The first shipment of production Green Machines arrive this week! We’ll have a fleet of them at the Performance Kayaks Demo day this Saturday, so get down there if you’d like to be the first to have a go.
Here’s a couple of shots from my recent Norway trip. Is this the longest boat to have paddled Ula falls? The Green flies!
Tim
Photos Colin F
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| Thursday night I got a text from Simon Tapley fresh from his Greenland Expedition wanting to go paddling so early Friday morning we headed to our ‘Secret’ local playspot. When we got there it was higher than we wanted and as the playhole has a big sticky hole below it, it was a sketchy decision whether to jump on or drive up to the Kent in the Lake District. We flipped a coin and playboating was the result. |
| This hole is the second in a series of three and depending on levels it can be super sticky or flushy, but its the hole below we were anxious about. After seeing how the flow was down to the second hole we got stuck in. |
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| On Sunday Palm were at the Paddlerworks Demo event at the Llyn Tegid / Bala Lake forshore. |
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| t this event there was a lot of interest in our Islander sit-on-top range the Paradise, Paradise II and the Strike (our specifically made kayak fishing boat). |
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| The G-forces and Agents were very popular with the younger paddlers down at the lake and we rarely saw them on the stand all day. |
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| Jonny N |
Photo guide to the Lower Karnali, Western Nepal.
Light streamed through the curtains of Hotel Snowland, possibly the poshest hotel in Pokhara. After the Marsyandi, Bhote Kosi, Upper Modi Khola, Upper Seti and only 9 days since landing in Kathmandu I was feeling rather tired.
“Rosie!”
“Whhhhaaaat…I’m tired, I just want to sleep and eat cake”
“Let’s go paddle the Karnali!
“Whaaaat’s …the Karnali’…?”
“180km, big water class 4, and total wilderness!”
His voice was getting more and more enthusiastic.
“Uh…How long does it take…” “7 days – but we can do it in 4!”
“But I only just got out of hospital 2 weeks ago – I feel weak.”
“But it’ll be amazing!”
“Yea, but we fly out of the country in 6 days, and what if it’s really high and we get stuck down some hideous gorge of doom and run out of food.”
“Oh come on. As if that is ever going to happen.”
“What about last year in India????”
“Oh yea…uh…but this is Nepal! It’s different! Hotter, uh, and stuff!”
“And what about my lack of medical insurance?”
“It’ll be fine – how would we contact emergency services anyway? It won’t make a difference!
“Urggg. Leave me alone. Don’t want to do it.”
“Rosie…”
“WHAT! Go away!”
“But it says in the guidebook that they saw leopards and coyotes, and eagles and monkeys on the river!”
“Did you say leopard?!
“Yes! Yes, yes I did, um, fluffy leopard and leopard kittens!”
“What! Why on earth didn’t you say so before?!”
And so not so many hours later the local bus, two tourists, one large and slightly scary bug, and two kayaks filled with noodles and tuna pulled out of Pokhara and heaved their way onto the long and dusty road West.
It wasn’t the most comfortable journey. Bags were packed solid around my legs, totally immobilising them. I fell into an uneasy stupor filled with endless cramps, dehydration and a seriously rattled brain box. About 4 hours in I woke briefly to ‘splat’ as a balloon full of cow dung exploded through the bus window onto my face. At 6 hours the large and frightening bug that had occupied the headrest of the seat in front bailed and spun out of the window. That made me jealous. After 17 hours, the bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. Unlucky as we had no water, map, or idea which side of the ridge the river was on; we had sort of expected there to be a town somewhere along the way.
Luckily and before too long, as is the way in Nepal, two men materialised as if from the dust of the road and offered to carry out boats the 2 hours down the steep trail to the river, for around £2 each.
Below is a photo diary of the rest of the trip:
Our first glimpse of the mighty Karnali.
Secretly I was quite glad that there were friendly cows at the put in, instead of leopards.
Until they tried to eat my Tevas.
We got on the river and passed through the first of many steep and impressive gorges.
I felt like a tiny paddler in an enormous gorge…hang on…
Over the first two days there were many rapids with spectacular backdrops. This is Rob on one of them.
Lines were big and open, see if you can spot Rob down the bottom of this one!
I was glad we had managed to stuff plenty of food into our dry bags; the alternative dinner didn’t look too tasty…
…and neither was the river water laced with iodine. It tasted disgusting.
To be continued in next post…
Palm and Dagger Europe are a main sponsor of the Youth Freestyle Series, which sees huge numbers of 18&under paddlers participate in coaching and fun competitions in various whitewater spots across the country.
