So a couple of weekends back, Thames Valley Freestylers held their fourth birthday celebration at Cardiff International Whitewater course. Palm were at the event with banners, flags and prizes galore; enjoying the perfect sunshine and beautifully clear welsh water!
I was tasked with filming and producing the ‘official video’, so that’s just what I did; spending a lot of time on a longboard, riding down the course shooting the Palm Boater X and sitting by the main play feature formed by an awesome twelve cumec level!
[Due to the other link I posted being removed from youtube, I have uploaded to Vimeo! Enjoy.]
A big well done to Dave Wortley for organising such a fun and smooth event, and to all who competed for making such a great day on the water! Check out Dave’s blog for a full write up and many pictures Here
It’s hard to explain just how much I ache at this moment, but I’m sure many of you reading this are still feeling the full effects of this year’s NSR, be it from the copious amounts of partying or the water quality…
So continuing on the theme in the post below – here’s our video wrap up of the weekend:
A couple of weeks ago I met up with Hugh ‘huge’ Graham in Exeter for a weekend of boating… a weekend of boating that turned in to one morning of boating.
Unfortunately, for the last three and a bit weeks I’ve been off kayaking and on painkillers, due to said morning’s boating with friends, in South Wales. After setting off from Exeter bright and early (6am to be precise) on a Saturday morning, we were aiming for the river Mellte – rain the night before had continued in to the morning, giving us ample water for the days adventure ahead.
It turned out to be so much rain that just about every high water run in Wales was browner than… well, browner than they normally are, giving us quite a few options. So standing at the take out for the Nedd Fechan, looking down at a pretty high level, some crazy cat suggested we went to have a look at the Giedd, one of the Tawe’s tributaries.
A short drive and couple of kilometres hike in later we were rewarded – the Giedd is great.
Well I managed to ruin my ankles on the last drop, unfortunate, but hey… it happens.
Thanks to Mark Shackleton for taking us up there, nice one!
And now, after my long stretch off kayaking, I’m heading back to Wales to meet up with Nick ‘Niche’ Horwood – fire it up!
Better late than never, seems apt. After many technical difficulties I’ve finally managed to get this little edit rendered and done.
2010′s Adventure Paddler’s Weekend was another awesome one. Despite the lack of water and ultra cold weather, a large crowd turned up, watched some amazing videos, paddled and of course, rocked out to Paul ‘Cheesy’ Robertson’s classic club anthems.
The low levels and cold weather equalled a couple of interesting morning after runs in the Dagger Green, which was the boat of choice for me after being talked into it by Nick Horwood. Despite my initial fears of getting stuck halfway down Euthanasia and vertically pinned in Surprise Surprise, the Green Boat turned out to be perfect for the hangover run down a super low upper Dart. Sitting high and bombing over everything is fun!
Most of the party footage was WAY too dark, so all of the dance antics were filmed after the lights came on, when only the most hardcore remained.
After filming so much the previous evening, little GoPro HD was low on juice – unfortunately running out of battery half way down our first run. Nevertheless I’m really happy with how the videos come out – so without further delay…
Happy New Year guys – More Wintery videos coming soon…
Me and Hugh are back in the UK now, enjoying all that is English and preparing for the cold winter ahead…
It was a joy paddling in Norway this summer – my first season out there and one to remember for sure. This is the final instalment of the imaginatively named, ‘Finn and Hugh’s Norway Adventure’, and I have to say that I feel rather Nostalgic already. We spent our last week in Norway in Voss paddling the Raundal lower canyon, which turned out to be one of the best runs of the trip (save The Megatron), unfortunately we didn’t get any footage of it as canyons are actually quite hard to film in…
However, we did film a cheeky play session on speed camera hole in central Voss and a wonderful afternoon on the Bygdelva play run in Hellesylt… a nice way to end a great trip.
Without further ado, the video:
Thanks to Hugh for the great edit, Enjoy!
Stay Tuned for some English Winter Adventures, with Finn and Hugh.
A continuation of Nick’s post below – I’ve spent the last couple of days going through and editing the footage from our latest mission here in Norway. Enjoy.
Me and Hugh have just over a week left untill the long drive home – anything could happen… well, anything related to kayaking or driving.
Another week, another Episode – just a quick video update of what has been a really eventful few days.
Me and Hugh’s Road trip vaguely north, started well with the discovery of a new river containing some exciting things. However ended pretty swiftly after I injured my ankle on the lower rauma. After journeying back to lillehammer hospital, the X-Ray came back all clear – no fractures, which was great news. The doctors prescription – “Maybe you should take some pain killers?” – sound advice indeed.
So I spent a few days recovering at the Sjoa campsite, and we planned a second trip up to the new and exciting river we so briefly encountered before…
The second Episode of Finn and Hugh’s Norwegian adventure is up!
In this installment we take a look back at the events of the Sjoa River Festival, a lovely playboating session and look forward to some steep creeking! Enjoy.
Still at the Sjoa campsite, preparing to leave, me and Hugh are about to set off to check out a possible first decent, which could either be really nice, or massively disgusting! Fingers crossed. After that we’re hoping to head a little further north to session Sjak wave if it’s in and run some of the lesser known rivers in the area.
Next episode should be done by the end of next week, so stay tuned!
After a long drive to Norway, we made it – this is the first in a series of video blogs that myself and Hugh will be releasing throughout our trip here in Norway!
So without further ado here’s some driving, BMXing, cliff jumping, oh and kayaking.
My name’s Finn and I’m pretty new to the palm team and blog, I’m 18 and an enthusiastic paddler. I pretty much like to make videos of myself and others boating and for the most part have a great time doing it! This is my first post here which is really cool, I’ll be posting up every time I make a new flick or when I’ve got pictures and words…
Below is a little video I shot and edited of my trip to the White Nile last year with my good buddy Hugh Graham. We spent six weeks paddling, partying and generally having a good time on the banks of one of the finest rivers in the world. This video is the sole product of that trip… time well spent for sure.
