A new adventure documentary, Gabon Uncharted: Sending Ivindo Falls, follows four elite whitewater kayakers as they attempt to paddle 150km down one of Central Africa's least-run rivers — a channel of flatwater, gorges, rapids and waterfalls deep in Gabon's rainforest.
The Send team is led by German kayaker Adrian Mattern, who spent years planning the expedition. He's joined by Dane Jackson, Kalob Grady and Bren Orton, a crew the film's narrator describes as among the very best in the sport. Behind them trails a film crew — filmmaker Olaf Obsommer, photographer David Sodomka and narrator David Arnaud — carrying everything the paddlers do, plus cameras.
Obsommer brings history to the trip: he was part of the first team to scout the Ivindo by kayak back in 2007, when most rapids had to be portaged for safety. Seventeen years on, modern kayak design and drone scouting gave the team a realistic shot at running sections that were previously written off.
The river breaks into four whitewater sections, each with its own character. Kongou is a rocky labyrinth where a wrong turn sends you over a 25m waterfall. Mingouli plays more like a rollercoaster, delivering some of the trip's first descents — between which the team paddles past a family of elephants and battles relentless insects. Local guide Juste Parfait Zangonga briefs them on surviving the area's less buoyant hazards: elephants, gorillas, crocodiles, vipers and hippos. Section three, Kouata Mango, is where Mattern finally gets his headline moment, running a huge waterfall the team judges survivable. The final stretch, Tsengue Lelendi, provides the film's reality check: after extensive drone scouting and debate, the team concedes Grady was right when he called one rapid unrunnable, and walks it.
For travellers, the film is a rare window into Gabon — one of Africa's most under-visited countries, where dense rainforest, forest elephants and powerful rivers meet. It won't turn most of us into waterfall runners, but it showcases exactly the kind of raw, uncrowded wilderness that draws adventure-minded visitors, and the Ivindo region itself is reachable via Ivindo National Park and its famous Kongou Falls.
