First of all there were the problems of getting the canoes out to Ethiopia, obtaining permission to descend the river, buying firearms and pistols and finding some kind of transport in Ethiopia for the support party. He managed to get a Winston Churchill Fellowship which gave him both a cash base and an air of respectability. He also had the promise of a Land Rover from British Leyland but was unable to get clearance to drive overland into Ethiopia. He sought help from the Royal Air Force and in a letter to the Chief of Air Staff his response to their refusal is quite revealing:
‘I requested air transport out for five canoeists (one in the fleet Air Arm, one in the army and myself in the RAF (University of Birmingham Air Squadron) and, if possible, the Land Rover.
‘The application was turned down. The enormity of the task we are attempting, the generous support we have received from educational and charitable trusts and, above all, the fact that at twenty I should be mature enough and have the ability to set up an international expedition of this kind disgraces the RAF in their refusal, despite their vast resources, to help me explore this little-known area.
‘To quote from the letter received from the Winston Churchill Trust informing me of my successful application: “Sir Winston – war leader, historian, adventurer, soldier, painter, writer, politician and statesman, had no patience with formality or red tape; he believed in action.”
‘In emulating Sir Winston, I hope to see more of the action and less of the Red Tape.’
He received neither reply nor the flights he wanted, but this did not deter him and he managed to get some concessions from Egypt Air. At the same time as organising the expedition he was studying for his exams and organising a tour of the British Junior Canoe Team in Europe. Then, just three weeks before departure, he was confronted with a major crisis. The Services refused clearance to join the expedition for two of his canoeists, on the grounds that the venture was too dangerous and that the political situation in Ethiopia was uncertain. The latter reason seems curious, since an expedition of Sandhurst cadets were in Ethiopia at the same time as Mike Jones and his team. Then a third man also withdrew. The reasons he gave were pressures of business and his unhappiness with Mike Jones’s organisation. He had talked to John Blashford-Snell about the enterprise and felt that a stronger backup was needed.
But Mike was not going to be beaten; he chased around and found two substitutes. David Burkinshaw, a Rotherham schoolteacher who had canoed with Mike on the slalom circuit was, in fact, more highly placed in the ratings than either Mike or the only survivor from the original team Mick Hopkinson; and Steve Nash, an electronics engineer from Reading, who was in the British white water team and, at twenty-seven would be the oldest member of the expedition.
Mike set out for Ethiopia with all the gear on 24 July. The others were going to follow a fortnight later. Looking more like a mercenary than a Winston Churchill Fellow, he arrived at London Airport with two revolvers and a shotgun under his arm. He also had the four canoes and all the expedition gear, fourteen packages in all which Egypt Air had agreed to carry out free as accompanied luggage. He managed to get everything on the plane, surrendering the guns to the pilot for his safekeeping.
He had to change planes at Cairo and tried to persuade the pilot to carry the guns over to Customs, but the pilot wouldn’t touch them. By this time the rest of the passengers had already left the plane and were in the airport bus. Mike, feeling very much on his own, tucked the guns under his arm and walked out on to the tarmac; he had taken only a couple of steps when there was a yell and a guard came rushing up, gun pointed at Mike. Soon he was surrounded by excited guards, disarmed, beaten up and hauled off to a detention centre. He never discovered whether they thought he was a mercenary on the way to the wars or a potential hijacker, but it took him eight hours of hard talking before he had convinced them that he was a peaceable canoeist on the way to the Blue Nile.
His troubles were not over, for when they came to change planes, he discovered that the canoes would not fit into the cargo bay of the Comet which flew from Cairo to Addis Ababa. He had no choice, therefore, but to leave them behind at Cairo, hoping to have them sent on by some alternative means. On arrival at Addis, he found himself plunged into a lone struggle with Ethiopian bureaucracy to get all the gear through Customs. He managed to do this in the comparatively short time of two weeks; it had taken nearly two months for Blashford-Snell’s expedition to clear Customs. But the canoes were still sitting in Cairo Airport.
