayer and discovering the split squats does not prove the former having caused the latter, but don't you just love such seeming uncoincidence?...
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​New Friends V
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In 2018, Wawa and I met Nadia on André's Camferskloof Peak hike. Some time after that, Elmer posted an invitation on Hiking in Eden to go conquer Jonkersberg. On Jonkersberg, Nadia wondered about doing a longer, multi-day hike, and I suggested that she should perhaps try the two-day Harkerville trail first, to see how she liked that, before she attempted the Tsitsikamma or the Otter.
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​​Glentana V
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In 2018, I also hosted my first Glentana Wreck and Caves hike on Theunis' "Hiking in Eden" group, and invited Mariaan's "Physique Hiking Group" to come along as well, Glentana being about halfway between George and Mossel Bay. However, some members couldn't make it, and requested that the hike be done again at a later date. Since then, I've tried to do at least one Glentana hike per month at the lowest of the two monthly spring-low tides. (...and since then, COVID happened, and fuel has become unaffordably expensive. So, Glentana didn't happen regularly for a long time, and only once after COVID again.)
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Hagarus Plantiticus IV
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...And then we lost her. Wawa disappeared.
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Mid-morning, I was guiding Nadia and a small group back down the mountain from a hike into Guillaume's "Hagarus Plantiticus" valley, when my phone rang in my backpack. It was Wawa's mother.

At that stage, I wasn't such an active hiking guide on saturdays yet. I usually keep my phone on silent in any case, and often still turn it off completely on saturdays. However, when I lead a hike, I usually turn the volume up.
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Wawa had been staying over at friends for the weekend. I originally (mis)understood that she told their son that she'd wanted to go watch the sunrise over the Garden Route Dam that morning. So, she went out, walking down the road, but hadn't returned yet. That had been hours previously already.
 
Knowing that Wawa and I shared weekly hikes in the mountain, her mother thought it might be a good idea to ask me to help them search for her. However, since I was still high up on the mountain, I suggested that they rather contact J-M who would also be more than willing and very capable of contributing constructively to the search, while I made my way down to join them.
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Wawa's family kept driving around, continuing the search as best they could, and then J-M called in his friends, and eventually various running and cycling and hiking clubs, members of neighbourhood watch groups, the police, the fire brigade, the National Sea Rescue Institute, as well as search-and-rescue volunteers were all involved.
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On the way down the mountain, we stopped for a good half-an-hour-long rest and a chat at the Old Dam. The group asked about my reasons for not going down immediately. ... It might've seemed strange to them, knowing the situation, and possibly seeing my preoccupied state of mind, that I nevertheless didn't make any haste. ... It is still hard to explain, even after all this time... but I was simply aware that, paradoxically perhaps, there was no point in me rushing down to join the search. Yes, join it, I would, but rushing wasn't going to help any. Yes, I agree: logically, it makes absolutely even-less-than-zero sense whatsoever, at all. ...But that is what I knew I had to do: not rush.
 
I walked the group back down the mountain to Fernridge where we had started the hike that morning, and where Wawa's parents live.
 
I was on foot, and it was another half an hour back home from there through the forest for me, and then another half an hour's preparation and drive to the dam on the other side of town, and then we would still have had to communicate and coordinate meeting up, and planning our strategy from there. However, I decided to go to Wawa's parents' house first to see if anyone was there.
 
As I went down the street, Wawa's mother and brother were just pulling out of their driveway going back to join the search. We all agreed that it was good and expeditious to meet each other there so unexpectedly like that.

Had I rushed, I would probably have missed Wawa's mother coming home, which would simply have complicated communication and coordination unnecessarily, and then I would not have received all the information I needed. There is only so much that can be communicated over the phone. I needed more.

Yes. I could've rushed, and I could've phoned when I arrived back at the Fernridge forest gate already, and we could've arranged to meet up. However, I'm actually quite phone-averse, if you haven't noticed that yet, and I'd rather try to get along without one as far as possible. A phone, for me, is a last resort, when all else has failed. It's just one of my things. I apologise for causing you so much frustration. However, don't you also want to see things which really matter, work out without the use of a phone, for a change?...
 
We went back to drive around on the forest roads at Saasveld, since they'd pretty much exhausted the area around the dam already, and since Saasveld is just within walking distance on the opposite side of the dam.
 
At that stage, early afternoon, I think the search was just beginning to become somewhat more coordinated by means of WhatsApp-group communications, but I was under the impression that everyone was pretty much still just running around wherever they thought would be best next, unaware of whether anyone else had searched that area before or not, or how thoroughly it had been searched.
 
J-M and some runner friends of his had run all the way up to Tierkop and back, and that's a good 11.7km besides everywhere else they had searched already before and after. He told me afterwards that merely the runners alone had covered a total of 290km in just over two hours. That is around 135km/h! At least, it wasn't just one runner, or even a single group of runners. It was probably more like about 50 small groups of runners, more or less, I estimate, based on these numbers and some other assumptions regarding search dynamics. I might also be a bit out with my guesstimates.
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One bit of advice, though, that I learned: in a search like this... Call. The. Person's. Name.
 
