Tanzania: Kiwira and a failed mission, or was it?

 In late March and April in 2025, Ari and Jordan teamed up with their Africa concubine Dewet Michau for another look into South Africa. There were many ideas thrown around for where to go but we ultimately settled for an area in Western Tanzania, north of Lake Malawi. Logistics were pretty simple, Ari and Jordy would fly into Mbeya and Dewet would meet them there with a pre-organised vehicle and driver. From there we planned to further explore a section of river Dewet had paddled a in a previous trip and then head to destination X [keeping is secret as we don’t want people cutting out lunch] for a 4-5 day first descent. We loosely kept to this plan, although the intended first descent was flooded and impassable and it turns out the upper reaches of the Kiwira would take over a week to safely breakdown. 

Our vehicle situation was fairly typical for our trips, we turned up and our driver and his companion (unsure why there was a companion) had essentially filled the back of the vehicle with their belongings so there was very little room for our stuff. All that said, we got to the river and managed to paddle the section Dewet had previous paddled but with a lot more water this time. It was world class waterfalls. 

The following few days we added on a section above the previously run sections and then extended down to the lower takeout, with ari running a 60+ foot first D. The character was wall to wall jungle river, which made it hard to scout but there was so many quality drops. 

While in this area our time was GREATLY improved having been welcomed into the home of Rob and Petra, a couple of avocado farmers who Dewet connected with via mutual friends. It was their generosity that really made the intial time in the Kiwira work for us. 

We had to break out of the Kiwira, the river had more to give but we really needed to go to check out our project. We shook off the extra person and reduced the amount of stuff in the vehicle as much as possible and hit the road. 

… but when we got there the river was FLOODING. Bank to bank, and not what we needed for a multi-day jungle first descent. So we had to audible and we got lucky enough to find a first descent in a dryer region. Was a single overnight but had good water and some good drops throughout. 

After this we were in a bit of an impasse, the region we have planned to explore was way to high to paddle and there was so much uncertainty about going further afield to try and find paddling. Our driver did not like the idea of going to the Congo so we decided to head back to Kiwira and explore the upper reaches. This would turn out to be a great decision and was spent a further week breaking down multiple bridge to bridge sections of the river. 

We really focused on drone and the nature of the river made it harder to get pictures of the drops, but the several sections were fantastic. Hard to work out, but all linked together nicely. There was a section of runnable/unrunnable giants in the middle, that will likely need a slightly different flows and a crew who’s prefrontal cortex has yet to completely develop. 

We’re heading back in late 2025 to try and get our initial intended mission complete and we will have a look at the lower Kiwira, from where we finished to above where the schistosomiasis/bilharzia begins. And for Christmas with Rob and Petra!