Upper Tand Luang - High Flow. Lower gorge - First D.

-The ants that attacked Josh-

After a day of getting stuck in the mud in our 4x4 and no luck finding waterfalls we decided to head back to the Tard Luand. With a few days of heavy rain the water level was up and we held out the possibility of running the lower gorge as well as a re-run of the upper section.

We quickly got changed and ran up the side of the river with our boats - and we were stoked to see the river high and brown, with big holes and swollen channels where before there had only been narrow slides.

After Josh's little run in with some ants (I've never seen someone get out of all their paddling kit so fast!) we put on and headed down.

-Josh on lower Tard Luang Falls-

The river was heaps of fun - everything faster and bigger than the first time we'd paddled it. We made a quick descent of the upper section and were left with enough time to carry on down the lower gorge - another first descent!

-Josh hits a swollen slide on the upper section-

-Josh on the upper section-

-Sam-

-Sam on the lower Tard Luang-

The lower gorge was super fun, heaps of small drops and one meatier one about half way down. Josh jumped out and shouted back the line to me and Sam - waiting upstream in the eddy. Basically you just had to head right to avoid pushing into/under the wall on the left. It was a real fun line - although I was a little too relaxed and lost my nose under the left wall, we all came through no worries and carried on downstream.

-Josh lower Tard Luang gorge-

As the river flattened out before the road we were drifting along next to rice fields and it was an awesome end to an awesome day. We played rock paper scissors to see who had to run up and fetch the car. Sam lost and as he legged it up the hill me and Josh sat at the side of the road with our kayaks getting the funniest looks from everyone who walked past. What are you doing here??!!

-Our trusty wagon at the take out-