The most recent event was on the Nene whitewater course. Thankfully this year we had exclusive use of the course as nearly 80 youngsters took to the water for ‘bungy racing’ (head to head creek boat racing with the boat attached to the shore with a bungy cord!), tips and advice on freestyle paddling and of course the freestyle competition.
Cheese and I helped out with both the morning coaching and judging in the afternoon.
Cheese demonstrating how to tricky whu.
Cheese got the crowd geared up and cheering loudly for all of the participants who competed on the ‘pool C’ feature (a slightly less intimidating feature than the pourover of ‘Pool A’ – where the rest of the paddlers competed).
Huge points were awarded for big grins, pop-outs, paddle spins and air guitars!
The winners and those who entertained the crowd the most were later awarded for their efforts with spot prizes from all of the sponsors including Palm and Dagger Europe.
There are still 2 more Youth Freestyle events of this year’s series. Visit youth.ukfreestyle.com for details.
Flea.
I’ve just finished 4 weeks of coaching and guiding in the French Alps. I met some lovely people, paddled some great rivers and generally had a lot of fun. Here’s a few photos:
Jon Warwick paddling the Fournel with a back brace on. Gnarly.
Nick Pearce and I on his virgin mission into Chatau Q. Photo: John the open boater
Nick immerging from Chatau Q with a big grin!
A week with Leeds and Regents Canoe Clubs
The CC bus overheating on the Col de Var
Surfing at St Clement
During the past month I’ve also witnessed a lot of carnage, here’s just some of the boats we retrieved!
This belonged to Cambridge Uni and was one of the many Gyronde casualties
This fortnight old Jefe was forming a nice boof ledge of the exit rapid of Durance Gorge
We pulled it out and found the contents of the drybag to be still dry, including the condoms and throwline(?!)
Half a Mystic on the banks of the Durance Gorge, which was littered with boat bits!
More photos from the last month can be found here. Thanks to everyone I’ve hung out with and paddled with this month 
I’m now on my way to Lyon for one week of training on Hawaii-sur-Rhone and the nearby White Water Course in Sault Brenaz; before flying over to Spain for the European Freestyle Champs!
See you on the water,
Lowri
It almost seems standard nowadays to have torrential downpoors in the UK in the middle of summer and whilst almost everyone else hates it Whitewater lovers relish the rain!
Myself Rosie and Pastie headed into Welsh water fall country yesterday evening to the river Melte in the Ystradfellte area. It was higher that any of had seen before (off the guage so can’t tell you what level) but we did manage to run a few bits as you can see.
Check out here on UK rivers guide book to find out more and also to compare levels from the images.
Oh, and they had a film set up on Swgd Clun Gwyn for a movie called ‘Wolfman’ staring Anthony Hopkins – so keep an eye out for this at the cinema in the future for some big screen views!
Hopefully more paddling tonight.
Cheers,
Paul ‘Cheese’ Robertson
Hi, as this is my first entry on the Palm blog – I thought I’d let you know a bit about me,
first thing – my name is Tasha, but you should know that by now! I’m 14 years old and I’ve been paddling seriously for 18 months.
I first started paddling one holiday down in Cornwall on a sit on top with my dad, early on I realised slalom wasn’t for me because I managed to hit the only windsurfer in the water!
When we got back home, I wanted to get the hang of steering so had a bit of coaching at the mighty Nene (which is near where I live), and on the less mighty and very flat Great Ouse.
My break through came at the Nene Youth Freestyle last year, before I tried the competition – I’d always been a bit iffy around the idea of competitions but once I tried freestyle I was hooked.
After the Nene I really started to try and get some freestyle skills, I competed again at the Nene and at HPP – and one of my coaches suggested going to the GB selections in December.
Selections were interesting, a freeeeeeeezing day at Hurley and a dirty water day at HPP put me into the team as reserve for the Europeans this summer – as I write this I’m thinking in 3 weeks time I’ll be at the opening!
In the future I want to keep learning freestyle and compete some more, I also want to do more and more river running – especially in the winter when sitting upside is not so good.
My plans for the summer are a week at the Europeans in July, then I’m lucky enough to be going back to the Alps with another Palm paddler – Lowri Davies for 10 days seeing what big water we can find.
On my blog, I’ll try and keep you up to date as I learn freestyle (as you all know it’s a long journey and I’m only just setting out) and as I try and run some bigger and bigger rivers.
Hope to see you on the water, look out for a few pictures from Europe soon
Say hi if you see me – this is what I look like! (This is me at Llangollen last winter – Palm-tastic!)
In the meantime – if you want to find out more about me, check out the interview in the current issue of Paddles magazine
See you
Tasha
xx
