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Upington Tales III: Flood season on the Orange, water gawkers and the Kalahari guy who saves them from drowning

Upington Tales III: Flood season on the Orange, water gawkers and the Kalahari guy who saves them from drowning
And the vineyards in the low-lying areas flanking the flooded Orange River go temporarily underwater. (Image: Chris Marais)
Chris Marais
By Chris Marais
6 Feb 2025
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Sakkie Spangenberg has been running his boat operation since 1997, and in those 25-plus years he has also rescued more than 40 people and countless beasts from drowning in the Orange River, especially during flood season.

As a journalist writing about the floods of 2011, I remember coming to Upington and seeing crowds of water-watchers gathering on the bridge, staring in fascination at the ever-rising levels of the Orange River. Then someone would dare someone and, soon enough, an idiot would be posing for selfies on the railing: a “river incident” in the offing.

We followed the swelling river on the Kakamas road down past the islands, where police boats were busy rescuing stranded fruit pickers. And just as I was about to pat myself on the back for being an intrepid flood reporter, I read Thirstland Treks by Carel Birkby and stayed my hand.

Birkby, who was to become one of South Africa’s premier war correspondents, was on assignment to cover island rescues during the dramatic floods of 1934. He was lucky enough to be in the company of Denys Reitz, South African War veteran, famous author and then Minister of Lands.

“Reitz is a politician second, but first an adventurer,” writes Carel Birkby. “He leaps into an aeroplane today when Cabinet duties call as readily as he leapt into the saddle during the guerrilla war of yesterday.”

The rising waters seem to hold a mesmeric grip on people. (Image Courtesy Stolper and Sons Archives)



Having a cup of coffee behind sandbags in flooded Upington. (Image Courtesy Stolper and Sons Archives)



Flood-watching is an age-old Upington sport. (Image Courtesy Stolper and Sons Archives)



Colonel Reitz surveyed the flood damage first-hand from the air. Then he landed, jumped into a homemade boat and joined the rescue efforts around Kanon Eiland.

“He ate grilled springbok steaks and roosterkoek and over cups of the Afrikaners’ black coffee he heard their tales of misfortune,” says Birkby. “Despite his discomfort, the politician looks back on that as one of his happiest nights.”

And now Julienne du Toit and I are about to meet a man who seems cut from the same cloth as Denys Reitz.

While chatting to the Die Gemsbok mob, we mention our next interviewee, Sakkie Spangenberg, the owner of the iconic Sakkie se Arkie river cruise vessel. Both Marina and Elsa agree:

“Sakkie is the David Hasselhoff of Upington. He’ll tell you all the river stories you need to know.”

Sakkie se Arkie


Just before cast-off time, the joint is hopping. The party-goers have already gathered at the bar and the double-decker boat is filling fast. Spangenberg is at his post behind the wheel upstairs, looking out across the sunset water.

Egrets are flying home across the river. Swallows nesting under the bridge are launching themselves into space in the hunt for miggies, those annoying little Orange River black flies. There are river people fishing all along the banks. There is magic in this sundowner cruise.

Sunday afternoon river cruising on Sakkie se Arkie, one of the prime tourism assets of Upington. (Image: Chris Marais)



On board, there is a mix of families, romancing couples, at least one corporate group and a stand-out squad of very merry women, all dressed in red and white and running up a drinks tab like gangbusters. Who could these ladies be?

“I’m not sure,” says Sakkie, twirling the Arkie around like a fat lady on a dancefloor, just under the bridge and blowing his musical Mississippi riverboat claxons for the hell of it. “But we do often get groups of professional mourners.”

“Hey?”

“Yes. They will cry at your funeral, for a fee. And then they come out on Sakkie se Arkie and let their hair down after all that wailing.” 

Julienne can’t help herself. She goes over and asks the women where they’re from.

“Oh, we’re just a social club from Kimberley,” they reply in unison and return to their festivities. Sakkie se Arkie: the perfect antidote to professional mourning stress syndrome.

One of the riverside villages that line the Orange. (Image: Chris Marais)


Kalahari River Man


If he wasn’t so deeply rooted to life on the Orange River and the Kalahari, with all its twists and turns, its sweet and gritty bits, Sakkie Spangenberg would be a famous storyteller on Afrikaans radio. When he gets the narrative bit between his teeth, you just sit back, listen and smile at his way with words.

