The Nile Progression

The Polela River, South Africa...

2011-01-26T22:29:00.007+03:00

Here's an amalgamation of photos from 2 days on the Polela River in South Africa. It's a super fun river with a few nice drops and trickier rapids with loads of fun continuous sections in between. Enjoy.

-Will Clark approaching the first main drop, photo Guy Anderson-

-It was this guys first time paddling waterfalls! He did land the right way up! - Photo Guy Anderson-

-Guy Anderson on the river right line-

-Tom McLay also on the river right line-

-Tom on the next, smaller drop-

-Andrew Pollock on the same drop-

-Will Clark on the entry to 'Te-Bone Re-Bone"-

-Will coming through to the last drop-

-The last drop on Te-Bone Re-Bone-

-A nice angle showing our nice new Fluid spray decks by Seals-

-Tom on the same drop-

-Oh yeah if you get pushed left it gives you a kicking!!-

-Oops, that'll be a bootie beer then...-

-Nice job Tom!-

Ok, that's the photos from that trip, I went and spent 4 days up in Zimbabwe after that, I'll put some photos from that trip up soon.

Happy Paddling.

South Africa... ...it's a mini adventure...

2011-01-23T23:14:00.002+03:00

I've just spent a week in SA before flying up to see my parents in Vic Falls for a few days. Well this is my hire car, because of reasons known as Polly getting mad and pulling the steering wheel off his own car this was our shuttle vehicle for a week...

Only problem which I admit in this photo is hard to see is that the wheels were made of lego and even puddles were a problem.

After checking out the level of the Polela River we had to call our friends to give us a push after I slipped off the road and the front grounded out!!

I love hire cars!!

More pics from our South African adventure to come soon...

Nile Kayaking Festival 2010 - Round Up

2010-12-17T22:16:00.011+03:00

Well like a snowboarding movie once said - 'That's it that's all'. The Nile Kayaking Festival 2010 is over. Gone, finished for another year. But not before I do a quick round up for you folks with some results and photos.

So here we go.

Freestyle results.

Women

1. Emily Wall

2. Kiely Eversole

3. Jesse Stone

Men

1. Julien the Frenchy

2. Quintin from WCKA

3. Timmy Flowers

Highest placed Ugandan overall (both race results and freestyle) - Hassan Kanoli - winner of a brand new Fluid Kayak!!

Well here's a few more photo's from the freestyle event and a couple of others from the Boda Boda X as well - in no particular order...

-Quintin from WCKA-

-Julien the French man playing up to the crowd-

-Timmy Flowers-

-Jason Craig-

-Timmy Flowers-

-Jesse Stone-

-Kiely Eversole getting some big air in the finals-

-Emily Wall-

-The pig getting cut up after the Boda Boda X-

-Me DJing during the Boda Boda X-

-Reuben Connely rocking out to the tunes!-

-More funnels-

-Reuben coming in over the line with his son watching from the side-

Well that's about it.

I hope everyone had a great new year - I know I'm only just recovering from ours now - 3 days later!! I'm off down to SA in a couple of days hoping to get a few days creeking - apparently the rivers are up!!

Happy days!!

Nile Kayaking Festival - Photo Competition...

2010-12-15T15:20:00.004+03:00

For the last few years we've been running a photo competition at every kayak festival here on the Nile. The competition is in memory of Ben Holland - a great friend of ours who was an amazing photographer and lived here on the banks of the NIle, but sadly passed away a few years ago.

Even though the festival itself had almost no funding this year, the photo competition had a cash prize of $200 - donated very graciously by Darryl Rurka - the winner from a few years ago.

Anyone could enter 3 photo's which were then put into anonymous folders for impartial judging. In all 11 people entered, here's the top 5.

-The Winner, Emily Wall's photo of Quintin from WCKA throwing a backstab-

-2nd, Will Clark's photo, the end of the Boda Boda X-

-3rd, Maddy Leslie's shot - Hassan on the wave and Charles cheering from the bank-

-4th, Will Clark's shot, Julien the Frenchman - one handed airscrew!!-

-5th, Emery from WCKA's shot, Charles at the freestyle competition-

Sweet, I'll put some more shots from the freestyle competition up soon..

Nile Kayaking Festival 2010

2010-12-07T15:21:00.003+03:00

I'm sat in the organisers tent - the Boda Boda X has just finished and the Nile Kayaking Festival 2010 is now well and truly underway. I have a cold Club in my hand and the tunes are pumping. It's another classic day in Uganda and we're all having the best day ever!!

The results from the Boda Boda X are as follows...

1. Hassan Kanoli

2. Yusuf Basalirwa

3. Charles Luttaya

4. Timmy Flowers

5. Doug Greaves

Here's some photo's from today, I'll be sure to put more up soon.

Sweet!!

The Pig we're gonna eat in a couple of hours!
Dougy after he recovered from the race
Broken - Doug and the guys after coming in over the line.
For some a funnel of beer was a bit too much after the race!!
Tony from NRE enjoying himself.

The Boda Boda drivers waiting for the competitors to come in at Silverback...

Mass sprint towards Bujagali
The start of the race

The guys setting up the obstacle course
The Boda's before the race.

Well all good now - the next race is who can get drunk the fastest!!!

Zambezi...

2010-08-27T11:35:00.002+03:00

I just made it down to the Zambezi. I arrived Sunday afternoon and after a few beers ended up getting the job as safety kayaker for a Water by Nature multi-day trip heading out the next day.

So here's a few pictures from that trip. Enjoy!

-Water by Nature truck-

-Davis in the gear raft paddling over to the beach at number 26-

-The moon's reflection from our camp at number 26-

-Portaging the rafts around Chimumba falls-

-Our camp at Moemba falls on the Zimbabwe side-

-Kids out fishing below ghoast rider-

-Helicopter packed up with gear for a short flight back up to Moemba-

-Dam Site from the air-

-We had an interesting drive back with bald tyres and no 4 wheel drive!-

-Eventually we totally destroyed the tyre-

More photos soon.

Five-day expedition down the Umzimvubu

2010-05-25T08:50:00.012+03:00

In April I flew down to South Africa to meet up with fellow Fluid Team paddlers to paddle the Umzimvubu river in the Transkei. It was a chance to meet some more of the team, for all of us to get together and throw around ideas about new designs, get feedback from current designs, have some fun and show off the boat of the moment - the Detox!

-Celliers, David and I may have over shopped-

I flew into Jo-burg where I was met by Celliers Kruger and David Arnaud - the owner and the team manager of Fluid. Unfortunately my bags didn't come with me, and after a few hours waiting for the next flight to come in they still hadn't made it. So the next day after delaying the start of the trip me and David went for a quick paddle on the local run to test out the carbon Nemesis while we waited for my bags to be delivered.

-The Transkei and the Umzimvubu-

After a six hour drive we met up with the rest of the crew at The Falls Backpackers, right in the sickest paddling area of the Transkei. 12 in all we hung out and packed up our things and got ready for the 5 days of paddling that lay ahead. A long drive with 12 of us crammed into 2 bakkies we got to the river.

-Medium Detox in action, pilot, Andrew Kellet-

No one really knew what to expect on the first few days, maps seemed to suggest a decent gradient, but with low levels we had a pretty cruisy time. Everything was read and run except for the odd exception, but the were plenty of fun grade 3 rapids, and it was just awesome to be in good company on a long multi-day in the middle of an amazing place

-Kayak/windbreak/Kitchen/Bedroom-

Days were spent paddling, evenings spent cooking and swapping stories and nights spent looking at the southern cross and wondering whether it was going to rain and get us wet (for those of us not in tents).

-"So you're saying we're in South Africa?? I don't believe you!"-

-The pack approaches the falls-

For me the highlight of the trip came on day 3 when we made the waterfall. Me and Polly got a start ahead of the group so we could go get some shots of everyone else coming in. As we spent some time exploring everyone was unanimous that they weren't running the main drop. It is big and was definitely pretty sketchy at the levels it was running - maybe with more water it will look more appealing.

-Local women at the falls, the one on the right just got back from the spa-

-The big one - tricky lead in, will go with a bit more water-

So someone had the plan to lower the boats from the cliff and for us to walk around and pick them up - only problem the walk was about 2km!!

-Hugh Du Preez styling the mank-

Above the big drop were a couple of smaller little chutes - Hugh eyed one of these up - though it was pretty manky and no one else was keen. I on the other hand figured there must be something else to all of this. And whilst half of the group prepared for a portage on river left I grabbed Scotty Reinders and waded and jumped from rock to rock over to the right side. Over here we found a nice smaller waterfall, a little boof and a rock slide to end on. The beauty of it all was even if none of it was runnable it was easily portaged.

-Yep that's a waterfall. Photo Adrian Tregioning-

I took a little while checking it out. It wasn't that it was very big but it had rocks on the left half way down and on the right at the bottom. So you didn't want to mess it up. Me and Kellet got ready to huck.

-Kellet fires it up-

Andrew Kellet had a sweet line, getting turned sideways a little at the lip but managing to pull it back around and land straight. Some nice shots of the Detox in action right there...

-My turn, Photo Adrian Tregoning-

My turn next and I also got pushed a little sideways, however I didn't get it all the way straight at the bottom. I landed a little over rotated, but right where I wanted to away from the rocks and had a nice soft landing so all good on that one! Nice to hit some steeps again after a long time in a playboat! After we ran it Phil also fired it up, landed rather flat and put a big dent in the boat. After our progressively worsening lines everyone else left it be!

-Celliers looks up at the falls-

-The big man himself Celliers boofing the Vubu-

Next up after a spot of lunch by the falls a little boof. And then to the last slide. The slide after a quick scout looked runnable, but after closer inspection wasn't too great - a bit more water and it would be sweet but at this low level no one was keen. So we just threw the boats off and jumped off the cliff instead. Yeee Haaaa!

-Better to lower these with a rope eh?!-

Oops, what I meant to say was that throwing the boats off was a great idea until we tested the theory with young Scotty's boat and hit a rock and split the stern, sorry scott. So ropes it was!!

A nice little jump off the cliff and we were back on our way. Our 3rd day on the river we only paddled about 4km - as opposed to 40+km on days 2 and 4, however after the fun of the waterfall we decided to relax on a nice island we found, sip a little whisky and enjoy the night.

-Andrew Pollack cruising the rapids-

To be perfectly honest with you I think the above photo is from day 2, or maybe day 4, probably not in the right place, anyway it was one of many fun little rapids that kept us entertained on the way down the river allowing the group to reform and check on how everyone was doing. Often if we were paddling for 40+km we would be spaced a few kms, everyone in little groups, those at the front looking for lunch / camp spots and those of us filming and taking photo's waiting at nice rapids for the rest to catch up so we could get it documented.

-Sunrise-

I took this photo whilst still in my sleeping bag. Time was around 6am, morning after the waterfall so day 4. From under my tarp I see a funny glow, peek out and see this awesome sight. With my watershed bag at arms reach I managed to fire off about 4 shots before the colours faded into white and the land got brighter.

-Eee Orr-

After a 20km paddle before lunch on day 5 we stop where we think is the take out. If we miss it we have to paddle to the ocean. Fuck that. Anyway we had a long lunch, the drivers aren't coming to pick us up. They are coming. They're not coming we're staying the night with no more supplies other than a packet of smash. They are coming? You're sure? Yes. Ok we're on. Let's take photo's of donkeys and local kids with shit on their faces and drink some beers!! Happy days Umzimvubu Expedition 2010 success! Sweet river, awesome crew, awesome boats, cheers Celliers/Fluid and everyone else on the trip!!

-"You got any soap mister?"-

-Local kids in the Transkei-

So the next mission for me is Kenya, although I was supposed to get there today or at least be on a bus and I'm not as I have stuff to do here in Uganda. So fingers crossed the God's of rain will be kind and grant us a little more and I'll maybe get there in the next week or two for some steep creek action.

Other than that I had a bit of a play with the blog and turned it from green to orange. What do you reckon? Let me know - will @ loveitliveit.co.uk

Cheers and Beers!

Back on the water...

2010-05-24T14:38:00.003+03:00

Last week I managed to find the time to get away from the lodge for a few days and head down to the river and hang out with friends.

We had a bit of fun sessioning some of the back channels, and then the next day we drove down to Nile Special.

I gave my Camera to a local kid - Ivan - who Sam pays school fees for and who we organised a photo workshop for in Jinja last year.

He managed to get some sweet shots, check them out.