When the rest of the team flew out to join him, Steve Nash took the precaution of sealing his .38 into the bottom of the metal box containing one of the radios and, as a result, got it through undetected. They were just about to board the plane at Cairo, when Mick Hopkinson noticed the four canoes which Mike Jones had brought out, lying on the tarmac where they had been dumped a fortnight before. Hopkinson insisted on the plane delaying its departure and Steve Nash even tried to unscrew one of the pressurised windows of the plane, hoping to get the canoes in that way and then to lay them in the gangway. He was stopped, very forcibly, by the pilot. In the end they left Dave Burkinshaw in Cairo, while they flew to Addis. Eventually the canoes caught up with them, flown by Ethiopian Airlines.
It was nearly six weeks from the day Mike Jones had set out from Heathrow before they were ready at last to launch their boats in Lake Tana. Inevitably the delays had got on their nerves. Although the group had met each other in the canoe circuit, they did not know each other well. For all except Mike Jones this was their first expedition and even for him there was a vast difference between joining a group canoeing down the Grand Canyon and being in Ethiopia in charge of everything.
Mike Jones was in a hurry to get going. The rainy season lasts from June to September and it was now very nearly over. As soon as the flood level began to drop, the submerged rocks would begin to reappear and the risk of tearing out the bottoms of the canoes would be very much higher. Dave Burkinshaw and Steve Nash, on the other hand, were anxious to get everything soundly organised before committing themselves to the river. Dave had spent most of the night of their arrival at Bahardar, the small town on the banks of Lake Tana by the start of the Blue Nile, fastening into position the knee clamps which would help to jam him into his canoe, to enable him to paddle and – even more important – to roll effectively. He was worried about how well he would manage to fit these and whether the fibreglass had had time to set. Steve Nash was anxious to test all the wireless equipment and opted to stay out of the water on the first day to give himself time to do this.
They pushed the canoes into the water at the Bahardar bridge on the morning of 3 September. Glen Greer had decided to paddle Steve Nash’s boat that day, since the stretch down to the Tissisat Falls did not look too serious. Nash with the Land Rover, was going to meet them just above the falls that evening. At first everything went well. On the first big cataract, down which we had been swept out of control in 1968, they were able to pick their way. The waters were big and powerful but nothing like as difficult as some white water in Britain. Below the cataract, however, they ran into the same problems that we had encountered in 1968. Because of the number of different channels and heavily overgrown islands they were unable to inspect each cataract on foot, before going down. They had no choice but to take them blind. Mike Jones and Mick Hopkinson were out in front, taking one cataract at a time and then waiting for the others. Dave Burkinshaw and Glen Greer, less confident, were well behind. Greer was finding it particularly difficult, less at ease than the others in wild water, less adept at rolling back up once he had capsized.
The river was wide and shallow for long stretches, but then as they swept round a bend there was a roar of water; they could not see anything until they were on the very brink of the fall and completely committed. Jones, Hopkinson and Burkinshaw managed to shoot the fall, plunging down it to skirt a huge whirlpool, but Greer was sucked in, canoe and all, and vanished from sight. It seemed an age, though was probably less than a minute, before a p
addle came to the surface well below the whirlpool, then the canoe itself, badly smashed, popped vertically from out of the water. And still there was no sign of Glen Greer. At last he surfaced, about 300 feet downstream, badly shaken.
He insisted on carrying on, even though he was capsized and forced to swim for it on several more occasions. At the end of the day, still five miles short of the Tissisat Falls, they pulled into the bank and struggled for half a mile through the undergrowth to the road, where Steve Nash eventually found them and took them back to the hotel.
