I had half a day to kill after a long journey and needed a bit of a chill and a shake out paddle. I remembered an interesting little paddle, quite local to where I was that I had done a year or so previously. That trip is the much overlooked Rivers Glass and Beauly.
Both these rivers really are little gems and very often ignored due to their low grade, with the River Beauly having the stunning steep sided Aigas Gorge which is quite unusual at this grade of water, and is home to some regularly seen Otters. Only the River Conon has a larger catchment area than the 270 square miles of the Beauly system. The Rivers lie to the south west of Dingwall in Strathglass and to the North of the Great Glenn and is easily be accessed via the A831 through the Muir of Ord and Beauly.
This system finds its origins in Glen Affric with the River Affric which then becomes the River Glass above Cannich. Here there is a good access and egress, from where this stretch can then be paddled to the road bridge at Mauld which crosses the river just before the River Farrar and Struy Bridge. Again there is good access and egress and the river now becomes the Beauly and is a nice trip down through the Aigas Gorge to the get out at the Aigas Dam.
The put in at Struy Bridge
Looking downstream of the bridge
As I only had half a day I opted on this occasion to put on at Struy bridge and paddle the section to the Aigas Dam. I made a point of stopping at the the dam and inspecting the get out as I drove to the put in, and left my bike for a quick shuttle at the end of the day. After the usual faff associated with open boating I launched from the field beside the bridge and paddled down the Farrar to where it met the Beauly.
The Beauly
The weather was rather interesting as to my front were great black, bellowing storm clouds and very loud rumbles of thunder could be heard, whilst over my shoulder was blue sky and sunshine. This was to the be the case for the remainder of the day along with the the occasional heavy downpour. Although I could see and hear the thunder and lightning I never really caught up with it and ended up feeling like I was chasing it all day!
Beckoning storm clouds to my front!
Clearer sky's to my rear
Part way down I decided to stop for some lunch and a brew with the aid of my Kelly Kettle. I always carry a fire steel steel with me for lighting fires, stoves etc so all I had to do now was find some tinder and some fuel. Luck would have it that very close to where I had stopped I found an old Birch tree. On closer inspection I found that its bark was in just the state for lighting my kettle. I chose some of the very flakey, loose paper thin bark as tinder for my spark, and some of the thicker more substantial bark to add to this to get it going, along with a collection of small dry twigs. I generally carry a small leather pouch with some dry bark and other dry tinders just in case I cant find what I need. I like to use Birch bark for tinder as it contains natural oils which help it to burn, even when wet plus it burns hot and for quite sometime ensuring the fire gets a good start.
Thin and fury looking bark for tinder
Thicker bark for getting the fire going
Preparation is everything when lighting fire or in this case my kettle. I prepared a pile of tinder in the form of the very thin bark, a few strips of the thicker bark and broke the twigs up into piles of thin to thick. Kelly Kettle filled with water and ready I drop a few sparks onto the very thin bark and gain a flame quickly. Now I add some of the thicker strips of bark and once they have caught’ place the kettle over the fire base. This acts like a chimney and draws the fire. I can now carefully add the sticks trough the hole in the top starting with the thinnest first and gradually building up. Be careful not to overdo it and smother the the young flames.
A good selection of tinder and fuel
I always carry a good knife and a firesteel
Now is a good time to give the fire lots of oxygen via the holes in the base of the kettle, by blowing or fanning. Once your kettle is going drip feed the thicker sticks until the water is boiled. Remember not leave the cork in, and be careful lifting the kettle off the base as the flames may still be coming out of the top where the handle goes. With practice, lighting and using a Kelly Kettle can become second nature and can be as quick as using a stove but definitely more satisfying and fun.
The base with a dead fire
I soon arrived at Aigas Island and the start of the Gorge, which as I mentioned earlier is a bit of a surprise. Its hard to get your head round, but you are now actually paddling through part of reservoir! Very steep rocky sides tower above the paddler as you paddle through. The Island itself can be paddle on either side although I feel the left is much more interesting.
Approaching Aigas Island
Steep sides of the gorge
Leaving the gorge
On leaving the gorge and paddling around to the right a very big and grand property is clearly visible above, on the Island. This is Eilean Aigas House, previously a seat for Lord Fraser of Lovat. The original family home was demolished by a Canadian Millionaire and has been replaced by this stunning building, in this stunning location. Incidentally if you happen to have a spare £15,000,000 plus just lying around doing nothing you could put in an offer on the property as its up for sale!!
