Since my first trip to Uganda in 2005 i’ve been out here every Winter and Katya likewise, it really is a playboaters dream Winter playground.
Last Winter we decided to take a break from uganda and headed for a month in Galicia/ Portugal instead.
So in the two years since we were last here a lot has changed on the river with the finishing of the Silverback dam. Undeterred however, me, Katya and Bren Orton decided to escape the cold and dryness of the UK and the harsh Siberian winter.
For myself and Katya we really just wanted to get on warm, perfect waves, relax in the tropical environment, watch the animals and nature thats so abundant here and feast on the many delicious fruits.
Here you can get the best banana’s, pineapples & passion fruit in the World and many other tasty fruits some unusual like Jack fruit and others more common like watermelon, all so fresh, ripe and tasty, perfect for our diet we (me & Katya) eat a raw diet of mostly fruits, so here is like a banquet for us.
The two waves we’ve spent our time on so far are Nile Special & Malalu.
Nile Special you’ve probably seen a 1000 times but at the right levels its really sick wave you can go huge on, its not the easiest wave in the World to surf as it can be a bit violent but when it greens out you get a perfect ramp to throw whatever you’d like off of.
When Special gets too foamy and the level starts to rise Malalu a big soft mostly green wave forms 40minutes paddle downstream. Very friendly and soft and in the evenings when it gets high and the wave gets steep and green it’s one of my favourite waves in the World.
Having spent the few weeks before I came here battling it out alongside Bren at a cold and deserted HolmePierrepont in Nottingham it’s so sweet to be out here with Katya on the waves I really love to paddle and best of all no thermals are necessary.
Between sessions we’ve been loving life on the second island at the Hairy Lemon campsite. It’s pretty special here as we are the only ones on this bit of the island and because of that the animals shelter there and enjoy the peace. Every day we are treated to the sight and sounds of the birds, monkeys & monitor lizards going about their daily routines. In the evenings across the little channel of river from us a rare African Finch Foot bird has been roosting! It’s a bit like being in a Wildlife documentary, I love it!
Bren, Palm’s junior star has been paddling so well out here too, he’s really getting the waves dialled in and his paddling is going pretty sick! i think he has 4 more weeks here and is pretty fired up to run some of the bigger rapids too having already been showing some of the other guys down Itanda so look out for more from him when he gets back to the UK.
Just before I came out here I drove down to Palm HQ to pick up some summer kit for the trip out here and they had a few new items to give to us to check out too;
The Paw Shoe and the Vortex Jacket
The Paw shoe is pretty much a dream for Playboaters, as lightweight and slimline as a neo sock but with a thin sole to protect your feet, we’ve been running around rough rocks everyday and squeezing into our boats and they’ve held up great to our abuse, pretty sick bit of kit for Playboaters like us.
The Vortex is a new lightweight cag that has been ideal out here to whack on over the top of my deck as it’s a bit too hot for my normal zenith shortie and I hate just paddling in a deck as too much water always gets in whatever I try (not fat enough to fill the gaps So the vortex has been an ideal lightweight solution for me and has so far kept the water out of my boat and not made me feel like i’m going to pass out in the heat every time I have a long ride.
Off to Jinja today to go get fast net and see some of our old friends at NIle River Explorers where I used to work and then paddling in paradise again tomorrow.
It’s also worth mentioning the rapids for paddlers wishing to head out here now the dam is in. Although there is no Silverback section now there is a cracking section of 50? km of river full of rapids and waves still here and with the constant high water now the big rapids like Dead Dutchman, Itanda, Hypoxia and Kalagala are at perfect levels and are getting ran very regularly by those who want to push themselves in that direction and of course there are plenty of nice grade 3 and 4 rapids and smaller waves as well as holes along the Day 2 stretch of river.
So me and Palm’s Bren Orton just finished making the Wrap Up Video of our time putting on the Kayak Display at the 2012 Tullett Prebon London Boat Show and all that was on during the show.
Our display was on for 15 minutes twice a day so this gave us plenty time to run around the show in-between demo’s to find all the activities you could try and cause a bit of chaos amongst the Yachting crowd It’s amazing what people will let you do when you have a Camera in hand.
Filmed by: James Bebbington, Bren Orton & David Bain
Edit by: James Bebbington RiverZoo.com
Last summer my buddy Palm’s junior ripper Bren Orton had the idea to shoot a little vid on Tryweryn, This was the first session we had on the Top Hole there.