-Photo by Ivan - edited by me-

It was my first session on the wave for a while and I definitely felt unfit after a few months out managing the lodge up at Sipi, I also need to spend some time getting a few moves fully dialed
in, but it was sweet to get out on the water and also sweet to be in my new Nemesis which is a pretty funky Lime green!!

Cool cool, hopefully I'll be back on the water properly soon and looking forward to a summer on the Nile and the Zambezi.

See you on the water!

The Nile Kayaking Festival 2009

2009-08-12T13:24:00.003+03:00

We are happy to announce the dates of this years Festival. Now known as 'The Nile Kayaking Festival' it will be held on November 1,2,3.

This years event will be the last chance to compete down the famous Bujagali Falls and the Silverback section of white water before the completion of the Bujagali Dam project that will flood the section at some point next year.

We've changed the format this year from the previous few events and are going back to the competitions roots with a rolling rodeo competition that will see judges in rafts following competitors as they use 3 different wave features to score points.

We've scrapped the endurance race (thank God!) but kept the infamous 'Boda Boda X'.

A return this year too for Bujagai sprint races and a new addition will be raft racing over the same short course.

With this being the last chance to have races on Bujagali we're expecting big crowds, lots of competitors and an immense party. This is a way for us to say goodbye and thankyou to this section of river and we want everyone who can to come along and help us make this an event to remember!!

Full details can be found on the kayak the nile website - http://www.kayakthenile.com/events_freestyle09.htm

Norway

2009-07-22T14:33:00.002+03:00

-Photo credits - Dan, Josh Neilson, Sam Sutton, Michele Ramazza and Ian Garcia -

So I've been pretty lame with the blog lately. I just got back from Norway 2 weeks ago and have been working hard on the river for Love it Live it since then. All is good and nice to be enjoying the Nile and learning some new tricks - I decided to learn clean blunts, Helixes and Pistol Flips last week and all efforts are going pretty well!!

So it's all good and fun times all round. If you want a more in depth report of Norway have a look at www.fluid-junction.com or www.whitewater-koa.blogspot.com , where I've posted more and Josh has also written a bunch of stuff and posted more photos.

I'm currently sat in Kampala waiting to pick up my new work permit and waiting for our second LiLi group to arrive from the airport. The first week was sweet - great people and great times.

Take it easy.

Will.

Voss Extreme week...

2009-07-03T16:57:00.004+03:00

The last two weeks I've been in Norway getting into some creeking and also competing at Voss Extreme week. Extreme Week brings together the best Kayakers, BASE jumpers, Skydivers, Paragliders, Moutain Bikers, Skiiers and Snowboarders in a week long extreme sports and music festival...

I came out here as a bit of a last minute decision and hoooked up with Josh Neilson and a bunch of the Kiwi boys...

The kayaking involved 3 different competitions. The first was the time trial held on the race section of the Brandseth River, a super cool 2min (or less) run with big slides cool tight and technical drops and a nice 5m waterfall to test everybody's skills.

I had a quick practice the day before down the section, but come race day I hit a couple of eddies and lost time and didn't make the cut for the final runs. In the end Michele Ramazza won on the combined 2 run's and went away with the top prize - Sam Sutton came a close second with the fastest single run in the final.

After a bit of lunch came the Team race.; This was run on the upper Brandseth - a fairly full on section of white water. With temperatures hitting 30 degrees and snow melting fast the water levels came up to a super high level - and some of the womens teams opted out of the race. Having only run the section once before I was sticking close behind Josh and tring to remember the lines as best I could. Our team was me Josh Neilson and Jamie Sutton, and we ended up placing 4th out of the 12 teams competing.

At the end of the team race everybody was pretty stoked - there was a lot of carnage and a few cuts and bruises - every single team had at least a small beat down or mishap. It was an awesome race section and super fun to be paddling full on into all those slides and drops!!

We had a few days off until the next competition on the saturday which was the head to head race. This was on a mellower section of river and a pretty short section. I got drawn up against Tyler Curtis and Michele Ramazza and with only the winner of each heat going through I didn't make the final. In the end the Final was an all Kiwi affair with Sam and Jamie Sutton racing Mikey Abbot, Sam came powering through and won with Mikey second and Jamie third.

During the week there were lots of pretty wild parties and a lot of great boating elsewhere. For photos of the extreme week check out Ekstremsportveko

I'm currently sat in Mikey's house baking in 40 degrees of heat, I've got 2 more days of paddling here in Norway then I'm heading back out to Uganda, I think I have a 13 hour stopover in Dubai, so I'll sort out the photo's and get some more posts up then.

Nepal Teaser Video...

2009-05-25T13:10:00.002+03:00

Hey everyone - here's a little movie I made from our recent trip to Nepal, just a bit of an overall feel of the place and some photo's. I'll sort out a more action oriented one soon from our Upper Seti mission.

Enjoy.

The Bhote Kosi, from Tibet.

2009-05-10T08:54:00.029+03:00

-Photo Anton Immler-

I'd heard a lot about the Bhote Kosi in Nepal. A river that increased in gradient and difficulty as you went higher and higher towards the Tibetan border. And also a river where you could jump on and off wherever you wanted due to roadside access along its entire length. I heard that the river was intense in it's upper reaches and there would undoubtedly be some pretty epic rapids.

The plan was to work our way steadily upstream pushing ourselves more each day and adding another section of a few more kilometers each day until we were at the border with Tibet. This start easy and work up to the hard stuff seemed like a grand plan.

There was just myself and Anton Immler on this trip, sure a small number for running hard whitewater but after paddling with Anton for almost 2 months in Nepal and many more in Uganda we felt pretty confident as a team, and when there's just the two of you faff is down to a minimum, and it's much quicker to keep moving.

-The Girls packing up for the Sun Kosi-

Our trip started at Sukute Beach camp where the Bhote Kosi becomes the Sun Kosi. We arrived with all the girls on Inka's Nepali Girls paddling trip. We arrived in the morning and helped them pack their gear and saw them off. They were heading downstream for 10 days, we were heading upstream and had just 5 days to reach the border so that we had time to hit up the Upper Seti before meeting back up with the girls for the Peakuk Himalayan Challenge.

-39 girls, 10days, 1 River-

So the first day and not a good start with me sick and unable to paddle. However we quickly made things right and got on the water to paddle the usual 'classic' sections of the river. The sections from Borderlands Resort down to Sukute beach are awesome sections of whitewater, no portages and only one or two rapids to inspect. The best thing about the Bhote Kosi is that there is absolutely no flat water, it's continuous the entire way so you're pumped up the whole time and running rapid after rapid on-sight and loving it!!

After paddling the usual section we headed upstream with all our gear and set our selves up in the town of Barhabise. Barhabise is a shithole - the trucks start their horns at 5.30 am and don't cease their noise until late at night, there is nothing good about the town, it's full of trash and unsurprisingly it has the highest suicide rate of any town in Nepal.

Anyway it was a good location for us to session more of the river, and a cheap place to stay. The next day we paddled the canyon section of the river, from just abouve Last Resort Camp and down to Bharabise. The Canyon was super sweet - just full of great whitewater and in an amazing setting. On the way out of the Canyon there's two rapids of note. The first we portaged - although it definitely goes - just a bit of a knife edge of a line with major consequences if you fall off line.

-Photo Anton Immler-

Well, the next drop of note was a three tiered affair, a couple of nice boofs then into a third boof/slot drop. Well it was all sweet, apart from my line on the last drop. I thought I'd boof into the eddy and pull out, so I nailed my line and as I landed in the eddy I realised I'd somewhat underestimated the eddy which was now sucking me back into a violent hole. Well I had a nice cartwheel session followed by a rude exit out of my boat and some deep downtime...

-Photo Anton Immler-

The result being the above photo!! Anyway It's only healthy to take a swim every now and then and I honestly can't remember my last swim before this. My boat was pushed behind a big rock, so after a little swim for it we carried on and it was more sweet whitewater all the way back to Barhabise.

-Locals enjoying a seat on the roof of the bus-

After a terrible nights sleep, with shouting locals waking us up at 1.30am and the buses horns starting at 5am we moved ourselves and all our gear to Tatopani - not quite the border town but only a couple of km off. So we jumped on the roof of the first bus and were happy to leave Barhabise behind.

-The view from the back of our hotel-
-Photo Anton Immler-

After finding a Hotel and dumping our stuff we kitted up and jumped another bus about 5 or 6km further upstream, right up to the border gates. It was about lunch time so we had a good bit of daylight left. Well the river here was insane. Our first mission was just to find somewhere suitable to get in.

-Photo Anton Immler-

That's the border behind me, and we'd hiked down past it because of a few rapids that looked like this...

-Photo Anton Immler-

Can you see a line down this? We couldn't unless you had an aqualung or a rocket pack!! Well just below this we found a nice drop to get in at, so a little abseil down the bank and we were on the water at last. The water was cold, the river was steep and there was no let up. Every rapid we had to inspect, almost every other rapid we had to portage. And it was hard work, with huge boulders to climb and traverse at every step. The basic run-down of the river here is like this, grade 5 drop straight into grade 4 boulder garden, into 4 grade 5's one after the other, no eddy's to stop in and holes backed up by rocks. Siphons everywhere and just no let up.

-Photo Anton Immler-

I think we portaged 14 rapids that afternoon, it was tough going, as the light faded we cut our losses and hiked out of the river and back down the road to our accommodation. We were beat, but determined to finish what we started, so after some food we headed to bed for a good nights sleep ready for an early start the next day.

-Two illegal immigrants in Tibet-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Anton finds a ride during one of the portages, that bike came from a long way up!-

-Photo Anton Immler-

This is where we put back in the next morning. The river looked to us like it had mellowed a little and we were hopeful to paddle more than what we estimated at only 1 1/2 km the day before.

Well it wasn't to be. The first rapid we got down to characterised the river. Yes it would go, but there were at least two nasty siphons and some pretty major moves. Basically with just 2 of us most of the rapids were a no go - however if you had the time and a good team of 4-6 paddlers to set up some must needed safety cover, you could push yourself down some pretty cool rapids.

So back to the story, Day 2 from the border, rapid number 1, sneak line PIN.

-Photo Anton Immler-

You might not be able to see it but Anton's boat is under there. I was upstream protecting Anton from a siphon which he missed no worries, as he carried on down past this little drop here his boat wedged and he stopped moving - water totally over his back. Luckily he could still breathe, but he was having a bit of a hard time. I got a rope to him and he managed to pull out of the boat (almost breaking the thigh brace in the process). Anyway all was good, but not a great start to the day!

-One boat successfully un-pinned woohoo-
-Photo Anton Immler-

So we managed to complete this section back down to the upper dam this day - however our progress was painfully slow. For hours we were haunted by the sight of our put in - only a few hundred meters away as we scouted paddled, ferried and portaged our way slowly downstream. Even when we knew we had to portage half the time it wasn't that simple. Must make ferries and eddies with no second option in order to reach the opposite back and portage. There were definitely some fine rapids, but once we'd made our take out we both decided that honestly it wasn't worth it. That upper section is one I'll happily miss next time! What an epic!!

-One of the more paddleable sections past Tatopani-

So we had one more day left and one last section to run, the upper dam down to Last Resort Camp (just above the canyon).

So another bus ride down stream and we put on. What a relief it was to actually be paddling some nice read and run grade 4+ again, and not have to get out of the boat. Actually getting a chance to get the arms working is something you appriciate after the two days we'd just had.

-One of 3 portages on this section-

So this was an awesome section to paddle. There were three portages - this one above was quite crazy. From where we were inspecting after the big drop it looked pretty sweet. So off we went, jumped into our boats and peeled out of the eddy - across to the otherside as we hopped downstream. Well it was a pretty funny moment actually, we found ourselves in an eddy we couldn't get out of with bedrock up the side - no way back to where we'd come from and a crazy gradient downstream. We looked at each other as if to say 'how did that get there? I thought it was flat!' And then we peeled out and just hit it up. It was a sweet, but pretty pushy rapid especially dropping into the unknown!! Anyway we'd try not to do that again!

-Photo Anton Immler-

Next portage was a bit of a hike up and around a really narrow closed in drop - the only way back in to seal launch back into the slot, just passed the boil line and paddle out...

-Photo Anton Immler-

And that was pretty much that. Lots more cool rapids to the take out, but as is the way on this kind of mission, you never stop at the good read and run stuff - so there's no more pictures!!

We did it anyway, we said we wanted to paddle from the Tibetan border, and we did. We had to walk a bunch up near the top but most of that was just silly stuff! We saw a few waterfalls worth checking out along the way too. And we had a sweet time. It was a proper mission. At the end we were sore and tired, so we gave ourselves an extra day off. But it got us in shape for the Upper Seti Mission which I've already written about, and that's what we did straight after this.