For sale. Offers in excess £15,000,000 !!
Back to reality and it’s only a distance of 2 km to the Aigas Dam and the get out. The egress is short distance before the dam itself and is a bit of scramble up the bank with your boat and kit, before finding the tarmac track up to the main road.
Approaching the Aigas Dam
After a quick portage up to the road it was time to head off back to the car courtesy of the local shuttle service … aka my bike. The short cycle back gave me time to reflect on my day of storm chasing, Kelly kettles and gorges. I finished in a very chilled and relaxed state ready for some more challenging paddling later in the week.
Portage up to the road
The local shuttle service .... aka my bike!
This section I paddled is only 10-12 km long but as mentioned earlier a longer paddle of 25 km can be had by launching further upstream at Cannich. I have on one occasion portaged 2 km down the road from Aigas Dam and launched again by the Kilmorack bridge and paddled a further 4 km down to Lovat Bridge. It really is a lovely paddle with no nasty surprises. Wether a days relaxed paddling, a family trip or an introductory paddle for people its well worth the visit.
Happy paddling and see you on the water…..
Jules
www.voyageur-coaching.co.uk
So the first event of the 2012 World Cup has just finished here in the USA.
The feature in Rock Island was very very tough and no one had much time on the water to practice, which meant quite a lot of surprises from the favourites and some unexpected successes for others.
From the beginning this World Cup it was going to be a battle between the Europeans and the North Americans. For this play spot in Rock Island the Jackson group were definitely favourites with this being their home spot.
They were very consistent in practice, you can see that they know this feature better than anyone else even this level is very unusual for them.
For myself it’s only been 3 weeks since I broke my Collarbone so my biggest hope was that I could compete at all, I knew I probably wasn’t likely to be at the top but I did manage to get a few moves and was very happy to make it to Quarter Finals and finish 17th.
Everything was going smoothly for the North Americans until today when things didn’t go to their plan. In the men’s Semi Finals, Nick Troutman just missed the cut for top 5 after winning the previous two rounds. Then European Junior Girls took the first two places in their final with Nuria from Spain winning.
In Women’s the unpredictable nature of the feature claimed Claire O’Hara current World Champion and Ruth Gordon Ebens former World Champion as casualties in the semis so it was only Nina Csonkova left from the European team in the Final. She got 2nd having pretty consistent rides but no one could really compete with Emily Jackson here who had impressive rides every time to take the Win.
Watching the men’s finals was a real pleasure with the Europeans really getting behind Quim and Peter. For quite a while Quim from Spain was leading with a score over 600 but Dane and EJ was going very hard, with Dane finally taking the lead from Quim with 750points. It looked like this result would stick until Peters last ride when he put himself together and really showed his skill and control to get a 900+point ride.
The sudden change in the European crowds mood was lifted to the sky as we almost lost hope of a win here until Peter last ride. Dane was last to go and had looked on fire here, he knew Peters score and must have felt under pressure. He flushed early in his last ride, this feature isn’t quite retainable, the paddle back up takes 20 seconds so he didn’t have time to really recover when he got back in the hole.
This meant of course that here on the Jackson’s home spot the European teams hero of the moment Peter Csonka took the win with Dane 2nd and Quim 3rd. Gold and Bronze goes to Europe, for us it doesn’t really matter who wins this World Cup, it matters where he’s from. I really want the Europeans to continue to show what we’re capable of here. Hopefully I will be in shape for the last event in 2 weeks time.
For now Congratulations to Peter! We all felt like we’d shared a part of this victory, it was very well deserved.
The Pigeon river World Cup starts in two days, probably without any practice but is much more retentive and consistent apparently, it might all be a different story.
Pringle
Great result on the Oban Sea Kayak Race – After much sweating, swearing and surfing the waves, I managed to come in seventh overall in the race with my trusty Wilderness Systems Tempest 180 pro kayak, and the first recreational \ touring kayak with a time of 2.14-09 for the trip round Kerrera.
Pretty pleased with the results and with beating all the other leading brand fast touring boats, a number or facing boats and a K2. I did manage to get past finisher no 6 in a wave ski at one point on the outside of the island with the rougher water, but fairs fair, he took me on the home run back into Oban bay. Note – must work harder next year.