You'd think it would be obvious, right? Apparently, it isn't. I actually didn't realise that I could do just exactly that until Wawa's brother started doing it. ...And I hadn't heard anybody else call her name before that either. ... Silly, but there it is. If I hadn't been with Wawa's mother and brother, I would probably, by myself, never have thought to call her name.
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By that time, I'd seen enough to begin to form an idea of what I might want to do, how I might want to do the search myself. There did not seem to be any information readily accessible or even merely just available anywhere for me at that time regarding whether anybody had yet physically tried to trace her footsteps systematically, or not.

However, I was driving along in Wawa's mother's car. We weren't anywhere near Wawa's starting point anymore. According to all accounts, other groups had searched there before in any case. My idea actually seemed rather more duplicative than constructive, and at least not any more useful than anything anybody else had been doing all along already anyway. So, I just merely continued to follow everyone else's lead.
 
Just then, one of the main coordinators suggested that Wawa's mother go back home, and wait, in case Wawa decided to go back there. That was when I suggested that, since we didn't seem to have any better options, that I would like to continue the search on my own, and Wawa's mother offered to loan me her car for that purpose.

​​...walkwherewaterwould... VII
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After dropping her mother at home, I went back to Wawa's friends where she had been staying the night before. By this time, it was going onto late afternoon. The sun was going to set early. We were running out of time before nightfall. ...And yet, somehow, I still wasn't very much concerned.

"Bridge of Spies" (2015) movie... "Would it help?"

"Worry is like a rocking chair... It keeps you busy, but it gets you nowhere."
 
"Don't just do something, stand there." (inside joke)
 
I spoke to her friends where she'd spent the night before, attempting to assess the situation, trying to get a better feel for what's gone and might still be going on, but I learned nothing new or more useful than what little we already knew.
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Then I simply started walking where I thought she would've walked that morning...
 
Having walked with her on a weekly basis for a while before, I think there is something to be said for an awareness of someone else's walking habits. However, in order to develop this awareness, I believe one must closely observe the other's walking patterns when they are allowed to lead the exploration of an unknown area freely for themselves. Also, having thought that she'd wanted to see the sunrise over the dam, I took the first turn to the left, off the road, and followed it down the hill to the water, and along the dam's edge, continually calling and searching along the bush tracks.
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Along the way, there was a turnoff to the right, and I actually stopped to contemplate seriously whether I should follow it, or not. However, I realised that taking the first best turnoff every time I came to one, I would lose myself in a confusing maze of paths before too long as well. I concluded that I should perhaps better walk along the perimeter of my current search-area, and then, afterwards, spiral inwards to the interior area, somehow, if necessary.

I also came across some people angling from the shore. They hadn't seen her, but they were aware of the situation because other search-teams had come by there before already, repeatedly. It didn't make any sense that I would want to search there again where others had searched repeatedly before. ...And yet I wouldn't be satisfied if I didn't do it. Besides, I couldn't see any better way of doing it, or doing anything else for that matter.

Then, suddenly, on a vague bush-track along the water's edge, out of nowhere, somewhere in front of me, there was a reply to my call. At first, I thought I might have come across another search-team somewhere off across the dam. I called again, but the answer didn't actually sound quite that far away, and it was so ... calm, relaxed and unconcerned ... I thought I was experiencing an auditory hallucination, merely hearing what I wanted to hear. ...But it sounded so real... ...Or perhaps someone else was playing the fool with me, especially because it didn't sound as desperate as the other search-teams that I could hear further off in the distance, or as desperate as I imagined the lost and/or hurt girl would sound that everybody was searching for. I called again...
 
Half an hour after having started walking, I found her. I phoned her father. He sounded very relieved over the phone. He told me later that, at that moment, he was actually at the airport, just about to charter a helicopter for the search.

In approaching the water's edge, Wawa'd merely got herself stuck in a thicket of trees in the middle of a bramble patch with no easy way out again. It took me about half an hour to clear some of the brambles out of the way with my hiking stick. She only had her bare hands, and had lost a shoe as well. People might've called, or not. She might've heard them, or not. She might also have called back, or not. Apparently, nobody had heard her.

Another bit of advice, that I just realised now: if you ever get lost, without any sense of direction anymore... Stay. Where. You. Are.
 
If you walk around, then, for the rest of us, it's like playing hide-and-seek with a moving target. ...much more difficult. Thankfully, things worked out much more simply that day.

That evening, after everything, at the communications, coordination and command centre, I noticed Sinead, from "Hiking in Eden", among the other search-and-rescue volunteers again. I also met Dewald there, one of my former register-class/home-room students from Outeniqua High. I knew he'd taken the first-aid course at school, and now it turned out that he was also a search-and-rescue volunteer.

The Google Maps coordinates linked here above, are approximate estimates, and since the upgrades to the dam, the water line might've changed.

(Afterwards, Wawa told me that, yes, she initially had wanted to go watch the sunrise, but not necessarily over the dam. However, she got distracted by a short walk along the way, and then she merely looked for a spot of restfulness to sit and watch the water... By that time, the sun had already risen.)