Anyway this is my advice for the upper Bhote Kosi. If you're up to it - ie grade 5+ continuous rapids, and you've got a decent sized team and are prepared to take your time then go and session it, but take care cos there's a lot of sives!! If not then don't waste your time - start below the upper dam and have some fun sessions from there down...

Well - I've been a little slack on the blog so I hope this keeps everyone going. I'm still up at the lodge, but only for another few weeks and then my paddling season kicks off. After a brief holiday back to the UK, I'll be spending the summer working on the Nile again and then hopefully off back to Thailand in the Fall.

It sounds like a fun summer for a lot of people this year and everyone is spread around the world having some sweet missions. So see you all on the water soon and take it easy!!

Paulo Babi

2009-03-08T20:25:00.005+03:00

A few photos of Uganda's finest - Paulo Babi surfing at Nile Special. I'm hoping to take Paulo creeking in Kenya this year, let's hope it all works out and we get him running the gnarl!!

Paulo also paddles for Fluid Kayaks and when he's not paddling he's still on the river - pushing rubber for Nile River Explorers Rafting. Off the water you might see Paulo cruising around in his leather jacket on his lowrider motorcycle, or else here him laughing in the bar!

Paragliding in Paradise!

2009-02-19T20:51:00.005+03:00

Last week Jessie Stone, Polly Green and Morgan Koons spent a night up at our Lodge in Sipi. The next day Morgan took the opportunity to get into the air for a paraglide flight. Enjoy these photo's I snapped of her cruising the thermals... (And sorry they've all come out a bit desaturated - but the raw files look great!!)

-Morgan checks the conditions-

-Launch attempt with Polly filming on the right-

-The kids get involved-

-Go go go!!-

-Polly Green films as Morgan catches a thermal-

-TIA-

-And this was only a few of them!-

Cheers!

Will.

First Descent Upper Seti - Lower Canyon...

2009-01-10T16:00:00.000+03:00

I'm back in Uganda now, and I've been up at my lodge and away from the world of internet connections and other such modern technology. So apologies for the long wait for photos, but here's the first of a few updates of our last few weeks in Nepal.
I'll start with a good one - the first descent of the lower canyon of the Upper Seti River...

At the end of November 2008 Anton Immler and Will Clark successfully ran the lower canyon on the Upper Upper Seti River in Nepal.

After hiking out of the gorge two months earlier during their first attempt, they returned with lower water levels and a lot more rope and successfully completed the section.

The canyon is totally committing. With no-way to portage the first or third drops (the two big ones) and almost no means of setting up safety on either...

After a 5.30am start and a one and a half hour hike, Will Clark prepares himself for the mission. Having been inside the canyon once already we knew it was going to be hard. With only two members on our team we also knew that we were pushing the limits of safety and were going to have to be pretty careful not to mess anything up...

The view from the top. Will looks into the canyon, this time we carried a lot of rope - kindly lent to us from Charlie at Ganesh Kayak shop in Pokhara.

Will checking out the cave at the bottom of the first waterfall. It was possible to pull someone back out from under there, but really the name of the game on this was to run it clean.

Will climbing back out of the cave.

After spending an hour or more checking everything out and making sure we had a good plan all that was left to do was to fire it up. Anton ran it first with me standing by to abseil down if anything was to go wrong...

-Anton on the first drop-

Well, everything went well and Anton hit the first drop sweet. After that however it wasn't as simple as me following him down.

With no access into the canyon other than running the falls, Anton then had to scout the next two drops before I could run the first one. The next drop was a horribly undercut little twisty thing, followed by a huge horizon line. Anton paddled down to the horizon line and it was all good. All I could see was him jumping up and down and screaming!! A good sign!!

So after zip-lining all the cameras and ropes accross to Anton I got to hit up the first drop and it was sweet!!

After that we headed down to the horizon line and scouted the second big one. By now it was 2pm - we'd put in at 9.30am, so after a quick stop for food we set up some cool camera shots and fired up this second drop. It was a real nice roll in/roll off style falls with a nice clean pool to land in...

Will inspects the second falls

Will on the Second falls.

Here's a cool montage I put together of Anton on the first and second falls

So after that we found a few more sweet drops - 2 nice clean drops, a nice continuous rapid and unfortunately there were two portages right at the end...

Will on the first of the two smaller drops

A nice fun rapid near the end

Yeah we were pissed! This rapid would have been super sweet and technical apart from this walled in death pit at the bottom!!

So that's it - the first descent of the Upper Seti's lower canyon. It was an awesome mission, and definitly cool with just the two of us - although more people would have made it easier. Since we ran it a few other groups have been down. First off was a French team who had a bit of an epic - one of their group broke his paddles and popped his deck on the second big drop and it sounds like he had a nightmare swim!! Also Anton has been back in there twice now - with Josh Neilson and a solid European team, I know Josh has put some video of it up on You tube so you should check it out!!

There's a few more updates I've still to do - the Bhote Kosi from Tibet is the main one, so stay tuned and I'll get onto it as soon as I can.

Cheers and Beers!

Will.

Photos: Will Clark + Anton Immler

Update from Nepal, and Photos from the Kali Gandaki

2008-11-25T16:02:00.003+03:00

It's been a while since my last blog update. Since then a lot has happened. Anna Bruno arrived about 3 weeks ago and we went on a bit of a tour on the best rivers around Pokhara. We paddled the upper Seti, Madi Khola and the Kali Gandaki from Tatopani with Anton, and then me and Anna headed out for a quick run on the Marsyandi while Anton headed back to Kathmandu.

Here are Anton's photos from the upper Kali Gandaki. (The Kali Gandaki is a popular Rafting run taking 4 days self supported from the town of Beni. We headed 3 hours drive higher than Beni to Tatopani to paddle the upper river where the bigger and harder rapids are. It took us longer than expected, but with two nights in Hostels and one and a bit river days to Beni, we then paddled another one and a half river days and had one nights camp on an isolated beach before reaching the take out where we managed to meet up with a rafting trip and get a lift home. It was a sweet trip with some sweet whitewater!)

From Will Clark

Anna on the Upper Kali Gandaki.

From Will Clark

After a couple of hours on the water and with fading light we headed off to a tea house for night one.

From Will Clark

Day two and some pushy kayaking. Will Clark inspects from the road. (By the way the road here is the scariest in all of Nepal - FACT!!)

From Will Clark

Anna and Will discuss the line.

From Will Clark

Anna moments before her Swim.

So Anna took a swim here - it was a pretty sticky hole! I managed to grab her and pull her to the side whilst her boat went for a bit of a cartwheel session on its own!

From Will Clark

After Anna's boat came out of the hole I went to chase after it and got pinned in a nasty narrow channel on the right. Luckily Anton headed out to get Anna's boat and we set about pulling my boat out.

From Drop Box

Then a quick abseil to recover part of our split paddles that had gone for a swim of their own.

From Will Clark

Will and Anna inspect a big one!

From Will Clark

Will sneaks through the tunnel.

From Will Clark

Anna on the same line.

Lots more Pictures and Stories to come!! Photos from the rest of this trip down the Kali Gandaki as well as more from Anna and my trip down the Marsyandi.

Nepali Girls Kayaking trip on the Sun Kosi has just finished - Anton and I saw off Anna and 39 more girls from Sukute beach 10 days ago as they headed off for their mission, so I'll put some photos of that up soon as well... and while they were heading down river, Anton and I wored our way up and paddled...

The Bhote Kosi from Tibet , and it turned out to be a bit of an epic mission. So a full story and photos of the steepest and most continuous river I have ever seen also coming soon.

Tomorrow we're off to try and be the first to paddle a 40 footer on the upper upper Seti. Should be fun!!

Peace


From Will Clark

Modi Khola, Losing Porters and Spider Bites...

2008-10-22T13:28:00.007+03:00

On Oct 20 Anton and I set off for the Modi Khola. Also on the same mission were a bunch of American guys and an English guy Matt who I knew from the Zambezi earlier in the year.

To get to the Modi you need to take a taxi or minibus for about an hour and a half. From there you unload and along with porters to carry your gear you hike all day to the 'Old Bridge.' After a night in tea house's or a hostel you hike for another hour up to the put-in at the 'New Bridge'.

After taking a separate taxi to the others Anton and I started hiking from Lumle to Langruk. After leaving our porters on the trail to meet back up later we reached Landruk at 1640m by 4pm.

-Early on in the hike looking up the valley-

-A lunch stop at Bitchuk-

-Still looking up the valley, one of the many valleys we had to descend and ascend-

-The view down the valley from Landruk-

-A sketchy looking 5 story Hotel in Landruk-

After we got to Landruk we drank tea and waited for our porters to arrive with our gear. Except they never arrived! We weren't sure why they hadn't made it but with dropping temperatures and only boardies and a t-shirt we had to wrap ourselves up with duvets and were in bed listening to our iPods by 7.15.

-View of the Annapurna range in the evening light-

In the morning we waited for a few hours wondering if the Porters were on the same trail as us, and after waiting to watch a helicopter land next to our hostel to pick up a sick dude we headed up to New Bridge at 9.30am.

-What were they trying to say?

Anyway once on our way news reached us from many hikers that a group of kayakers had already got on the water and there were two kayaks by the river. When we got right down to the river there was a message, presumably for us? Well fuck you guys too!! haha.

Anyway after a quick laugh we set out at about 11am down an incredible section of whitewater. We had to inspect virtually all the rapids from the New Bridge to the Old Bridge.

-Anton Immler heading down one of the many many awesome rapids-

-Will Clark hitting the same rapid-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Anton Immler heading down the one with a big sucky siphon on the left-

This one was memorable as it was a really tricky line and a major obstacle to avoid. I got pushed towards the siphon above the last drop but managed to spin and ferry out of it again only to loop in the bottom drop. Anton got a better line through the top but looped at the bottom and took a bunch of rock on his pads.

-Will Clark on the bottom drop of 'the rapid with a siphon in it'-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Will Clark, mid move-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Will Clark about to grind the rock and avoid the gnarly hole on the right-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Stoked after that one, that last rapid was the only one I was a bit intimidated by-
-Photo Anton Immler-

After a while we caught the American guys just before the Old Bridge and heard that they'd stayed at a different place on the other side of the river the previous night, along with our porters who we apparently worried about where we were.

-I think this is the one that kicked you out to the right a bit-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Will Clark pulls it through another sweet rapid-
-Photo Anton Immler-

The river was truly awesome, there was just so many sweet drops one after another, we portaged one bit on the lower section where there was a big landslide and as we walked around the American group caught back up, they were having a good look so hopefully one or two of them ran it as it was a pretty cool long section of technical paddling. Other than that we ran everything the river had and by the time we carried out to the road just after the dam at 4pm we were shattered.

-Some of the local kids from the tiny village by the road where we took out-

All that was left to do was flag down a bus load the boats and ourselves on the roof and head back to Pokhara.

-The view from the roof-

It was pretty dark when we got back and pretty cold from being on the roof of the bus, and it was fairly hectic making sure a power line didn't take your head off on the approach to Pokhara. But it was a sweet mission.

Next another rest day and see if what I think is a spider bite on my leg gets better or worse. It's also my birthday tomorrow so the rest day might turn into two or three if we get drunk.

After that a couple more rivers then back to Kathmandu to pick up Anna Bruno and add another member to Team Uganda.

Happy paddling everyone.

Epic Mission on the Upper Seti. First Descent and Night Boating.

2008-10-19T11:40:00.007+03:00

Yesterday Anton and I got up early and drove to Khadarjung on the upper Seti. From here we hike upstream for about three and a half hours on the premise that the river just got steeper and steeper so there should be some sweet whitewater in store for us. With the road to Khadarjung only being completed last year it's only recently that this upper, upper section has become easily accessable and from talking to Charlie - the owner of one of the kayak shops here, we're the first people to check it out.

-Some of the bridges were super sketchy on the hike up-

-Our porters are heroes, no way could we have done it without them-

-The view from one of the small villages on the way up-

-Just before we put in, Anton at another dodgy bridge-

-Another fully sketchy bridge just upstream of where we put in-

We hiked upstream from 9am until about 12.30. We went uphill, downhill accross the river about 4 times and through about four tiny villages - with only footpaths connecting them to the outside world. On the way we tried to get a look at as much of the river as we could. Everything looked sweet apart from one section which we couldn't see - where the river went around a big cliff and out of sight.