Not a bad result this year for Mags Duncan in her plastic tempest 165 in the Ness Marathon either, fastest female, fastest sea kayak, beating all the composite boats and smashing the female course record by 12 minutes. As well as the fastest female in the spey marathon proving the wee sister of the tempest range still has it.
A great race, The tempest fast and stable ? Well it beat a few full on racing boats so I guess it must be, certainly being able to put all the drive into forwards speed in the bouncy water helped. Thanks to WS for making a top boat, and to the organisers for handling a great event.
Good result to Nairn Kayak Clubs Michael Surman too in my loaner plastic tempest 170 with a time of 2-19, beating a large number of composite boats.
Looking forward to next year, hope to see you there.
Or maybe the Dee marathon in October ???????
Steve Mackinnon
After two months, three dangerously overstayed visas and a lost passport, our little adventure has come to an end. Here’s a quick rundown on what we have learned for anyone interested in paddling Pakistan.
Security
Me in 'relaxed-mode"
As a yorkshireman, I was born triple-hard. Those not fortunate enough to have been born in God’s own county will naturally be concerned about personal safety. It would be irresponsible to suggest that Pakistan is ‘as safe as houses’. We did encounter violence during the trip, most of which was the result of petty arguments and climaxed with a grown-up playground-style scuffle. There are also guns in Pakistan; at one point whilst running away from gunfire, Griff commando rolled under barbed wire. True story. The only sensible advice would be to remain positive, friendly and calm; after all, who could ever get angry at Dave Benson-Phillips?
Logistics, accommodation and everything else
In a word, Amin. Amin will mention the name of a guy who is friends with his cousin’s friend’s uncle and the hotel bill will drop a decimal point or two. Amin will personaly deliver matches to your isolated multiday campsite because who wants cold tea? Amin drinks two pints of milk a night to give him ‘stamina’ and having spent time in Europe, Amin understands why we wear such short shorts. Without Amin, we would have paddled less and spent more. And he’s more than just a driver, he’s a great friend.
Incidentally, he’s asked us to shop around for a British wife. Applications on a postcard.
The paddling
Eventually, we’ll write a ‘what we did on our holidays’ style report on the rivers that we enjoyed. Until then, I can promise you that hiding away amongst the monsters are some truly beautiful sections of whitewater.
Here’s a final few photos of our “expedition”. We had a great time and would again like to thank Palm for their help with the equipment and saint-like patience with my idle ramblings. We’re in India now and if you’ll have me, I’ll continue to keep you posted.
With love from Leh,
James
UK – French Alps – Lyon – French Alps – Norway – Uganda – UK – Austrian Alps – French Alps – UK
What a summer! Since May I’ve been travelling around running FlowFree trips, boating with friends, filming for upcoming projects and racing, with a very tight schedule to fit it all in! Last time I updated on here, I’d made it as far as Lyon (that blog post is here and is the reason this is called part 2!). I’m going to take you with me on a whistle stop tour of the highlights from the rest of my epic summer of paddling…
We begin back in the French Alps, around mid-June, when there was awesome river levels which were ideal for the grade 3-4 FlowFree trip – plus a few extra adventures…
Hammer time on the fournel… trying to go tandem with Geraint Anderson had rather mixed results, but was a lot of fun!
One afternoon we decided to go and investigate the top of the Biasse Valley. We looked at the so-called “Teacups” and decided they were a lot of effort for a couple of fairly manky drops, but on hiking up the other trib we found some rather exciting stuff…
Geraint Anderson getting in amongst it
One of my personal highlights from my 2 weeks here was “Guil Day”, where a bunch of us ran from above the Upper Gorge of the Guil, through the Upper Gorge, Chateaux Q, Guardian Angel and into the Middle Guil all in an afternoon. What a blast! This is one of my favourite rivers, especially in good flow.
Staircase at Twilight
Oh and I almost forgot, the annual Student Boater-x… good banter, fun races and a healthy amount of inflatables always make for a good event.
Thanks to everyone who I paddled with in France, it was most excellent. So next stop Norway and Uganda (via a couple of days downhill biking in Morzine and a very special wedding in Geneva)… Epic Summer Part 3 will be with you soon…
If you want to see more photos from the Alps (including more of the Biasse Superslide), check out my Flickr. Dates of 2013 FlowFree trips will be released soon, so if you fancy joining us keep an eye on the website and facebook page, or sign up to our newsletter.
