The Orange River is born high in the Drakensberg Mountains on the Eastern escarpment of Southern Africa. From its humble beginnings it becomes a major river and flows some 2000km to finally come to rest in the Atlantic Ocean on the opposite side of the dry continent. Its journey through the harsh African plains take it just south of the Kalahari Desert, but its celebration is at the "Augrabies Falls" where it tumbles 60meters into the shadows of a steep-sided gorge below. Augrabies, originally "Akoerabis" in the native "Khoi" tongue, appropriately means "place of great noise". Four world class white water kayakers joined forces and decided to test their skills in the massive rapids of the Augrabies Gorge. Their first major obstacle was going to be coinciding their kayaking attempt with there being sufficient water in the gorge to cover at least some of the massive boulders. . . . The South African Department of Water Affairs solved this problem by agreeing to coincide a scheduled dam release at the Van der Kloof Dam, some 1000km upstream, with the kayakers' plans. The water would take 8 days to travel the distance and to flood the gorge. It would rise from its typical flow of 60 cumecs (or liters per second), to 240 cumecs and produce a seething mass of orange and white hydraulics. Arriving at the gorge the kayakers agreed to first test their skills against the rapids down river. This section provided spectacular scenery and their success in this challenging white water gave them the necessary confidence to have a closer look at the upper rapids the next morning. Rigging ropes from above, they abseiled in for a closer inspection of these rapids. The news was not good. The possible routes or lines discussed from above appeared closed from below and the possibility of running any form of safety proved fruitless. To enter the gorge at the top implied one must negotiate the rapids and only exit again at the bottom. They still knew too little about the dangers and options to make this commitment. They chose to negotiate a complicated portage down a subsidiary canyon to enter the gorge a couple of hundred meters below the Augrabies Falls. This proved to be good judgement. The view from water level confirmed the suspected seriousness of the upper most rapids. It appeared unlikely that a kayaker could have survived an attempt at kayaking these. The group turned its focus on the still daunting white water down river of them. The remaining rapids were going to push the kayakers' skills to their limits and provide plenty of excitement, adrenaline and close calls in this dramatic gorge. The group had exercised good judgement, kayaked some wicked white water and been deeply moved by the intense beauty and power of the Augrabies Gorge!