We wanted to carry on hiking but were aware of the time and trying to do the whole section in one day meant we couldn't check out the very upper reaches of the river.

So we put onto the water and headed down through mostly pretty cruisy grade 3 whitewater with the odd harder rapid, until we hit the canyon that we had been unable to scout on the way up.

What happened here was that the whole river went into a narrow canyon which unlike the rest of the river was mostly bedrock - which makes access on either side allmost impossible. We tried to get a look into it from above, but all we could see was that it was really steep, and pretty hard to get out of.

Well, Anton and I had to know what was in there so we went in anyway. It was definitly a case of 'must make' eddys and some pretty gnarly ferry gliding with each of us backing each other up with throwbags - there was no option to miss an eddy!!

-After ferrying accros the canyon first Will Clark inspects downstream-

-Photo Anton Immler-

After I'd had an initial look Anton joined me accross on the otherside of the canyon and we climbed our way as far down as we could go.

-Will Clark climbing down inside the Canyon-

-Photo Anton Immler-

-We reckon this was about 40 foot, but in these levels gnarly as hell-

-Photo Anton Immler-

This waterfall that we found was truely amazing especially when you consider that there are only a few runnable falls in Nepal. In this water level it was pretty full on - with big undercuts and crazy boils at the bottom, running into an unknown corkscrew drop then to another invisible horizon line - with virtually no way to get back out and no safety if it all goes tits up!!

But it will go, so we're gonna check it out when the water drops in another few weeks!!

We had a full on mission to get back out of the canyon - with even scarier ferry glides, and once out it took us an hour to trek around the side and get back into the river. As I put back on I had two leeches on me - this is the first place I've ever had leeches - they're strong buggers hey!!

Once back on we had an awesome section of good quality hard whitewater...

-Anton Immler on one of the most fun drops (I ran this one over the right)-

-Anton on the bottom half of 'the dodgy one'-

-Will Clark on the top half of 'the dodgy one' - neither me nor Anton hit the line we wanted on this one-

-Photo Anton Immler-

-Anton on a cool slot drop, it was getting pretty late in the day by now-

So we were finding amazing whitewater on this upper section - but the problem was we'd used too much time in the canyon and then walking back out and around it. So by the time we came down to Khadarjung - the normal start of the Upper Seti, it was 5pm. It gets dark here at about 6pm. And I'd say most people give themselves 2-3 hours for the section. We were both tired but all I said to Anton was 'Go hard and I'll keep up'. Anton did a solo mission in an hour the other day so I knew we stood a chance.

Anyway long story short we nearly made it in the light, but as it got progressivly more dark we were still on the river. At one point we had to run a canyon on the lower section - I guess it's graded 4 as there's a big hole at the bottom. By the time we ran it I was having to stay within 3 feet of Anton or else I couldn't see him and all I had to go on were shades of gray. Light gray = whitewater or big hole, dark gray = green water or maybe a rock, really dark gray person outline = Anton!!

Excuse my French but it was fucked up!! Haha, anyway it was pretty cool after we'd made it all the way down, it was so dark we could see the whole milky way!!

-Anton and Will minutes after taking out-

-Photo Anton Immler-

Luckily for us our Taxi driver was out looking for us and only 2 minutes after climbing off the river we were picked up and heading back to Pokhara for some food beer and sleep!

We're both hurting today so we're just chilling out and planning the next mission. We'll go back and do the upper upper Seti again soon but we'll take 2 days and I'll bring a torch!!

Go hard everyone!

Will.

Nile Special and hanging out in Nepal...

2008-10-07T19:13:00.009+03:00

Well folks, I'm currently sat in Pokhara in Nepal, making plans to get on the river tomorrow. I met up with Anton yesterday and have had a good explore of the place today. There seems to be heaps of kayakers out here at the moment amd I've already bumped into two old friends.

I'll get some photos from here up soon but to keep you going here's a bunch of photos Emily Wall took from a coaching session at Nile Special with Love it Live it...

-Me telling Sam to behave and not to do anything stupid to hurt his knackered shoulder-

-With Sam coaching on the bank I had plenty of time to play-

-I'm wearing my new helmet from Happy 2b thanks guys!-

So Hopefully I'll be on the Setti (sp?) tomorrow for a quick warm up and then Anton has some pretty big plans for the next couple of weeks. So I'll take heaps of photos and keep you updated...

-Photos by Emily Wall-

Loving it and Living it in Africa...

2008-09-21T17:24:00.012+03:00

The last couple of months I've been working for Love it Live it - a kayak guiding company that runs trips all around the world.

I started off with a trip on the Nile - followed by the Zambezi. It was my second time down in Zambia but my first trip was short and this time I really got to know the river.

All the guys on the Zambezi trip had an awesome time and learnt a lot about big-water. Here's some of my favorite photos from the trip...

Jared and Sam leap into Angel pool at the top of Victoria Falls

Looking out towards the Devil's Armchair at sunset

A baby croc at the croc farm

BBQ above rapid number 7

Sam Ward at Open Season on the 4-day multi-day

Camp at the top of the gorge at Mwemba falls, Day 4 of the multi-day

Heading out onto the water after our second night in the gorge, just after rapid number 25

Will Clark winding up for a free-wheel off the pourover at number 5 whilst Will Collingwood films with a head-cam

A still shot taken from the head-cam footage

Will Clark on the wave at number 8

Will Clark back on the Nile in Uganda throwing it down on Nile Special.

So I'm back to Uganda now and running another Love it Live it trip, I had a sweet paddle this morning and have been having heaps of fun on the river.

I have a few more days left on this trip and then on the 5th October I'm heading to Nepal.

Happy Paddling people and be safe.

There's a lot of kayakers doing stupid things out on the Nile at the moment, and I have no respect for people taking silly risks!!

Will.

Nepali Girls Ripping It Up...

2008-09-21T16:42:00.002+03:00

On the 5th of October I'm heading out to Nepal. I'll be there for about two months.

My plans are to meet up with Anton Immler and friends and hopefully do a lot of paddling and a few big missions that Anton has lined up. At the end of the trip is the Peakuk Himalaya Challenge, a competition and no doubt a good old party with friends.

Also I have a whole heap of friends heading out in October to train up Nepalise girls to kayak and raft guide. They've got a really good idea going on and at the moment are hunting down gear to donate to the girls. If you want to help out, get involved through their blog:

http://www.nepaligirlskayak.blogspot.com/

Safe Travels.

Lots of fun in Zambia...

2008-09-03T16:18:00.004+03:00

After a successful Multi-day trip for the last four days we're now resting up in Livingstone before a final 3 days of big water coaching and freestyle paddling. The wave at number 2 is coming in sweet so hopefully we'll have a sweet session there tomorrow and maybe we'll get the tow rope sorted out so we can have an easier time getting on.

Here's a bit of a montage of some of my favorite photos from the last few days on the water and the trip so far.

Safe travels everyone!

Swapping the White Nile for the Zambezi...

2008-08-20T19:47:00.014+03:00

So the last few days and weeks in Uganda before getting on the plane for Zambia were pretty sweet, rather rushed and a little bit gutting, here's a bit of a photo diary...

The Bujagali Dam - we used to be able to drive to the Ugly Sisters play wave here, now we get told to leave by guys in Camo Fatigues and AK47's. Me and Anna cruised in here to have a look a couple of weeks ago as we had the Hairy Lemon car for the day, we wern't exactly welcomed - but I promised not to take any photo's so they sent us on our way!!

I had a couple of weeks up in Sipi before we flew out of the country. Mostly it was all head down and working - cooking food for the restaurant and making sure things were ticking over, but I had a bit of time to play too. Oh and check out my Sombrero!!

Did I mention we own a waterfall and a river? So the boys claimed the first descent a few months ago, but me and Fraggle fancied a blast with the water running at an optimum level!! Here is Fraggle hiking in with our falls in the background.

-Me at the put in-

So fair enough it is a bit of a ditch - but it filled an hour!!

The last day before Sam and I flew out was hectic! I was sure I had important things to sort out but in the end bent to the persuading of Tim Flowers and drove down to Nile Special for one last wave session...

Anna on the wave

I literally had to pack my stuff in 10 minutes. After a meal with the missus we got back to NRE as the taxi pulled in, Sam was drunk, and I'd missed our leaving bender!! Ow well it was all good. After throwing our stuff in the car we left to the Airport and for the next few hours we passed out at every opportunity! In Nairobi airport the air hostess' had to wake us up and tell us to get off the plane - when we woke up everyone else had already left and the guys were cleaning the aisles!! We had a night in Johannesburg where I picked up my new Fluid Nemesis, and the next day flew the short distance to Livingstone. Flying over Victoria Falls was pretty spectacular and for some reason me and Sam had been put in First class for the flight!! I'd thought to keep my camera close at hand and as we made our final approach to the airstrip I got this cool photo of the Batoka gorge of the Zambezi, Zimbabwe on the far side and Zambia on the near side.

I'm in the Zambezi to run another trip for LiLi, we have a bunch of guys coming out on the 25th for a 2 week experience and it's going to be amazing. I've been on the river for the last few days and it's at a perfect level. I'll get some paddling shots soon!!

Happy travels!

Photo's by Will Clark & Anna Bruno

Gear Test. Ainsworth 4-way Splits...

2008-08-13T17:08:00.006+03:00

A few weeks ago I took out a set of the new Ainsworth 4-way splits for a test run as Jamie of Kayak the Nile had asked me to see what I thought. So I decided to huck them off Kalagala Falls - where more than anything you need to be able to depend on your kit.

So first inspection of the paddles - They were perhaps a little bit short - certainly in the shaft - but felt pretty solid. They use a standard button fixing system and didn't need to be taped up or anything like that. The main fault in the set up is that they will set to a feather of either 90, 45 or zero degrees. Nobody paddles at 90 degree feather these days so the holes should have been offset by 45, then you could have 45 Right, zero or 45 left. Then your splits are fully versatile for right and left handers. I've just looked on the website and apparently they will set up for left handers too - maybe it's just not all that obvious.

If they do set up for left handers too then I reckon these are pretty solid splits. I don't know how much they cost - but I'll bet you it's pretty reasonable, and if you broke your blades these would get you through the thick of it.

More info at www.ainsworthpaddles.net

Photos by Anna Bruno

How to build a lodge, an Idiots guide...

2008-08-05T11:12:00.008+03:00

Hello everyone. I guess I should explain my absence from the Nile Progression and the world wide web. I 've been building a Lodge!

Two of my good buddies (Ian Odell and Calum Main)and I got offered an opportunity just before Christmas last year. We decided to take it. Beginning in March this year we moved up to Sipi Falls (3 hours East of the Nile) and began work on 'Sipi River Lodge'.

We own 17 acres of grounds and a 200 foot Waterfall in Sipi. We're in the foothills of Mt Elgon near the Kenyan border and our place is at 1811m altitude. The climate is cooler and the area is absolutely stunning! Check out these photo's - quite a few before and after shots, and some cool photos from the area. The Photo's above are a few I was playing around with to use as adverts or postcards...

-Before-

-After-

-Before-

-After-

Early Days of the Building Site

-Roofing the Bandas-

-Almost Finished Bandas-

-The Bar-

We've still got a bunch of work to do - but we're getting there. The Restaurant, Bar and main lodge are open - we just need some locks on the doors and a few pictures on the walls. The Bunkhouse sleeps 12 with on-suite and it's already open.

We just need a bit more time to finish off the Banda's and we have a thousand small jobs to do.

Once everything gets finished we should have more time to further explore the local area. I've allready scoped a river that should have some good Creeking and there's heaps of climbing around! Sipi is a cool place to live!

New promo vid for Love it Live it Northern Thailand expedition...

2008-05-27T12:28:00.004+03:00

For more information give me a shout at will@loveitliveit.co.uk

Be sure to check out the website
www.loveitliveit.co.uk

To see the latest exploits of the LiLi team have a look at our blog

www.lovitliveitnews.blogspot.com

Safe travels.

Everyone's Alive...

2008-04-25T11:16:00.002+03:00

The boys made it back safe and sound... We took a call from Tyler two days after they put in to confirm all went well and to here the boys partying in the Red Chilli bar at Murcheson.

It sounded pretty intense however, with four seperate close calls with angry Croc's chasing them - they had to sprint at top speed and hope they made it to the next rapid before the Croc's closed in!!

Lane had a close call as they skirted the last rapid for the take out. Pushing a little too far right he dropped into a hole and took a beat-down that left him swimming right above Murcheson falls. Luckily Rush and Anton were on the case and got him and all his gear safely to the side in the last eddy before the lip.