For those who don’t know Tryweryn, it’s a fun dam released river, near Bala in North Wales. I started out kayaking on this river and did my 1st flat spins and cartwheels here.
It’s often over looked for play boating but is actually an awesome little river that’s fun to run down and has some sick little waves and holes surrounded by green lush, welsh countryside.
This last week we’ve been paddling hard on flatwater….It is for good reason though We’re at the London Boatshow at the Excel Centre.
Myself, Bren Orton, Claire O’hara, Mallory Franklin, Anton Lippek, & David Bain are putting on twice daily shows of freestyle & slalom on the watersports pool commentated by Ed Smith & Christian Stevenson along with our little video clips on the big screen.
Pretty weird surrounded by all these big yachts to be in a 1m deep pool showing off freestyle!
This year we don’t get to use the ramps & cable tow set up like last year but we have been doing daily talks on whitewater, freestyle & slalom to give the visitors the opportunity to fins out more on our sport, how they can get started and where it could take them.
Here is a clip from last years show by Bren:-
With 4 days left of the show we’re putting together some video interviews & other bits to check out daily, yesterday we shot Bren’s one, hold out until the end to see the outakes….
If you want to check out the display we’re on at 12:15 & 15:00 daily until the show finishes on Sunday 15th of Jan.
Anyway enough talking, here are some photos from around the show and a walk around Londons sights.
Our GBR team selection to pick the team to compete at next years European champs in Vienna is a 3 competition format with the best 2 results out of the 3 counting.
This weekends event at Hpp, Nottingham was the first 2 comps of the 3. One on the Saturday in the inlet gate and one on the Sunday in the Twin waves. 3 rides best 2 count.
For me I am away for the last comp of the 3 the Hurley Rodeo so I needed to do well to secure my place.
I’m not going to go into that much detail on my runs but I managed pretty sweet rides hit a few of my combos both days (2400 on Sat, 1600 on Sunday) to take the double win and give me a guaranteed spot on the team to compete at the Euros
Palm’s Bren Orton got two 2nd place finishes in the Juniors to get his place guaranteed and Palm’s Lowri Davies also made the team
The main thing about the weekend was the incredibly high standard, the level of kayaking here is phenomenal. To make the mens top 10 on Saturday you needed to score something like 1200 or more!! The Juniors and the ex juniors who have just moved to senior are killing it! Its a credit to the awesome setup of events such as the Youth Freestyle series and the great freestyle spots we have allover the UK.
All summer me, Bren Orton, James Benn’s, James Weight, Ryan Liqourish & David Wild have been paddling a lot together working on our moves and trying to develop new moves or combinations of merged moves. This event our whole group put on a sick showing nailing sweet rides as well as pretty much all of our combo’s we’ve invented.
The point we wanted to make by getting our combos in a comp environment was to illustrate the need for some additions or some changes to the current scoring. For example if you merge a Lunar Orbit with a Tricky Whu with a Loop it only gets scored a Trophy 3 (200) but if you were to do them seperately you would get 380… For hole kayaking we need to encourage people to learn these moves and go for them in comps so they need to be scored much higher in order to reward the risk/ skill involved to hit them.
Anyhow I had a real fun weekend and was super proud watching the standard of kayaking in all categories here. This last 3 years the standard and depth of talent here continues to explode, its so good to see.
Here is a video Jonny Williams put up of some of the action from Saturday:-
Pringle
All the results will be up soon on GB Freestyle website for those who want to see exact scores.
Photos by:- Simon Thorne, Chris Throne & Bren Orton
Last Saturday was the Youth Freestyle event on the Washburn River in Yorkshire. Check out the video above that me and Palms Junior star Bren Orton filmed and edited together to see what it was all about.
Its a great series of events for young paddlers of all abilities with the main aim of getting on the water having fun, getting top quality coaching and then doing some fun competitions. I’ve been at 3 YF events now and they have all been great days out showcasing an amazing array of talented young paddlers coming up in the Uk kayak scene. It looks to me like the future of British kayaking is in a very healthy condition.
So the vortex has been an ideal lightweight solution for me and has so far kept the water out of my boat and not made me feel like i’m going to pass out in the heat every time I have a long ride.
It’s amazing what people will let you do when you have a Camera in hand.