2012 was supposed to be a high water year in Norway so after 2 weeks of hard trade show work I was really looking forward to start my trip to the land of Fjords and Trolls. This year I was guiding a trip for the kajakschool “Source to Sea”.
After an endless drive up north we finally arrived in Sjoa. We had an awesome start of our tour with a sweet run sliding down the Store Ula followed by a long day on the river paddeling Sjoa Ridderspranget to the confluence with the Lagen. Waterlevel was still a little high so we ended up portaging a lot in Ridderspranget but having great times down Asengjuvet, Playrun and Amot.
During the next two weeks Norway showed itself from its best side with a lot of sun and epic whitewater in Sjoa and Otta region. Unfortunately those two weeks of sweet paddeling and nice campfires in the midnight sunset went over way to fast. But even on our way back home passing Oslo the Waterfall Trolls seemed to be well-disposed towards us. Some rain brought up the rivers in the capitol region and made our last paddeling day phenomenal.
During the London 2012 Olympics it’s not just been Slalom going on at the Lee Valley Whitewater centre…
Myself, Claire O’hara, Uganda’s Juma Kalikwani, Japan’s Motoko Ishida, New Zealand’s Courtney Kerin, and USA’s Dane Jackson have all been part of team putting on freestyle kayaking displays between the slalom races.
The aim to show freestyle to as many people as possible, get more kids into it and try to raise the sports profile as a whole (and have a good time doing it).
We were on each day in the break betweens finals and medals, or after the heats, so you might have heard or seen glimpses of us on the BBC footage. Unfortunately, I took myself out of the action with a broken collarbone after the 2nd day, having stacked it skateboarding back to the hotel after our show. Hoping to be back on the water for World Cups.
I was using the new Dagger Jitsu proto as my Guigui was deemed to colourful by the Officials, but the Jitsu even it was plastic was actually a joy to use here at Lee Valley, I’m certainly excited to see how the production one turns out, I think Dagger may well have created something quite special.
Been here at the Olympics has been exciting, fascinating and an overall great experience. We had such a fun time with our team. Watching the incredible performances of GB’s C2 crews, especially Tim and Etienne taking the Gold and Silver yesterday was unforgettable. I’ve never been so gripped by an event.
It didn’t matter what nation was racing when someone was on a winning time everyone began to cheer them on regardless! That is what was so great about the crowds here! and they seemed to love Freestyle!
Getting to see how all the various slalom athletes put themselves together trying to show their best, cheering them on and feeling the electric atmosphere has been amazing. The opening ceremony was like nothing I’ve ever been to, I was very impressed.
In my mind the Olympics is about working hard in pursuit of a goal or dream, trying to show the best of yourself and encouraging/ inspiring others with your actions. I think this is exactly what we saw there after you’ve stripped away all the official BS and commercialism at it’s core it’s still a celebration or humanity and how great the World is!
Anyway, here are some more photos of our time showing off Freestyle Kayaking and keep an eye out for the others this afternoon as they put on the last show.
Pringle
P.S. Thanks to Claire, Sportscene and Terry Best for the additional photos…
For our July training weekend we were headed to Nottingham, amid reports that the Trent was flooded due to the heavy rainfall that has characterised our British Summer so far. A diminished team gathered together for Saturday because Deb was off on expedition in Vietnam like the intrepid explorer, and all round action heroine that she is, and Rosie and Suzie were somewhere over Europe flying back from The Dajue Mountain Natural Water International Rafting Competition 2012 that took place in China!! Check out their blog below…SO proud of you girls!!
http://79.170.40.166/palmequipmenteurope.com/blogs/ww/we-still-love-china-raft-race-day/
Monty Python forms the basis for our warm ups.
We started off with some flat water slalom on Saturday morning, working on communication and NOT TOUCHING THE POLES! The only problem was that Fran hadn’t slept that well the night before due to too much coffee so communication was not her strong point; “I don’t like talking” she said nearly throwing all her toys out of the pram.
Bryony: Endurance training in the sunshine in our penultimate Euros training weekend. Muscle achingly, gut bustingly, will testingly awesome!!!