All in all it sounded wild, and I can't wait to see the photos.

Since then the guys have been heading out, Rush, Rita and Ian a few days ago, Lane last night, and as I write this Tyler is driving Mach speed to Kampala to try and get travel documents to make his flight tonight. The boy lost his passport this morning!!

Happy Paddling.

Murchison Falls White Water revisited...

2008-04-16T20:34:00.002+03:00

This morning at 7.30am Tyler Bradt, Anton Imler, Rush Stuges and Lane Jacobs put on at Karuma falls to paddle the epic Murchison Falls section of the Nile. Having been involved in one of the first descents of the section Tyler is leading the trip.

The boys were nervous before putting on. And rightly so - 20,000 hippos occupy 40km of gnarly whitewater and flats, making it the highest concentration of hippos anywhere in the world.

It's the combination of the hippos, crocs, remoteness and potential rebel activity that makes this trip such an udertaking. The fact that the whitewater is some of the biggest in the world is not seen as a major danger in view of this, yet swimming is obviously not an option.

We wish the team luck, and hope to hear good stories in a few days time.

Experience Northern Thailand with Love it Live it.

2008-04-03T20:06:00.003+03:00

After the success of last years exploritory trip to Northern Thailand by Sam Ward, Will Clark and Josh Neilson, the team at Love it Live it are happy to announce the details of this years expedition.

What's Love it Live it? It's a new concept in coaching. Taking you to the most exotic destinations in the world. Providing world-class coaching, incredible culture and an unforgetable experience that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Why Thailand? Well it's an amazing destination. Rich in culture, amazing food and incredible whitewater. Just look at some of last years entries on this blog to see for yourself!

Approximate dates for the Thailand expedition are 25th September - 8th October 2008.

For full details, trip summary, photos and more please go to...

http://www.loveitliveit.co.uk/trips/thailand.html

A Dam Shame.

2008-03-29T11:56:00.002+03:00

The long awaited new video from Sam Ward. A fresh look at the River Nile and the rapids which will be lost with the construction of the Bujagali Hydro Power Plant.

Enjoy.

Rafting Photos and Leaving Party.

2008-02-02T12:01:00.000+03:00

Two days before I flew back to the UK we comandered a raft from Nile River Explorers and headed down from Bujagali all the way to the Hairy Lemon. Why? For me it was a chance to get some shots of the rapids for a new set of Operating Procedures the raft companies are bringing out. For others it was a free lift down to the Lemon, and for others still it was a chance to have a go at Rafting. With a waterproof camera in hand we headed off, nursing hangovers from the night before, but stoked to be fooling around on the river with friends. In the raft was Sam - (nominated nupty client in his pax jacket and helmet), Morgan (beat down legend), Jim the Brave, and me - selfishly not paddling at all so I could take photos. We had a safety crew of Hot Anna 3, and Kanami, who after the first few rapids got the hint that they should be in front of the raft and not flollowing behind.

First we had to launch the raft. This was done with precision and grace...

With that sorted we were on our way. With a long way to go we obviously needed an early start to the day. Something like 1.30pm?! Not great, but we were confident we could get to the Lemon before dark... ...maybe.

-Below Retrospect-

-Dropping into Vengence - Anna getting beaten in the distance-

-Sick surf on Nile Special!-

Just before dark we made it down to Nile Special. Having not flipped in Bujagali, Silverback or the Bad Place (all the massive rapds), we were keen for a surf - so we paddled back up the eddy and headed back in!! With a little deflation of the tubes we got in for a great surf and floated down to the Island stoked with the day.

--------------------------------------------------

As we puled in to the Hairy Lemon we were met by a giant Mud Wrestling arena and an island full of merry English men & women having a final party before they flew home. As I was leaving in a couple of days I felt compelled to stay and we even managed to persuade Hot Anna the 3rd to stay for a party. Woop-woop!!

Not even out of my paddling gear I somehow ended up testing out the mud. It stank pretty bad and was a little 'abrasive'!! But the company was good so I didn't mind...

And who did we have to thank for the mud?

The big man himself Marky-Mark Birbeck - ladies watch out...

First up the girls, rules - hold your opponant on their back for 10 seconds...

-Laura, George and another mud coverered Laydee going hard-out-

-The Money Shot-

In a close final it was the crazy Kiwi and nun-wannabe Laura who came out on top so to speak, but in the grand spirit of goodwill the top prize of a night in the sugarshack (The most luxury accomodation on the island) was given out to all three of the ladies for their sterling efforts, and mostly because after them, everybody else wimped out.

So with the Mud wresting behind us the party really kicked off - shooters were mandatory, we drank all the beer, work the next day was cancelled and some of us even managed to party through until sunrise.

-Hot Anna the 3rd (with borrowed clothes)-

-Shake Faces - Laura, George & Jenny-

-Tastey stuff-

-The party getting started-

After a while it seemed standing around wasn't enough, and we started dancing. Hands up who's seen Davey O'Hare dance?!! Not a regular occurance by any means but the Scottish jig was out to play this night, and it was funny as hell...

-Anna & Davey show their skills-

-Get in!-

-I'm going to get beaten up for this photo, but it's just too funny-

And that's about it. I'm now back in the UK, I think we've all sobered up, tomorrow I head to France for a bit of snowboarding. First stop is Val D'Isere for a night, then Morzine and then Switzerland. I'll let you know how I get on.

Easy.

Film Mission + Paddles Mag Photo-Shoot

2008-02-01T11:37:00.000+03:00

A few weeks ago we managed to get a big crew together for a few days of filming and photos down the river. The plan was Sam Ward's idea to make a short film about what is going to be lost with the building of the Bujagali Hydro Power site. We started off on the furthest 'back channel' Blade Runner.

-Woop Woop-

-The boys looking at the lines from the top-

With heaps of lines to choose from it was a sick start to the day, and with everyone being handed at least one big beat down in the bottom hole it was hugely entertaining for everyone watching.

-Karl Moser behind the lens-

-Max Bilbow dropping in from the top-

-Sick montage of Ibrah firing up the middle line-

-Wise words from Jared Taylor-

-Sam recovering from yet another blast in the bottom hole-

Then when we thought the day was getting off to a good start Karl and the girls were about to go for a blast only to find their paddles were gone. We figured the thieving little kids who took them couldn't have been far and for the next hour we went looking for them, until we eventually found one.

-Interogating our prisoner-

It was a pain in the arse, and it was only two weeks later after guys going to jail, witchdoctors, and a lot of African nonsense the guys eventually got their paddles back. It spoilt the day and dragged out what would have been two hours of paddling into the whole day.

-Anton after getting bashed up on the middle line-

We still managed a little more that day - filming the boof line on the left of the hump and some different angles on Bujagali falls. We were also putting together a 'playspots guide' for the next issue of Paddles magazine and wanted some different shots, so we played around on the Bujagali waves and also down at 50-50.

-Jared Taylor, sweet spot, left of the Hump-

-Ibrah-

-50-50 fourth wave-

-Sam and Anton both rockin' the 8kg Gui-Gui Prod-

-Top Wave 50-50-

-Wrestling Hole Bujagali-

-Bujagali lead in wave-

-See you later bru, Sam about to get violently wet on the right of Bujagali-

All in all it still turned out to be a great mission, it was great to get on the water with such a big crew and enjoy the magnificent rapids of the upper Nile. No one really knows how long it will be until these rapids are lost forever. Some say by August we wont be allowed through Silverback. We certainly still have time for everything around Bujagali, and my guess is that it will still be two - three years until we really see some big changes at the very top. All we can do is enjoy it while it lasts, and hopefully we'll share some of this enjoyment with you. I can't wait for the new mini video from Sam. I'll post it as soon as it's done.

Peace.

New video's from Sam Ward.

2008-01-15T16:31:00.000+03:00

Here are a couple of video's Sam Ward's put together since the Festival. There's some awesome footage in there and Sam and Leo are both going massive on Nile Special.

The current video project he's working on is a special on the whitewater we're going to lose with the building of the new dam. Coming soon it features rarely seen lines and some interesting new angles. Enjoy these and stay tuned for the next episode.

New year in the Sun

2008-01-10T13:55:00.000+03:00

It's been crazy out here. Since the Festival at the start of December it's been one long party, broken up by some trips away - some good times spent with the Kiwi crew who've just left today, and a nice bit of paddling thrown in for good measure.

Here's some photo's of our fun.

-Brenden Bayley drops into the entrance ramp on Itanda-

Brenden's been hanging out here for a while with all of team NZ, it's only the last few days I've managed to get a free day and get out on the water with them. But they've been great humour and we've been having heaps of fun on and off the water. We should have slashed the tyres on your van though.

-Will Clark firing it up at the Freestyle festival-

The Festival was the best I've seen. So many people entered and everyone was there for the good times. This year I did almost pass out in the endurance race which me and Sam won last year. I'm not really sure what happened but it was some form of heat-stroke which hit me. And we had to retire at Itanda. Big up to Ibrah - my fellow kayakthenile coach who puled it out of the bag and won the coverted $2000 top prize.

-Mr Sam Ward and Mr Will Clark-

The parties went to a whole new level and there's a lot of photo's I can't put up here. It was wild.

-Anton Imler 'Shake Face'

-The long lost boys from NZ enjoying the free beer-

-Back Flip on crutches, Oh yes!-

-AK 47 an essential item in the Karamoja-

After Christmas I went up to Sipi with some friends to check out some business opportunities. We headed out into the wilderness to explore a little known game park and the notorious Karamajong tribe. We were assured the place was now 50-60% safe by the head warden. That would probably explain the 13 rangers armed with AK 47's who accompanied us on our drives!

-Waterskiing above Bubugo-

Then on New Year's eve we took Jamie's boat for a spin and Tom Nugent was the first person ever to waterski above Superhole.

Now things have started to slow down we've got some cool missions planned. Also I'm about to squeeze 10 days of snowboarding in with the boys from Snowfix on the Extreme channel over in France.

Have a great 2008 everyone - it's going to be the best year yet!

Peace.

Will.

Nile Freestyle Festival 2007. Results.

2007-12-03T15:35:00.001+03:00

After a hectic three days of paddling and partying I can tell you the results of this years event.

Men.

Freestyle.

Mens.

1. Steve Fisher
2. Sam Ward
3. Anton Imler

Womens.

1. Michelle Basso
2. Morgan Koons
3. Jesse Stone

Endurance.

Men’s Endurance Race Results

1st Juma Kalikwani and Mtwalibi Mbozi
2nd Davey O’ Hare and Tyler Bradt
3rd Anton Imler and Doug Mullet

Women’s Endurance Race Results

1st Jackie Fourie and Prossi Merembe
2nd Morgan Koons and Anna Bruno
3rd Michelle Basso and Robyn Munford

Boda Boda X.

Mens.

1st Ibra Mugembe
2nd Sam Ward
3rd Mtwalibi Mbozi

Womens.

1st Prossi Merembe
2nd Morgan Koons
3rd Anna Bruno

This years festival was a roaring success, with super close competition in all events.

Full event report and photo's on the way.

Nile Freestyle Festival 2007.

2007-11-29T12:50:00.000+03:00

This years Nile Freestlye Festival is set to kick off tomorrow. Long anticipated and bigger than ever before it is going to be epic.

60 competitors, Big Air Freestyle on Nile Special, 45km endurance race and the now legendry Boda-Boda Cross where you race the river then race back to the finish line with your kayak on the back of a moped through the jungle!!

The inside story? Well Tyler Bradt broke his foot last night trying to backflip in the bar, currently at the clinic getting x-rays we don't know if he's in or out. Steve Fisher promises to go big, and all eyes are on Sam Ward who is going huge on the wave and fast down the river.

With the Ugandan Team up for re-selection the top three local paddlers will walk away with a spot on the Fluid Team, and the opportunity to push their paddling to the next level. The young boys are pushing hard to take over the reigns, but will they beat Paulo and Juma who continue to impress and have the experience to keep their cool when the heat is on.

With big prizes and even bigger parties we can't wait, it is simply going to be the best freestyle event on thne calander this year!!

Do you want to follow the event as it happens? Well this is the place to do just that, Photo's may have to wait until after the weekend due to upload speed out here in Africa but we're going to post the results and news at the end of every day.

Stay tuned, anyone could win.

Extreme Croquet, or what we do when we don't paddle...

