Robb at the Seven Dwarfs

Tom ‘the’ Strongmand on the Falloch

After another epic National Students Rodeo, I headed up to Scotland with Robb (of Turkey fame) and Tom (of NZ) to hit some new runs. The continuous rain on the drive north gave me a level of excitement only equalled in everyday life by fine wine and cheese. Our stop overnight at Dave’s house meant that we got to the Falloch at lunchtime, with more than enough time to run the Seven Dwarfs! We had a good old scout, & whilst counting the rapids to check for seven we must have counted one as two because the Black Hole, directly underneath the A82 road bridge was a massive surprise! That section in general was technical, continuous, steep and committing, with little chance of help from your mates through the first 4. We paddled through to Twist & Shout and the last slide, making for a excellent jaunt which may have knocked the Nevis off the top run in Scotland.

Robb on the lead in to Dalness Falls

Tom firing it up in the Karnali

The next day was a complete write off after getting to the Nevis and decidingthat actually we all had something very wrong with ourselves, so we slept for about 18 hours. We were fired up for the next day, wanting to run the Dalness section of the Etive. We warmed up with two cracking runs down the middle Etive and then went to paddle the larger, less run waterfall on the mighty River. It didn’t disappoint, unlike like Robb’s photography skills – he failed to turn the camera on for my run! We all had sweet lines and Tom who was paddling the Karnali was impressed with it.

Robb’s up!

Chris Eastabrook coaching then had a 5 day progressive white water course and then the Student Safety Initiative. Both brilliant courses where students got to push their personal skills, run their first waterfalls and open the door to safe effective leadership. During the course I managed a cheeky trip down the Coe and an evening paddle down the Etive.

Since then I have moved house and now live in North Wales with my lovely girlfriend. Chris Eastabrook coaching is very busy, gearing up for the Alpine season featuring the Slovenia 09 trip and working on my research project for my Level 5 coach.

All photos CE.

*Quote from Blues Brothers, Curtis.

All of my friends have been victims of one of my great ideas in the past but convincing 3 of them that Turkey would be an amazing location for their first multi day paddling was not hard. We arranged flights way before exams and it gave us something good to look forward to in those long hours spent in the library.

We started by visiting Ankara the capital of Turkey and learnt about the history of the country and ideas behind it. On a trip like this, I feel it’s very important to visit a country and get a balance between boating and ‘seeing’ the country itself. So an evening in the old town, watching the sun set was a great start to the trip. After a small argument we load our boats onto a local service bus and headed over to the East of the country to start the paddling side of the trip.

We jumped on the Coruh River with some biscuits and rice and started a good length multi day trip down. The white water was amazing, lots of big bouncy wave trains and big volume lines through warm water. The first harder section came after a day, past the town of Ispir and into the gorge which is rubbishy named the Joan Collins set. Don’t let the name fool you because there are 6 good rapids with boofs, flares and straight down the middle lines for everyone to enjoy.

With that under our belt and a rest day we did the lower Coruh, more good bigger volume class IV boating and the Bahal tributary that flows through the town of Yesuli. That town is so so friendly I consider it my second home and importantly after 5 days of self cooked rice the town serves a good pizza!

Leaving the Coruh behind was hard but our attentions turned to seeing as much of Istanbul as possible and Nicky lead the way with a non stop tour of the city, through the markets, main tourist sites, parks with tea shops & locals and a music shop for Robb!

The trip was amazing and one I’d recommend more than anything I’ve done before. The upsetting thing about it all is Turkey is expanding and needs energy to fuel that so is building a series of dams up the Coruh River. White water has already been lost and in the next couple of years all of it will be gone. On one hand it’s hard accept that the town of Yeslui can just be flooded and it occupants re-located but at the same time offer no real alternative solution for sustainable energy supply. It’s a difficult position but one that has already been made so the best advice is to get out there and enjoy the river while you can.

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In recent years I have seen no reason not to do the above in Europe whilst boating continuous Alpine water and this year was no exception. I travelled South with my house mates of the infamous flat 26 for their first white water experience in France.

We did all the classics, all at a good level on the come down after the floods. The weather was poor but didn’t dampen our party spirit and the sun did come out for a great evening at the BoaterX, thanks to Tom Laws and the team.

The only downside to the whole trip was the race home in time for the graduate ball made all the more harder by my poor car on its last legs!

Rich, Nicky & Louise on the Sunshine Run

The BoaterX

Nicky Recorded a Morning Run down the Fornell

For a more detailed trip write up please follow this link.

Over the 6 days the instructors and I answered a wide range of questions from nearly 50 students representing universities from all over the UK. Examples of such questions were as followed; how do I safety perform a live bait rescue? As a female leader how do I get over keen lads to listen? And how do I grow such impressive facial hair?

The courses were held in Scotland in the Fort William area, and in keeping with tradition there was little water around so venues such as the Leven, Spean Gorge, Arkaig and Pattack were used to do some practical learning!

The next big push with the Student Safety Initiative is the weekend at PYB in Wales in October, dates and booking information to be released soon. In addition to this, with sufficient interest, a supplementary Alpine leadership day will be laid on in the French Alps around the 16th June, for more information drop me an email!

For more photos click here!

Club night pool session on Monday finally saw ‘Beverly’ the Rev get some action.  Having paddled the Medium pre production Rev I was excited about this new boat but I found myself getting nervous as to whether all the features in the M would transfer down to the S.  First impressions were very good, it was slicey through the water – making ends effortlessly.  She was stable on her both the bow and stern, giving me a good platform to launch some loops from, so far so good.

Being completely snowed under with work, I did the typical student thing, sacked it all in and went boating.  There is a small wave-hole combination not far from Warwick University (about an hour) and within 10minutes of deciding not to do any work I managed to round up 2 of my housemates to join in the fun.

The sun was shinning bright and wave was looking really fast – this would be a good test to see if the Rev would live up to all the hype about its new found speed.  It did not disappoint!  One had to work hard to stay on the wave, but it seemed quick and the edges released just as quickly to switch direction carving across the face of the wave.  I was suitably impressed with the bounce I could get from the boat and pulled some fairly high blunts for a relatively small wave and flushy conditions.

The real test will be some Rodeo training down at Nene & HPP in the coming weeks for the main event; we shall see how she gets on.

‘Beverly’  -  Photo’s taken by Nicky!

My Amazing Housemates!

I did however get a good run down the Coe, which was new and exciting for me. The gorge is a great section of hold on to your hat style of boating and some new moves to be made. I also got out onto many of the classics such as the Orchy, Etive, Alt Muheuran & Roy Gorge and were all most enjoyable.

Some interesting footage was taken during the week with a special Blues Brothers meets boating short film coming soon!

In other news, the Evening of Extravagant Tales from Across the Globe took place last week and was a big success, thanks to everyone for attending hope you enjoyed yourself!

I had something useful to say for once!

Flat 26 Tocil, around the back of the Sport centre has seen a normal week pass by, well normal for a uni student.
The flat has outfitted two boats – a G-force & a M Burn, been out to a messy canoe social, attended 2 pool sessions, pulled some moves and got cold at HPP, came down with a case of the Trent trotts afterwards, drive to Betws for the day and hucked some meat, done some work, hung out with other university clubs and finally enjoyed 6 flat evening dinners together. One has a lot to smile about!