Fran "Who put that chocolate there? It wants me to eat it all"
The afternoon session was also of slalom, spent on what was available on the white water course. Lacking our buddies and their extra power we had a tough session, managing to get surfed almost every run in a hole where we almost ditched poor Alli a couple of times. It is all good practice though, take a look at where we are going to be racing for the Euros in a month’s time…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Z9K0uwI15z8
What we needed that evening was a morale boost. Which we got in the form of Fajitas, Guacamole and Articulate : The Fast Talking Description game. But Sunday morning came around pretty quickly, Dave does love his early morning sessions, and with it came Suzie and Rosie!! Fresh from their awesome success in China, we were finally had 6 on the raft again! The smiles quickly turned into determined gurns as we set to our task of 10 x 5 minute sets at 6-6.5 km/hour with 1 minute rest in between each. Phew!!
Rosie’s take on her few days of excitement: ‘Flying in from a rafting competition in China for team training was completely bizarre…being plucked from the crystal rivers of Danjue Mountain under the care of Government Officials, then spending a night with a newfound friend in the towering heights of a Shanghai skyscraper, landing in Heathrow to travel straight up to Nottingham to be together with the team again, to raft again on the murky waters of Nottingham…I’m only having time now to reflect on the whole experience, its really hit home now how rafting gives us the opportunity to grow so much, and meet the most incredible people!’
DON'T HIT THAT POLE!!
Come lunch time Alli had to jet off to be important at a conference so we were lucky enough to have a guest appearance from GB Veteran Jenny Chrimes for our afternoon session. 6 timed runs of the course which included the run up the bank and paddle up the canal. It was a fantastic way to end the weekend with lots of smiles. We are now on the home straight for the Euros all going all out in our personal training over the next month. Thanks always to Palm for the kit we get to train in which keeps us warm and dry and keep the Nottingham sludge off us!
Thanks to Jen for standing in for the afternoon.
Keep your mouth closed!!
Words by Fran and the team.
Photos: Bryony, Rosie and Dave.
I haven’t been out on the yak much this year due to other personal commitments , however with a pass from my partner and a window in the weather I headed up to Tywyn , mid wales for a tope fishing session on Tarn Y Bwch Reef.
After the 3 1/2 hour drive I arrived at the launch site and proceeded to set-up my gear for an early morning launch.
I got a reasonable nights sleep , was up at 6:00am , and a couple of bacon butties and a coffe later I was donning the gear ready to head out. As the weather hasn’t been brilliant this year (massive understatement) I had little confidence in the temperatures we would get , so the Aleutian dry suit and Kola boots had another outing . July – I should be in a tee shirt! My fishing colleagues were all still fast asleep in their vans.
The launch was uneventful – sometimes you can get a nasty surf at the rivermouth – but not today.
I stopped for a quick attempt at the bass using surface lures but apart from one take it was quiet , so I quickly punched the coords into the GPS and paddled out to the first tope mark , trolling some feathers behind me in the hope of picking up fresh bait – but that drew a blank.
I dropped anchor at the mark , there was a fair lick of tide running over the reef , something the tope like, so a frozen mackerel was quickly hooked onto the wire trace and lowered down to the bottom, the second rod was set up with baited Silver Dream lures in the hope of picking up some livebait – pollack , mackerel , pouting etc. as fresh livebait improves your chances no end for the tope at this mark.
I managed a few dogfish on the tope baits – very annoying – before the action started . Without putting it all into words I’ve put together a small video which is linked below . I ended up with one missed tope run and two tope to 35lbs , with no other kayakers on the water at that time I had to try and take the pics myself – not ideal with a 4ft tope thrashing around by the side of the yak!! I also managed a number of black bream , these are excellent eating , many say tastier than fresh bass , but unfortunately mine were all small so were returned safely to grow a bit bigger for next time.
I recently purchased a pair of Palm Throttle Gloves and these have proven ideal for the kayak fishing , they give a good grip on the paddle and provide good protection when handling fish such as this , any member of the shark family has skin ov varying roughness and your hands can get messed up fairly quickly when onhooking fish. These gloves have also been useful when hauling anchor especially if the anchor is stuck fast , they allow me to exert considerable pressure on the thin warp without it digging into my hands.
Barmouth in the distance
The Launch Point – Tywyn
The Lleyn Peninsular in the distance
and out to sea – absolutely flat calm
Tope #1 about 30lb
Small but very pretty – a black bream
Tope #2 about 35lb – a very feisty fish which was safely returned after some admiring glances and respect from myself.
And heres the video …. Tope Fishing Session In Mid Wales from The Kayak
My next trip is planned for 25th July , the weather is set very fair so my new Viper Dry Pants will get their first outing . The target species is smoothound , also tope family but smaller , without the teeth , but extremely powerful fish and excellent sport on light tackle.