2007-11-16T16:57:00.000+03:00

On Monday this week John Dahl - owner of Nile River Explorers Rafting - held the first inaugural Extreme Croquet tournament. With everyone dressed in their best whites - two croquet courts and a heap of refreshments it was on. And everyone agreed that there was probabaly no better way to spend a Monday afternoon. After work I cruised down to see how the guys were getting on and shoot a few snaps.

-Steve steals Chris's Vesper-

-Steve terrorizing the players-

-Taking photos of people taking photos-

-The view from centre court across the Nile-

-The players-

-Is it the devil? No it's Chloe in the final-

Final winners? Who knows? Great humour - next time I hope to get a go at the croquet and not just watch...

Peace.

Will.

Thailand. The end of a mission.

2007-10-29T14:53:00.000+03:00

This is the last blog from Thailand. Our mission is over. But what a mission it was!!

We spent six weeks exploring the Thai jungle, searching out rivers and waterfalls, driving thousands of miles up, down and around mountains. We got the car stuck more times than I like to think, we got lost on our way to places more than once. But that's what exploratory kayaking is all about. In our quest for first descents and waterfalls we mostly found unrunable stuff. We were often places too late for the rain, or sometimes the rain was so heavy our car wouldn't make it all the way to where we wanted to check out. We broke one kayak, one set of paddles, and had one serious incident.

But we were rewarded.

We've paddled 9 first descents, and 13 different sections of river, one of which was a 120km+ multiday. We are all stoked about our trip - and we merely found the tip of an iceburg. Thailand has sick whitewater. And there is much more still to be found.

Thailand has so much to offer as an international paddling destination. It's cheap - the food is AMAZING - the people are helpful and super relaxed - and there's heaps to keep you busy even when you're not paddling! We're going to be putting together an on-line guidebook to Thailand whitewater, so if you're thinking of a trip you can save some time and get straight to the good stuff - keep checking the blog for the latest on that.

Check out some photos I haven't put up on the blog until now - a few cool ones from the whole trip, and some from our train ride from Chaing Mai back to Bangkok.

-Our train back to Bangkok-

-Sunset out of the train-

-The cheapest form of transport in Bangkok. A tuk-tuk-

-Cool buildings up in Chaing Mai-

-The temple at Doi Suthep- -Photo by Josh-

-The boys make a fire on the multi-day down the Nam-Wa-

-Happy kids way off in the middle of nowhere-

-Josh hangs out with a cool old dude-

And a few photo's of Me, Josh and Sam...

-Josh checks out the biggest hole I've ever seen in a car tyre, on our way to Nan-

-Sam, all Hairy-Lemon'd up- -Photo by Josh-

-Me looking serious about something-
-Photo by Josh-

-Me behind the lens--Photo by Josh-

All that's left to do is to thank all the people who've helped this trip work out;

Big up to all the guys in Uganda who helped scrape together enough creeking gear for me and Sam. Especially Jamie at Kayak the Nile, and Davey at NRE. (Sorry Davey that your Creek boat now has a hole in it and we're leaving it here - hope you don't mind!)

Guys in Thailand. Wick for good advice. And Jason at Siam Rivers / Kona coffee shop (Chaing Mai) for awesome breakfasts, good coffee, great info and help in planning our missions, and for coming and drinking whiskey with us until the early hours. Pete Buick for inspiring Sam to set up a trip here in the first place, and then helping us out with logistics in Thailand from day 1.

Mum and Dad - for digging through my gear at home and sending it half way around the world to get to me in time. And everything else you did to help.

Fluid Kayaks - for making boats that don't break when you slam into rocks.

For me now I'm heading back to Uganda and the Nile. I've got lots of work lined up with Kayak the Nile as well as a few cool projects I'll let you know about if I get them off the ground.

At the end of November we have the 2007 Nile Freestyle Festival and it really is going to be the biggest and best yet, if you've got the cash and the time you have to be there - it's unmissable.

Happy Paddling and Safe Travels.

Will, Sam and Josh.

Upper Mae Klang. First descent number 9.

2007-10-26T13:58:00.000+03:00

Our last first descent for the trip and an amazing long, long day of truly classic whitewater.

We put-in at the Siritan Waterfall, way upstream from the slides we paddled the day before. Sam found a line below the top drop, which itself was only a hundred yards from the lip of an un-runnable 70 footer.

-Sam lines it up at the top-

We put back on below the Siritan Falls and paddled around 4km of awesome read-and-run slides, drops and continuous rapids. With a decent flow we were stoked to be paddling with such a fast style and with a long way to go we didn't stop for too many photos. We already knew which shots we wanted.

At the first bridge we took out for an obligatory portage. The river goes down 500m of 30 degree slides and then straight off the Wachiratharn Waterfall (below).

-Me running the rapid below Wachiratharn Waterfall-

Immediately below this is an awesome rapid - which apart from the snakes we encountered on the river bank went super smooth. So we all nailed this one then continued downstream for more and more fun!!

-Josh below Wachiratharn Waterfall-

-Sam mid-boof-

Below the big falls we found heaps of drops, literally running into each other. It was tiring work scouting everything and still having to portage the odd drop, but watching the river continuously drop off the horizon for hours on end was an amazing experience and enough to keep our energy high.

-Josh boofs the same drop-

We had put on up at Siritan falls at around 11am. By the afternoon we had pretty much given up on filming and photos and were on a mission. The thing was, that even when we reached the take out, one of us faced a 11km run uphill to fetch the car- and probably in the dark! Not a fun thought. So we pressed on and after probably the best all-round run of our trip - in terms of class whitewater - some hefty drops and such a spectacular setting, we eventually reached the get-out point. As we got out our boats we met a family hanging out by the river.

We gave them a go in our kayaks...

And they gave us a go in their truck...

So luckily for us a few smiles and some friendly banter meant we didn't have to run for hours to get the car. Josh took a ride to the car and we were soon on our way back to Chaing Mai once more...

This river has been paddled before, but the upper section - above Wachiratharn Waterfall - is a first descent. Our last for our journey to Thailand.

Peace.

Will.

Mae Klang slides.

2007-10-26T13:39:00.000+03:00

After a couple of birthday beers in Mae Chaem the previous night, were were up early and on our way to our next destination. The slides of the Mae Klang. Josh sat this one out as he was suffering from a migrane, however he took the chance to capture some awesome video shots as me and Sam bounced our way down river.

-Me on the main slide-

-Sam on the main slide-

After a hectic few hours in the kayak, what better way to cool off than an ice-cream. Especially one delivered to you off the back of a motorbike!

-Josh and Sam get 'em in-

At the end of the day we headed back to Mae Chaem for a second night, driving high over Doi Inthanon (the highest mountain in Thailand), and taking the time to get some pretty photos of the sunset.

Easy.

Will.

Mae Pan Waterfalls

2007-10-26T13:37:00.000+03:00

When we first began planning our trip to Thailand we did a lot of research on what had already been paddled. As you might have gathered we didn't find much that had, and so our trip has really been an exploratory mission, rather than just your everyday paddling 'tour'. However, some of the little that had been done was by Steve Fisher, Eric Southwick and Ben Brown. The photos they sent us from their trip last year gave us all inspiration to come to this country and paddle. And one of the photos that stood out to us all was one of Steve running the Mae Pan.

-Josh Neilson on the Mae Pan-

So with the info from Steve, Ben and Wick, and the advice of Jason Younkin we headed to the Doi Inthanon NP on the 23rd October. We met up with Jason who was guiding a canyon trip further down the gorge, then started the mission to the top with our kayaks.

-Will Clark on the Mae Pan-

Just to get access above the fall was hard work, we hiked up, then hauled the boats up the cliff and lowered them into the pool above. Then we abseiled into the same pool. Below a 100 footer and above the 50 footer. It was an amazing place to be. Josh hit it first and took a pretty big hit but was fine. I went up after and came through with no-worries. It was my 25th birthday today - what better way to celebrate?

-Sam get's airborne-

Sam didn't fancy the big one because of a spinal injury he has. But he stepped things up by styling a line through the rapid below. A fast series of drops which literally sent you airborne!

-Me on the second rapid-

-Josh bouncing down the second rapid-

-Montage of the three of us on the lower triple drops-

Will.

Border-run and northern rivers.

2007-10-26T13:14:00.000+03:00

-Doi Suthep Temple- photo Josh Neilson-

After four weeks in Thailand we were required to renew our Visa's by leaving and re-entering the country. We did this on Thailand's northern border with Burma. Whilst in the north (around Chaing Rai), we decided to scope out some more rivers.

Mostly we found rivers needing more water - ironic since only two weeks earlier the entire region had been devastated by monsoon rains which pushed north through Laos and Vietnam. However we found some good spots definitly worth a visit on the next trip. We also found some insane waterfalls which we went and stood under and fed off their energy. No paddling on this trip but lots of fun.

-Me and Josh under the power of the Khun Khan-

-Sam and Josh loving it-

-Rush hour in the Sunday Market-

After returning to Chaing Mai we continued to explore new parts of the city - like the Sunday Market (above), and planned for our last proper mission. Doi Inthanon National Park.

Peace.

Will.

Unknown River.

2007-10-19T04:39:00.000+03:00

We have since found out the name of this river it is the 'Mae Raem'.

We've been here in Thailand for almost a month now and in that time we've managed to rack up 8 first descents. The process of finding these rivers is not that precise. Every day we have a plan for where we want to go and what we want to find. Often we have two or three areas of interest in mind for each place we go. Then it's a case of a bit of luck and good old fashioned hard work - hiking in asking locals - anything we can do to find the whitewater. Often we find nothing, but overall we've done really well.

-Me on the first paddlable drop-

This river was found on our way back from the upper Ma Sa. We hadn't heard anything about it, all we saw was a sign for a waterfall and the 'cascade resort'. Good enough so we went a checked it out. On the drive up we saw some drops and slides so the next day we came to paddle it.

-Sam on the first drop-

The river was hard work. The first four drops we came to we had to portage, they were messy as hell and with the water level real low there was no way down them.

-Josh testing the depth-

Eventually though we pushed on to a series of drops and slides - three of which we could run.

-Josh on the slide-

It was worth the slog for these drops, though this isn't a river I'll return to. It was so manky paddling in super low volume and the river and riverside resembled a sewer. The locals have taken to dumping all their trash over the banks and the result was a smelly river strewn with rubbish and waste.

-Sam on the slide-

-Me on the slide-

-Josh drops over the edge-

Happy paddling.

Will.

Upper Ma Sa. Big slides and scary moments.

2007-10-17T13:18:00.000+03:00

On October 16th we headed out to do a recon of the Samong river - a easy class 3 section we wanted to scope for Sam's travel company LiLi. On the way we passed the Ma Sa river - the first 'first descent' of our trip. As we climbed higher into the hills we soon saw a whole upper section we hadn't run on our first visit. So after a quick lunch and some road side inspection of a few of the drops we kitted up and put in.

The first drop we came to we had to portage, there just wasn't enough water in the river to run this one. So we carried on. At a bend in the river saw Sam and Josh jump out for a quick inspection. It was an S-bend rapid with an tight but shallow run-in ending in a drop. Sam hit it first and made it ok. Josh went down next and didn't have so much luck - pitonning into the right hand wall and realising the drop wasn't all that nice, but he still made it through. I was last to head down and had given Josh some space. As I came around the corner into the drop Josh was out his boat trying to get me to stop. I tried to make it into an eddy above the drop, but the water was too shallow and there was no way to make it. What that did though was spin my boat backwards. The next bit went real fast. I went down the drop and suddenly stopped. I was wedged under water upside down in my boat, with rock pushing my back and shoulders forward. I reached up and could feel the air with my hand, sweet. Ok so next I had to try and get un-stuck which was pretty hard with the force of the water on me. I tried but just moved the wrong way. I got my hand back out the water and basically went through the options in my head whilst hoping Josh would be able to grab me and pull me out. Right on cue I was suddenly free - I remember pushing real hard with my back, and at the same time josh jumped in kicking my boat with his legs and grabbing my arm. Sweet!! I was out breathing good old oxygen again. And all was good. Cheers Josh!! A quick check and all I had was a slightly stiff back, so we carried on, hoping to paddle it out.

The next drop we came too Sam realised he'd put a hole in his boat and after that he got out hoping not to make it worse. So me and Josh carried on down. I'll let the photo's explain the rest of the river - but it was sick - especially the big slide!! And the best thing is there's still a middle gorge section of this river still to check out!!

