Sure Travel Journey Vol 3.2 Autumn 2017 | Page 60

TOUCH DOWN // AUTUMN 2017
‘ POLLUTION LEVELS WERE SO HIGH THAT ON ONE SECTION OF THE RIVER WE HIT A WALL OF PLASTIC THAT WE LITERALLY COULD NOT SWIM THROUGH .’
cold water swimming so I got into that , starting with a swim in Lake Zurich . It took us to a lot of extreme places over the following few years : we swam the Beagle Channel off the southern-most tip of South America , and we did ice swims in Patagonia and Antarctica . I also did a relay race across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska . It was a tough adventure .
Why did you go back to rivers ? I had a lot of fun with cold water swimming , but it doesn ’ t appeal to me as much as rivers . I grew up in a small town in the Free State and our river was part of daily life ; we played in it , we swam in it . And I really wanted to do something that could make change , however small , instead of only challenging myself . So I came up with the idea for Rivers for Life , which is to attempt to swim a distance of 100 to 350 kilometres in a major river in each of South Africa ’ s provinces .
Tell us more about the three rivers you ’ ve swum so far . The first was the Wilge River in the Free State , in January 2014 . My friend Toks Viviers and I swam 200 kilometres over 10 days , but we couldn ’ t swim all of it because I got very sick due to a spruit running raw sewerage into the river . In October 2015 , Henko Roukema and myself tried to swim the Berg River from source to sea ( 294 kilometres ). We didn ’ t even get close :
We ’ re in the sixth year of one of
South Africa ’ s worst drought events in living memory , but it ’ s not the only reason for our water crisis . Mounting pressure on water supply , billions of kilolitres in waste and severe pollution are all critical threats . Andrew Chin is swimming to raise awareness around all of this .
TRAVEL FOR A PURPOSE
60 // MAKE MEMORIES FOR LIFE