So…here it is and what an experience – race day on Dajue Mountain in China!
It seemed the entire population of Zixi had turned out to watch the excitement of us foreigners and many local teams enduring the whitewater knuckle ride, dropping over 200m in 3.6km.
Two giant blow up gold dragons, many red Chinese lanterns and decorative banners floating in the breeze flanked the ceremony area which was full of very (and I really mean VERY!) exited locals with cameras. Athletes making the mistake of venturing from the safety of the foreigners enclosure were instantly swallowed up by the crowd amongst cries of ‘Photo! Photo! Photo!
Opening ceremony at Dajue Mountain, Zixi Province, Eastern China
A weird giant mechanical wasp buzzed overhead, filming the proceedings as speeches were made by Zixi government officials, the head of the Chinese Watersports Administration and the head judge. Before long the race was declared open to huge green and purple smoking fireworks and a shower of pink confetti; totally surreal but pretty cool!!
Although no one really knew exactly what was going on we were lined in our rafting gear up on a wooden platform at the very top of the river, overlooked by an enormous dam. With no time for a warm up teams were ushered into their rafts, with 30 seconds time between each boat.
Last Goodbyes before the Race
Before we knew it the head judge bellowed down a megaphone….‘Three, Two, One, Attention, GO!’
China China here we come!
Approaching the first of over 30 drops and slides
Suze and I set off at a good pace, somehow managing to keep the twitchy two-man raft straight on the flat approach to the first slide.
Hello Rapidy Rapid!
And then to be honest I’m not really sure what happened; a blur of massive slides, spinning, water, boat filling up, almost flipping, high side left, phew, right, up into our seats again, ready for the next drop just around the corner.
‘Uh Oh!'
Boat full of water with no time to bail before the next drop
Pulling up the nose for a monster boof
‘YEEE HAAAA!' – GBR being spat out of the dragons mouth at top speed
Within a couple of minutes we spotted the first raft ahead of us – passing was really difficult as the river was so narrow. So as soon as the opportunity arises it’s power down UP UP UP, ping-ponging from rock to rock until the other raft is safely out of sight.
New Zealand hot on our heels and lining up for a pass
More than a couple of times rafts were bunched up unable to pass at the top of the drops, resulting in quite a few disgruntled teams pinned for valuable seconds, and with four teams finishing just 30 seconds apart this definitely affected final race positions.
Nearing the end and charging for the biggest drop of the race
Getting Owned!
27 minutes, 43 seconds and 74 milliseconds of chaos and it’s all over – the mixed New Zealand team won the race with the Men’s Czech Republic team following closely behind. Overall we placed 7th out of 18 teams and came first in the Women’s Category.
Thanks Palm Equipment for keeping us safe on the water!
After a quick shower and change we headed down to the awards ceremony flying our Union Jack with pride. Again the whole of Zixi turned up to the ceremony, which is was an surreal concoction of drumming, fireworks and traditional Chinese music.
Flying the flag with pride at the closing ceremony
With aching cheeks from many many many more photos (‘Photo, Photo!’) we headed over for the closing ceremony lunch. Unaccustomed to Chinese traditions we were unaware that a celebratory lunch would involve continuous toasts (everyone must empty their glass each time) with government officials, and the compulsory downing of 60% rice wine from incredibly beautiful decorative bottles. There was no get out clause here as top officials splashed more of the searing liquid into our cups – down the hatch it goes!
A trip in a cable car over the majestic Dajue Mountain followed before the next party that evening, this time held in our luxurious hotel.
The Dajue Mountain Range
Much hilarity followed as the top bread of the local government took to the Karaoke machine, break-dancing, waltzing to Auld Lang Syne and making each country in turn sing or dance in front of the audience. Thank goodness for our new made friends from the other international teams as Suze and I were made to sing ‘Hey Jude’ to the world – only a minute in (it was clear we needed help!) and the other teams rushed in to support us – thanks guys!
Ganbei! Feichang Ganxie! (Cheers! Thanks very much!)
A massive thank you to the organising committee namely the China Watersports administration and the Zixi County government for being so welcoming and inviting us to such a fantastic rafting competition. A huge thanks to Palm Equipment for keeping Suze and I kitted out and safe in top notch gear. A truly unforgettable experience.
Gaobie! (Goodbye!)
Rosie n Suze