-Me on the first big one - stoked not to still be under water-

-Josh on the first big one-

-This small drop linked the first drop with the next tricky one-

-Josh lines it up down the pin ball-

-Me on the last big one - a sweet slide where you go about 50mph!!-

-Josh styles it down the slide-

Me and Josh got out at the bottom of this run content. The day could have been so very different. I'd been stuck under water 2 hours before and Josh had had to jump in to pull me out. We'd both come away unhurt and carried on to paddle some awesome first descents.

Upper Ma Sa - first descent number 7.

Will.

Josh

Sam

Multi-day paddling. The Nam Wa.

2007-10-14T10:38:00.000+03:00

-Packing up the boats at the put-in-

Looking to add a bit of variety to our trip and to make the most of the Nan region on the 8th October we put in for a multi-day on the Nam Wa river. The Nam Wa runs south from the Laos border and is usually paddled in 3 days. We spiced things up a bit by paddling it in 2 days and adding an extra 40km or so to the trip by carrying on past the take-out to the National Park HQ.

-Josh in the midst of one of the many gorges-

With a total of over 120km to paddle in two days it was going to be a bit of a mission. But not an impossible one and there was heaps to see on the way down, and literally hundreds of rapids, some of which wouldn't look out of place on the White Nile!!

We didn't put in until 1pm on day one, so after 3 hours of paddling we pulled into one of 6 riverside camps and set up for the night.

-Our riverside bamboo camp-

After a questionable nights sleep we woke early to strike camp and get back out on the water. Day 2 saw us with around 100km to paddle and we were on the water by 6.30am. By 9am we were at the take-out for the 3day section.

-Sam in amongst it-

After the normal take-out the river flattened out a lot, and certainly on the last stretch there were less rapids and more flat water, with a slower pace to keep us moving through. But still there was plenty to keep us happy, villagers on their bamboo rafts, fishermen and kids playing in the river.

The Nam Wa was a sweet river with heaps of character, some big volume rapids and plenty of options for paddling trips.

-A local child shows us respect with a traditional greeting-

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

2007-10-14T09:53:00.000+03:00

-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-

Northern Thailand. Part 6.

2007-10-14T09:21:00.000+03:00

The Sila Phect.

Two days after running the Tard Luang we found the Sila Phect river 30mins further North from the Tard Luang.

-Thai Village-

Our initial inspection didn't give us much to go on. All we could see were a few rapids coming out of a closed in gorge with no access at river level. But we could see enough that we knew there must be something to run further upstream.

We hiked for over an hour up a steep pass above the river - only occasionally getting a view of the river below. We were slightly apprehensive of dropping into an unknown gorge with potentially no access out, but we were drawn by the possibility of some classic whitewater.

After encountering my first Thai snake that decided to leg it across my foot on the hike in we soon found ourselves blocked into the jungle by bamboo and vines and we had to head down to river level.

-Josh deep in the jungle on the hike in-

What we found was actually two gorge sections and heaps of nice drops and technical lines.

-Sam boofs in the upper gorge-

The upper gorge was characterised by small technical drops and flowing rapids that gave us fast progress downstream.

-Josh in the upper gorge-

The lower section contained the nicest rapid on the river, which unfortunately for us had a tree jam right in the crux section. There was still some more fun to have though with a sweet double drop that just rolled you down and on your way.

-Josh in the lower gorge-

Will
Sam
Josh

Northern Thailand. Part 5. The Tard Luang.

2007-10-14T07:42:00.000+03:00

After not much luck in Pai we've headed out to the Nan region of Thailand, about six hours drive East of Chiang Mai. Nan is not really on the tourist map, and it's a much smaller place with a totally different vibe to everywhere else we've been so far. A small town with some of the best food we've had on our trip, Nan is set high in the mountains with 80% of the land on a 45 degree angle or more. Our travels through the region brought us to heaps of small villages where the local people still live a traditional life.

-Josh on the Tard Luang-

Our time in Nan was to bring us some of the first real rain of our trip, Four more first descents and a multi-day expedition.

-Will on the first slide of the Tard Luang-

-Josh slides on the Tard Luang-

The first river we checked out was the Tard Luang. A local guide in Nan had told us he thought there were waterfalls there. We parked next to the river and looked around - we couldn't see much except that the was a steep gradient leading up the valley and a decent amount of water running past us. Then we were met by the park ranger who spoke no English, but pointed upstream and made excited gestures of waterfalls with his hands. Awesome!!

-Sam lines up for a sweet slot-drop-

With that we got our gear and started the hike. What we found was a sweet series of slides and drops, with just one portage in the middle.

-Sam hucks whilst Josh poses with the rangers (our guide is on the right)-

Our guide was invaluable. He led us up the path, across the river and up to the best whitewater on the section. Every time we thought we were at the best drop he'd just wave us on and keep heading upstream. The Tard Luang is a classic run and a beauty of a find.

Will

Sam

Josh

Northern Thailand. Part 4.

2007-10-01T09:36:00.000+03:00

Pai. Hippies and dry river-beds.

Our run of luck was bound to run out sooner or later, and it managed to run out in Pai, a hippy hang-out North-West of Chiang Mai. We headed there to run the slides of the Mo Paeng, and to scout a couple more waterfalls in the vicinity. When we got there however there just wasn't enough water to paddle. A feature we've noticed on more than one river in Thailand is the diversion of water for irrigation and other such things. Had these pipes not been here, we may have had enough water to paddle.

-Sam and Josh hike up the Mo Paeng-

-Sam and Josh, not too happy-

With nothing to paddle we decided to stay the night and sample some of the other attractions Pai has to offer the traveller. I forget what happened after the 8th bottle of Sam Song, but I'm pretty sure a good night was had by all.

We got back to Chiang Mai last night and today we're on our way to Nan - hoping for rain.

Will.

Sam.

Josh.

Northern Thailand. Part 3.

2007-09-28T08:15:00.000+03:00

First Descent number 2.

Yesterday we headed to the Jae Sawn National Park, two hours drive outside Chiang Mai. At times we weren't sure our car was going to make it - using first gear all too often to get up the mountain roads. But we got there eventually and weren't disappointed with what we found.

The Jae Sawn has a series of six waterfalls. We ran number 1 only. The upper fall (number 6)was runnable, but ran straight into number 5 which had a nasty log jam across it, and no way to get out before. Number 3 will definitely go with a little more water to beef up the landing - as it was it was a clean 40footer into 4-5 feet of plunge pool, and not worth the risk.

-Josh running number 1 on the Jae Sawn-

-Me on the Jae Sawn-

Number 1 looked good to go, and after 30 minutes of throwing logs we'd figured the landing was deep. We had to abseil in from above with our kayaks, then we could get out on the lip and have a final inspection. It certainly looked bigger from the top - and a little trickier too with a nasty fold that could easily send you off line from the start. By the time Josh was ready to go we had a bit of a crowd gathered below the falls, none of them really sure what we were doing - but pretty shocked by what they saw! We ran it a couple of times each, and got some nice video and photos. The last shot of Sam hucking has Josh hanging off the side of the falls getting a really unique angle of the drop on film.

-Sam Hucking-Josh Filming-

All in all it was an awesome day and an awesome drop, and definitely worth a second look if there's a bit more rain.

Will.

Sam.

Josh.

Northern Thailand. Part 2.

2007-09-26T14:34:00.001+03:00

Sometimes you find the sweetest things right on your doorstep. This was certainly true for the river we found today.
We were searching on the internet last night for waterfalls and the like throughout the whole northern region of Thailand. We found a few possibilities. One of the falls looked pretty runable and only a 30 minute drive from Chiang Mai, so this morning we loaded the boats and headed out.

What we found was a gem. Immediately we saw the fall from the internet - and then another, and another and another! It turned out this river - the Mae Sa - had a series of ten waterfalls in a row, with a load of cool little rapids and slides in between. It's in a national park, and luckily for us there was a path and wooden steps along both sides of the river. We hiked up to see what we could run, and wern't dissapointed. This is what we're here for, and we were stoked!

The first couple of falls were a little bit sketchy - but will definitly go - maybe with a little more water. So we started with the third one down. Josh hit it first and stomped the line. I went up next and hit it sweet. This got us fired up for the rest of the run.

-Josh styles down number 9-

-Me on number 9-

Next up was a portage around a drop we wern't fully keen to run - but next time I reckon we'll hit it. A sweet little slide followed to the next drop. This one was pretty messy, with an awkward run in and a load of ledges all the way down. The photo doesn't quite do it justice, but Josh stepped up and again nailed the line.

-Sam below number 7-

-Josh on number 6-

After that we came down to the drop we'd seen the day before on the internet. A sweet 20footer to boof off. Sam hit it first with Josh following him down. Then I ran up for my go. Half way to the top I see a dude on a mo-ped carrying a Rescue-ring (those red and white ones you get on the side of boats). The word had gotten out that the crazy phalangs (White people) we doing crazy stuff on the river!! I was told to stop and that it was dangerous, but with Jedi-like powers of persuasion I got them to go watch me instead. They loved it!

-Josh lines up the boof on 5-

-Sam on number 5-

The last section was a mix of portages and some cool slots and drops with a fun slide thrown in for good measure. And then we were off the water and back to Suzy Suzuki for some much needed water and a quick drive back to Chiang Mai.

-Sam on number 3-

-Me on number 1-

So right now, me and Josh are sitting back in our favourite coffee shop updating our blogs and trying to make some plans for tomorrow, while Sam's headed off for a massage. Our trip is getting off to a good start - The Mae Sa, from what we can gather is a first descent and that always makes us happy. Chiang Mai is a cool place to hang out, and there's always things going on to keep us busy. Thailand is not a bad place!

-Chiang Mai nightlife-

-Traditional Thai dancing-

We're off to do some more exploring tomorrow, so we'll keep you posted.

Happy paddling and Safe travels!

Will.
Josh.
Sam.

All Photos (c) Will Clark

Northern Thailand. Part 1.

2007-09-25T07:52:00.000+03:00

Hey everyone - I'm sat in a coffee shop in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. We've pretty much set up shop here for the last few days - enjoying the air conditioning, iced coffee and free internet.

-Thailand Chopper-

I got to Thailand on Thursday. Travelling from Uganda with Sam Ward, and hooking up with Josh Neilson in Bangkok airport. We're here for six weeks - exploring white water and searching for waterfalls. We met up with Pete Buick - a friend of ours out here in Thailand and began our travels north. We took the train from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai, and got some rest as we travelled 15 hours overnight.

-Weighing in at Bangkok Train Station-

-Buffalo Carts-

Now in Chiang Mai we've got ourselves a couple of apartments in the North of the city to base ourselves for our adventures. For the last few days we've been studying maps and getting in-touch with friends and Thai paddlers to get all the info we need to set out on some missions. We've got ourselves a cool little Suzuki to take us around, and yesterday we got on the water for the first time.

-Buddhist Temple in Chiang Mai-

We headed out of the city for a couple of hours to paddle the Mae Taeng River. It's a nice grade 3-3+ boulder garden style river. It was a nice little warm up and good fun to get out in the boats and on to a new river. We were on the water for about an hour and a half - and it was an awesome experience to see elephants bathing in the water and thick jungle hanging from the banks.

-The road to the Mae Taeng-

-Sam boofs on the Mae Taeng-

-Local Transport-

After the Mae Taeng we went to check out a couple of local waterfalls we'd spotted on the map. The driving out here is awesome - either solid tar roads, or fun offroad adventuring! So even if we couldn't paddle we had a lot of fun and saw some really cool places. The first waterfall - just 3km from the main road was a local chill-out spot and the perfect place to hang-out for a BBQ but unfortunately unrunnable. The second - called 'Mae Hon Lae' - we renamed the 'invisible hard to find in the bush waterfall'. After an hour of offroading through the jungle and no sign of it we cut our losses and headed home.

-Our Suzuki in the Jungle-

Now we're getting ready to hit the road again, in search of some big waterfalls and some multi-day kayaking. Next stop is the Nan province - North East of here.

Check back for the next update on what we find.

Will Clark

Sam Ward

Josh Neilson

A River of Change.

2007-09-15T11:55:00.000+03:00

It's sad times for the Nile. We knew it was coming and now it's here - at least the beginnings of it anyway. They are building the Bujagali Dam on the River Nile. What does this mean? Well that depends on your point of view.

For all us boaters out here and around the world it's a tragedy. We have already lost some great white-water. Ugly Sisters has gone. No longer does our favourite local play wave exist. The effect of this has meant a back up of the river and that in turn has made 'Total Gunga' a grade 1 bimble instead of what used to be (in my opinion) the best big Grade 5 on this stretch of water. So now we have huge amounts of water heading down Silverback. And I've got to say it's made it interesting!! A huge wave train with confused, messy, boily water. It is not a good idea to swim here as you will go down for a long time!!