“My Oupa’s ancestors came from the Kalahari lands between Grootdrink, Olifantshoek and Vanzylsrus,” he says. “Unlike me, the Spangenberg men up there are traditionally big guys — tall, wide and very strong. They used to catch live gemsbok from the open windows of their Ford F100 bakkies. You have to be quick with a gemsbok, he hits your bakkie very fast. His pull-back is relatively slow, however, so you grab him the second he strikes. It’s a bit of an art.”

Sakkie Spangenberg – the “David Hasselhoff of Upington”. (Image: Chris Marais)



Sakkie se Arkie, the river cruiser everyone loves in Upington. (Image: Chris Marais)



The Kalahari Gemsbok – imagine game-catching one of these with your bare hands. (Image: Chris Marais)



Sakkie has been running his Arkie since 1997, and in those 25-plus years, he has also rescued more than 40 people and countless beasts from drowning in the Orange River, especially during flood season.

Why are you the regular rescue guy, Sakkie?

“Because I’ve got the equipment and, quite frankly, I’ve got the guts,” he’ll tell you straight. “I don’t sit around and think — I just do. Sometimes, in the pitch dark of night when I climb in my rubber duck to go and help somebody, I say a prayer for the safe return of everyone in the boat. And often, once I’m home, I realise I really tempted fate that day.”

The gear and the guts


The first person Sakkie ever rescued was a pensioner who had gone Awol from the local old age home. He’d wandered off to the bridge to see the rising waters, looked down at the fast-flowing water, lost his balance and fallen in.

“At first I was told a car full of people had gone over the bridge,” says Sakkie. “So I grabbed five life jackets and jumped onto my jetski. I went downriver from the bridge for nearly two kilometres and saw no one. Then I turned back and saw his head bobbing above the water near a clump of half-submerged trees. I went over, grabbed him by his jersey and laid him across the jetski saddle so he could puke out all the water.

As the floodwaters rise, so do the numbers of spectators on the Upington Bridge. (Image: Chris Marais)



Catching crabs in the floodwater shallows. (Image: Chris Marais)



And the vineyards in the low-lying areas flanking the flooded Orange River go temporarily underwater. (Image: Chris Marais)



“You were here in 2011, right? That year, a mate and I rescued a couple and their four children from one of the little islands. We found them, and loaded them onto the boat. Then a broken vineyard pole with razor wire attached came floating down and severed one of the ribs of the inflatable rubber duck.

“The mother grabbed me so hard she nearly throttled me. I had to beg her to relax her grip on my throat.”

A number of people have, over the years, come down to the flooding Orange River to end their lives. And if Sakkie isn’t around, they often succeed.

A taste of drowning


“I once saved a guy who had jumped off the bridge. I had to fight him to get him onto the boat. Then he carried on fighting, and I fell into the water. Eventually, I overpowered him, and ducked him under a couple of times – just so he could get a taste of what drowning was all about. That was the only way to calm the guy.

“Then, when we approached the bridge and the people began cheering, he made another attempt to jump out of the boat. I had no option but to sit on him.”

One misty, rainy night Sakkie got a call to rescue two young boys who were stranded on an island. 

“There was no visibility, the stream was strong,” says Sakkie. “Even at three-quarter throttle the boat was stationary, so I had to gun it flat-out to get upstream. Before launching, I had spoken to the boys by cellphone, told them to send a location pin, make a fire, look downstream and wait for my flare.”

The boys’ fire did the trick. Sakkie and his assistant found them, made them lie flat in the boat, and headed for home.

“That’s it. I don’t hang around for the applause. I just do it, and when it’s done, I turn around and I leave. And I thank the angels for protecting me.” DM



This is a short chapter excerpt from Karoo Roads IV – In Faraway Places (360 pages, black and white photography, R350 including taxes and courier in South Africa) available from  September 2024. Anyone interested in pre-ordering a first edition, author-signed copy should please contact Julie at [email protected] for more details.

The Karoo Quartet (Karoo Roads 1 – 4) consists of more than 60 Karoo stories and hundreds of black and white photographs. Priced at R960 (including taxes and courier in South Africa), this Heritage Collection can also be ordered from [email protected]

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