By Dominic Midgley. Sheer cliffs, hundreds of feet high, lined the banks of the river and there were terrifying rapids as far as the eye could see. But the manager of the 2, men working on the construction of a hydroelectric plant on the riverbank had agreed only a brief suspension of his dynamiting of the site to give the kayakers safe passage.
That time pressure, coupled with the fact that the workers had made the banks impassable with quicksand and loose debris, meant that David and his companions had to limit their recce to a brief paddle in quieter waters upstream.
Massive boulders β some the size of small houses β dotted the river, creating a maelstrom of white water. The most intimidating challenge was a 15ft-high cascade stretching almost the entire width of the river.
The fast-flowing water, given extra impetus by gravity as it crested the top of the waterfall, hit the river below with such force that it created a violent churn effect. The grand scale of the Amazon River crosses the width of South America David Midgley's mission to became one of the first people to kayak the distance of the Amazon River was birthed on a paper tablecloth in a Scottish pub. Massive boulders, some the size of small houses, dotted the river for David to negotiate.
This one might have been better termed a death-trap. And as David, Don Beveridge and Darcy Gaechter climbed into their boats, their morale was not helped by the sight of the workers on the clifftops above them making throat-cutting gestures. Don was the first to brave the roaring torrent that day in He paddled across the river to the far bank, where a narrow corridor of water made it possible to avoid the hole. Once Don had disappeared from view, David followed him, doing his best to keep to the same line.
