Some guests leave footprints. Ralf left fire. A man who stared death in the face, yet filled our boat with laughter, stories, and one last unforgettable sunset on the Vaal.
And so Riverbend has this amazing ability to house the most interesting people. Each guest who passes through leaves more than footprints on the riverbank. They leave a piece of their story. I have always found it fascinating to hear what battles people fight behind the surface smiles, and Ralf’s (from Germany) visit was one of those stories that stays with you long after the fire has gone out.
Ralf did not arrive at Riverbend as a tourist. He came as a man who had already stared death in the eye and decided he would not bow out quietly. Multiple myeloma had stripped his body, cracked his bones, and robbed him of the strength he once carried with ease. His wife’s passing had pushed him into the shadows, and for a time he sank there, bitter and broken. But then he pulled himself up and said, enough, if time is short I am going to drive it flat-out. That was the Ralf who turned up here at Riverbend.
From the moment he stepped onto the boat one afternoon for a sundowner ride, Ralf was alive with energy. He did not sit back in silence. He bubbled. One moment it was about his daughters, the next about his dog, then it was old hunting safaris and campfire memories, each story rolling out of him with the excitement of a man who had decided that talking and laughing were weapons against the dark. You could not help but get caught in his current.
I kept the boat steady, gliding into the sunset without a bump, because Ralf’s body could no longer take jolts. The air was crisp, sharp with winter, and each breath felt like glass in your lungs. We poured Old Brown Sherry, the sweet burn of it rising into the cold. Then Ralf lit a cigarette. The smoke should have soured the moment, but it didn’t. It curled into the breeze soft and slow, mixing with the sherry and the river mist until soon the atmosphere was heavy with a sweet essence of its own, as if the night itself had joined in his defiance.
The sun dropped lower, bleeding fire across the Vaal, and Ralf sat there with his glass in hand, telling stories, laughing, keeping the afternoon alive. His energy was contagious. You forgot he was sick. You forgot the cancer eating at him. He refused to let it dominate the ride. He had already decided he would not go out as a victim but as a man who made the most of every second left to him.
It was more than a boat ride. It was Ralf grabbing hold of his last chapters and writing them out loud, sentence by sentence, in front of us. Saying goodbye the next day was hard because I knew deep down we might never see him again.
When the boat touched back at the jetty, there was a moment I will never forget. Ralf climbed off slow, glass still in his hand, and he turned to thank us with that grin of his, that unstoppable grin that made the whole world smaller and lighter. And in that moment the truth hit me hard. This was probably the last time I would see Ralf.
And so Ralf remains on our minds. Not as a man beaten down, but as the fire that burned through one last sunset and left the rest of us standing braver.
This is Riverbend. A place where stories like Ralf’s do not fade, they live on in the water, the firelight, and the people who pass through.
And maybe that is why, when I stare into the fire at night, searching for the purpose of another day passed, I cannot imagine anywhere else on earth giving more meaning to my existence than this mighty Vaal.
Hit the booking button now for your own personal experience with our tree sentinels. They keep their secrets 😉