Dave Burkinshaw was becoming more and more worried about the whole venture. He had managed the first section without too much difficulty but was very aware that they had been paddling unladen canoes. Below the Tissisat Falls the river plunges through a series of gorges for the next 200 miles. They would have to carry their food, sleeping bags, radios and guns with them, all of which would make the canoes heavy and difficult to manoeuvre through cataracts which were probably going to be faster and more dangerous than anything they had faced before. On top of that were the threats of crocodiles and the Shifta bandits. He wanted time to think and insisted on staying out of the river the next day to go down and look at the waters below the falls. Steve Nash also stayed out and Glen Greer had had enough of canoeing; his role was that of shore party.
The next morning Mike Jones and Mick Hopkinson returned to the river. In spite of its volume they were enjoying themselves. They made a good team, paddled at the same standard and had a similar attitude to risk. They picked their way through winding channels, past tree-clad islands, shot tumbling cataracts and saw their first crocodile – a dark shape in the murky brown water.
It was late afternoon before they reached the top of the Tissisat Falls, hauled the boats out of the river and carried them to the road. Mike wanted to return to the water at the Portuguese bridge below the hydro-electric station. Pleased with the day’s canoeing and full of optimism, they rejoined the team to face a crisis. Dave Burkinshaw had announced that he was not prepared to go any further since he was convinced that they would be unable to control heavily laden canoes in the rapids. Jones disagreed and a furious argument ensued, culminating in Burkinshaw stating that he was going to return home.
The following morning Jones, Hopkinson and Nash, watched by Burkinshaw, Greer and a large group of dignitaries, set out just below the Portuguese bridge. At this point the river races down in a series of furious rapids. Heavily laden, it was difficult to manoeuvre the canoes through the torrent and they had gone only 900 feet when Nash hit a rock, ripped the bottom out of his canoe and was forced to bail out. The other two pulled into the bank. It was obvious that they could never get down these waters heavily laden.
Jones decided that the only course they could take was to dump as much as possible and travel down really light, living off the land – or just going hungry. After all they should be able to reach the Shafartak road bridge in four days. Nash thought this ridiculous; the risks were altogether too great. Hopkinson was happy to go along with Jones, but kept out of the argument. In the end they arrived at a compromise Nash suggested that he and Burkinshaw should act as a bank party, carrying their canoes and all the supplies round the difficult stretch of river – which they knew to be about twenty miles – while Jones and Hopkinson, travelling light, tried to canoe it. They would meet up again at the second Portuguese bridge. It also had the advantage of bringing Dave Burkinshaw back into the expedition. He agreed to join Nash on the walk and to canoe the river from the second Portuguese bridge.
It was now 6 September. Mike Jones and Mick Hopkinson returned to the river with just their sleeping bags, a radio, a cine camera, a pistol each and a little food – a bar of Kendal Mint Cake, an oatmeal block and a Rowntree’s jelly. Both admitted to being scared, but were determined to complete the river. The canoes, although lighter than the previous day, were still unwieldy, fierce cataracts alternated with stretches of brown swirling waters which gave a feeling of unpredictable power. On the banks cultivated fields were interspersed with patches of forest and scrub. After twelve miles they reached a point where the huge volume of the Blue Nile was compressed into a rocky passage a bare five feet wide that led into a boiling cauldron. This was the place where the white water team of the previous expedition had pulled their rubber boats out of the river. Hopkinson and (ones did the same, but paid some men who were working in the fields to carry the canoes a short distance round the obstacle.
They returned to the river at the start of the long gorge contained by sheer walls, a hundred feet high, which we had avoided in 1968. It was the most committing stretch of water that Jones and Hopkinson had ever ventured on. There was no possibility of any reconnaissances of the cataracts from the bank; they could not escape from the river, for the racing waters had carved away the black volcanic rock of the gorge walls into a continuous overhanging lip. There were hardly any eddies for them to rest in; they had to keep going, weaving their way through the cataracts, trying to read the maze of foaming waves and tumbling water, cutting their way across the troughs of giant stoppers, skirting boiling whirlpools. They took turns in going out in front, never knowing what was going to face them round the next bend. Their necks ached from the continuous craning to see over the crests of waves; there was no release from the tension, no chance to relax. Mick Hopkinson admitted to being more frightened in this section than he has ever been before or since – they were so completely committed to a stretch of river they knew nothing about.