Total Gunga? Not any more!

For Uganda this project is welcomed. 250megawatts of predicted power, really will be a saviour for the country. However we'll have to wait and see the real political impact of all this. With oil up north in Lake Albert - renewed conflict with the DRC - and heaps of other things going on in preparation for CHOGM this November, who knows how Uganda will fare.

Silverback, new and improved?!

All I know is some of my favourite white-water is being destroyed, and a noisy dirty building site is now on the banks of the Nile. Check out the photos - Total Gunga in the first and Silverback in the last.

I'm heading to Thailand this week for some creeking action up in the North. Myself, Sam Ward (UK) and Josh Nielson (NZ). We're hooking up with some of the local boys and it all looks set to be an epic adventure. Check here and www.dkayaking.net for updates on our travels and the rivers we find.

Happy paddling and Safe Travels!!

Fish Eagle

Ugly-Sisters first to go.

2007-08-11T15:11:00.001+03:00

We've been told dynamite blasting of the Ugly Sisters channel (next to Silverback/Big Brother) is due to commence in two weeks.

They're going to start blasting the bedrock and also begin to fill the mouth of the channel to block it off.

Anton Imler (NRE's fearless video boater) has been hitting it hard lately and the DKayaking (www.dkayaking.net) French boys have just headed that way from the Hairy Lemon. I'm off the water with a bust up shoulder at the moment but I'll try and get some photo's of their antics - maybe the last ever ugly Sister sessions!

I'll be sure to let you know more news as we get it and let you know when it finally happens and what the other channels are like with twice the volume of water heading their way.

If you haven’t seen Ugly Sisters, it's an awesome wave - dependent on water level - twenty minutes paddle from the NRE campsite. It's the evening run, it's sick and it's about to disappear.

Nile Special Sunset Sessions.

2007-08-03T09:57:00.000+03:00

It's been a while in the making. But it's finally here. New moves and a lot of the old. Paddlers - Sam Ward, Billy Harris, Jon Best, and more.

Sam's been down on the wave for months - perfecting his skills and inventing some new moves. This is the result. Enjoy!

More news on the way. This damn internet!!

2007-07-09T15:08:00.000+03:00

Check out this photo while you wait. Currently it seems to take 2 hours to post up 4 photos!! With about 40 I want to show you it's pretty frustrating!! News is that we have a new cable line promising faster connections to Jinja. I only hope it's not a let down.

So stick around and hopefully lots more soon.

Will.

The Irish left. But it's still busy out here.

2007-07-09T13:36:00.000+03:00

The Irish have left - it must have been the potatoes. I love the potatoes, especially those cooked for us last week by my new best pal Pamela. She's the chef from the best restaurant in town - the Gately on Nile. Last week she was our cook for our Kayak the Nile kids adventure camp.

The second of two weeks of kids camps, we had 10 young ones from the International School of Uganda. Myself and Jared put in some long hours keeping the wild bunch entertained, but it paid off with everyone of them having a great time learning some new skills and having a whole lot of fun in the process. Check out some photos of the fun...

The Irish have landed. Interesting news on the dam. Broken paddles and a haircut!!

2007-06-01T15:59:00.000+03:00

Well. The season is finally kicking off and the first of the kayakers have arrived. As usual it is the Irish that are here first, with a small contingent rocking up on Monday night, and more on the way. As well as the odd Kiwi and South African, there’s finally a nice amount of coloured plastic adorning our lawns. Bringing with them the essential supplies to keep us happy, we have a nice amount of Iron Bru and Cadburys chocolate to last us the next week or so!

The Dam!! Not all bad news – you decide…

Well, there may be nothing we can do to stop the dam being built. But it may not all be bad news. To understand this you need to know that even with the current dam there are a number of international treaties regulating the amount of water that can be released. Obviously Egypt and the Sudan would be pretty screwed if the Ugandan authorities decided to turn off the water, and as such there is a minimum requirement they have to release. Next you need to know a little about how they propose to build the new dam. While they actually complete the main parts of construction they are going to turn the water down low. So logically, in order to maintain the overall status quo of the river, BEFORE and AFTER the main construction process they’re going to pump a load more water than normal down the river.

It’s obviously more complicated than this – and we are also going to have to be careful during the construction process and aware of certain man-made hazards. However it does look likely that we are going to experience the Nile - for a short time at least – how it used to be… High! This means among other things that we can look forward to Malalu, 50-50, Surf City and Back-Wave working again. Sweet!!

It’s still not fully clear on the entire timetable of work – they still need to improve the roads before major work can begin, and all the 600 new families expected to arrive in Jinja during construction are not yet here. But I’ll keep you posted as I hear more.

Well it’s a big party tonight in celebration of Aliya finally leaving the Black Lantern. The only theme being drink till you drop. Yesterday I broke my paddles at the bottom of Escape Hatch, which pissed me off, as I didn’t even hit a rock. I also got my haircut, and now have short hair!! The first time for six years! So life’s still ticking by over here, and it’s pretty nice to still have the river to ourselves. But it’s going to get busy soon, and everybody’s resting up in anticipation of the busiest summer yet!!

Peace.

The Nile Progression goes Live.

2007-04-25T23:58:00.000+03:00

The Nile Progression dot com is up and running!

We live out on the White Nile Uganda, we paddle, we teach, we learn and we progress. That's what it's all about - progression. From our prime location in the centre of the universe we will bring this to you. Through photos and some carefully chosen words you will be able to see what the african boys are up to. Just been out on a trip? - Then see your friends and yourself on film and in stories. Thinking of coming out? - Then get the inside track before you come. Find out if it's rainy season or dry, what the water's doing and just some ideas on what's possible on the longest river in the world.

May 8th I'm back in the country after a short break to hit the snow. Upcoming stories include, a review of the New Fluid Nemisis - in full production in Medium right now!! A look at the river and who's in town, and then it's fun fun fun. We'll see what's possible and bring it to you every week (depending on our African internet connection!) This next year expect a full report on an upcoming trip to Rwanda. And the Rwenzories are gonna be paddled. First descent everywhere you look, right next to the Congo, expect some epic stories and photos!!

For now bookmark this page and check us out every now and then!! While you wait for the new stuff check out the posts from last year and some of my favorite photos from the last few months.

Don't forget that nowadays everything is interactive. Let us know what you think and what you want to see - we'll do pretty much anything you want - Really! Give us your feedback, comments and your own news and we'll get it up.

Contact on thenileprogression@hotmail.com

Enjoy the pretty photos:

Will Clark gets inverted in a Gold Top Hat. Pimps&Ho's Val D'Isere 2007

One of my favorite days from last month. - Jumping the company Landrover on a double road-gap we built.

Sweet day, sweet cliff drop, sweet grab.

Will Clark (kayakthenile) and Sam Ward (The Hairy Lemon) after winning the Endurance Race. Nile Freestyle Festival 2006. Photo courtesy of Leslie Alsheimer www.santafedigitaldarkroom.com

The Hairy Lemon Ferry.

When it rains it pours!

Christmas Day 2006. Pringle and Cookie admire Aliya's new assets!

Will Clark with a big blunt. Nile Freestyle Festival 2006.

Nile Freestyle Festival 2006

2007-04-25T17:42:00.000+03:00

This year’s Nile Freestyle Festival went off with a bang. Three days of freestyle, extreme racing and partying all based at bujagali falls, Jinja Uganda. It all kicked off on the Friday morning with competitors and spectators heading down to Itanda falls for an expression session, followed by a paddle to Nile Special – the venue for the ‘Big Trick’ freestyle event. With Music pumping and the sun shining 21 international paddlers went big for their chance to win a slice of the 1.5million USH prize money. A new format for this year, 7 paddlers at a time had an open wave for a 45-minute jam session. With the relaxed atmosphere and no one worried about flushing, the moves were big and the mood was mellow. Pan-ams, Helixs, lots of combo’s and the occasional porpoise kept the crowd entertained and the paddlers buzzing until it was time to add up the scores. As darkness grew and the floodlights were fired up the kayakthenile team worked out who was going into the final! Thirty minutes, top five men, top three women, in the dark, and the rain. Steve Fisher (RSA), Sam Ward (UK) and Geoffrey Kabirya (UG) went into the session on level scores from the prelims. It was close. In the end Steve won with an awesome KY, followed by Sam busting out the Bread and Butter’s. In the women’s it was a two-girl battle between Jessie Stone (USA) and Rae Borratto (CAN). Rae showed her strength popping aerial blunts all night long and winning herself half a million shillings for her efforts.

Saturday was a different day and a different event. You hoped you hadn’t drunk too much the night before because today was the 45km head to head extreme endurance race. Eleven rapids, grade 1-6, lots of flat water, teams of two, only playboats allowed. Safety was an important factor and this event wasn’t for the faint hearted. One stop for water or to sponge a boat would see you out of the pack and out of the race; it was flat out until you dropped. During the first flat-water section 10k into the race, the pack had split into two. Sam Ward from the Hairy Lemon and Will Clark from kayakthenile caused the big upset by pushing the Ugandans hard for the title. By Itanda Sam and Will were in the lead but only just. With numerous retirements, a few broken boats and some clever lines, Will and Sam stayed ahead to bring home the victory in a total time of 2hr 56min. An awesome time in the low levels!! Adrian Kiernan and Anton Imler came in second with a time of 3hr 4min. Team kayakthenile held strong in the ladies with Becky Lar taking the title with Chloe Self from Adrift in a time of 3hr 18min. Tales of the crazy day flowed in the party that night amidst tequila girls (and boys), old school tunes and cheap beer sponsored by Nile Breweries. If you weren’t already tired the party made sure of it, leaving many bleary eyed by the time they woke up on Sunday morning.

Sunday was all about fun, it was time for the final event – the boda-cross! Forty-six competitors, one section of hard white water, motorbikes, inflatable assault courses and beer funnels. You cannot but love this event. A mass start left little space for everyone down the first few rapids, and an awesome sight for the spectators. The Ugandans went hard trying to bring home the final victory. Geoffrey Kabirya powered his way to the front only to find Sam Ward right there with him. By the time they came into the bank there was only 30 seconds between them. But this was the boda-cross and the paddle was only half of the race. Up the hill and onto a boda-boda (50cc moped), then a race back to the campsite. Sam was in contention for another win until he realised these local boys knew which bikes went fast!! With a trail of dust behind him Geoffrey flew ahead to take the win followed by fellow Ugandans Henry Kitmeo and Nassans Tunabaitamu.

Sunday was a true festival day. Hot sunshine, blasting tunes and cheap beer. While the winners were cornered for interviews and photographs the rest got into their party shoes and headed to the bar. At prize giving a total of 6million USH was dished out to those who had won as well as a brand new kayak from Fluid, Soft kit from GOYA and many other prizes. A new addition to the festival was a photo competition in memory of Ben Holland. Leslie Alsheimer taking the prize with an awesome shot from the river. Check out her website at www.santafedigitaldarkroom.com

Thanks to Jamie Simpson and his team for organising the event, Nile Breweries for all their support, SN Brussels Airlines, Fluid Kayaks and GOYA, Kayak Session, Nile River Explorers and the Hairy Lemon and everyone who gave their time to support this fantastic event. The Nile Freestyle Festival proved once again to be one of the best events in the world, next years event will be on Dec 1-2, so book your ticket and we’ll see you there! For more info or for details on paddling in Uganda go to www.kayakthenile.com.

Report by Will Clark.
Photos by Moses

Christmas 2006. Ugandan Style.

2007-04-25T12:56:00.000+03:00

We had an awesome Christmas over here in Uganda. We all headed down to the Hairy Lemon for our Festive Fun with friends and a whole bunch of paddlers. Christmas eve was a day to paddle - and for mister ‘I’ve broken my back’ Jamie Simpson, a chance to get back in a boat and head down the Day-Two section. So we packed up, took some beers and an oar-boat to carry them, and headed from Kalagala to the Lemon. Waiting for us was cheese and biscuits, all our friends and a huge two-day bender!! Check out these pics and a nice little video for your enjoyment...

Unloading at Kalagala.

Steve and Austin enjoy a swim whilst the rest of us enjoy a beer.

Georgie, Helga and Becca pose for a photo.

Secret Santa and fake Snow!

Becky Lar gives Jamie a pistol shot of Waragi!

Whilst I had to go back to work, the others enjoyed Boxing Day in true style, floating downstream of the Lemon.

Cookie and Aliya enjoy Christmas enhancements.

Photos by Helga.