It was five o’clock in the afternoon; the tropical dusk was getting close when they noticed a slight bay on the right. There was some slack water and a steep watercourse cutting its way through the wall of the gorge. They swung into it, had a desperate struggle to heave the boats out of the water and then started to scramble up the boulder-strewn slope, canoes balanced precariously over their shoulders. Out in front, Mike Jones stumbled on a huge boulder which started rolling, bounding down towards Hopkinson coming up behind. He dived out of the way and just managed to avoid it.
Shaken, exhausted, they reached the top of the slope and found a thicket in which to get some shelter for the night. It started to rain, quickly soaking their clothes and sleeping bags, but they dared not light a fire for fear of attracting bandits. Munching Kendal Mint Cake and chewing through some jelly, they joked about the fact that it was Mike Jones’ twenty-first birthday, then tried to settle down for the night. They both slept lightly, shivering in wet sleeping bags, frightened by every rustle in the undergrowth. Mike woke up on one occasion to find himself holding his cocked and loaded pistol, finger on the trigger, pointed at Hopkinson’s head.
At last the dawn came. They could not bring themselves to put the canoes back into the gorge, particularly as the cataracts just ahead were even worse than those they had been through the previous day. Instead they decided to carry them for about a mile, round the top of the gorge, struggling through undergrowth, up and down over stream beds until the walls of the defile began to relent and they were able to return to the water. It was still very fast and threatening; they were both very tired and as a result both had narrow escapes.
Mick Hopkinson was in front as they came to the top of a fall. At first glance it did not look too bad, a shoot of brown water leading to swirling brown waters below. It was only when he was on the very brink that he realised that the water was thundering over a sheer drop of more than fifteen feet. As he plummeted down he stood on his footrest, leaning back against the canoe to reduce the impact when he hit the water below. Fortunately there were no rocks and he arrowed down into the middle of the pool of boiling water, completely submerged, and then shot out just beyond it, his close-fitting spray deck keeping the water out of the canoe, managed to skate past the top of the fall and find an easier way down, further across. A few hundred yards further on Jones was caught in a huge whirlpool; he was spun round and round, helpless in the vortex before several minutes of frantic paddling enabled him to escape.
They reached the
second Portuguese bridge that same afternoon. There was no sign of their bank support party and so they set up camp a few hundred yards above the bridge. They were careful to hide the guns and their very obvious poverty was probably their best defence. What little money they had left had been spent in paying the local people to carry their canoes round the start of the gorge. In the next two days, while awaiting the arrival of the others, they bartered the few scanty articles of clothing they had with them for potatoes. In the afternoon of the second day Nash and Burkinshaw, with nine porters, reached the bridge. They were all exhausted, for they had had to walk about ninety miles of very steep and difficult going; the porters had become increasingly nervous as they got further away from home and at one point Nash had been forced to threaten them with his loaded revolver to stop them dropping the canoes and deserting.
Mike Jones could sense an almost immediate change of atmosphere amongst the rapidly growing crowd of local people, all of them armed with rifles, now that they saw the size of the team and the amount of gear they carried. It did not seem wise to hang around longer than was absolutely necessary and so that very afternoon they loaded the canoes and pulled out into the river.
It was now both wide and deep – comparatively easy canoeing, even when heavily laden. That day they paddled a few miles downstream and stopped for a big celebration tea, lighting a fire and gorging themselves to the full. They then set off once again, paddling until it was very nearly dark before slipping into a slight inlet and bedding down amongst the bushes without lighting a fire. In this way they hoped to avoid being discovered by the local people. Using this technique they managed to get down to the Shafartak bridge in four days. They were fired upon once by a group on the bank, but their progress was so swift and surreptitious that they avoided the trouble we had encountered in 1968.
Quest for Adventure Page 17