Canada

This summer, while most of the EST stayed at home and waited for Merlin to start on BBC1, Mark got together a group of some of the best paddlers known to mankind! okay....known to him, and they headed off to the west coast for a bit of a creeking mission!!



The team had a rocky start to their trip, with a 4 hour delay on the flight and Rich breaking his werners before they even got wet, but soon made up for it with a trip down the Ashlu, followed by a not so much fun run down 'Mine V', involving a cheeky swim and self rescue over a blind drop by a certain member of the team using his spare paddles, then a walk out from the river that made me look like this:


The team did get something right, one, very special purchase that will go down in the history books!! The mighty Ozark trail, not just a tent, but with a gear loft, bear fly screen, leaky windows, this really is an M&S tent.



But, with a chance meeting with some locals a few days later, the boys managed to get on some of the whistler area classic runs, namely the Upper Cheakamus, Callaghan Creek and the Soo, all of which were fantastic, and must do's for anyone visiting the area.




After a few escapades, the rest of Team Ozark flew out, and a trip to Skookumchuck was on the cards, this is a really cool wave, and as if it couldn't get any better than being a cool surf wave, there was a period of about 2 hours at lunchtime where the wave greened out and there was nothing to do other than pro chill!!


Once all together, and pumping from the skook, a mixture of courage, determination, eagerness, as well as 100,000 tonnes of rockfall in the way drove the guys inland, and they did some more classic runs, the cilliwack was a good warm up, the Nataclatch, and the stein is one of the most beutiful settings in the world, as well as grade 4!!

Then, as if by magic, they stumbled upon one of the most presigious events in paddlesport history, the Clearwater kayak Fesival, where the team dominated the heats of the downriver race, but dominated the party on the sat night even more, with James and Si failing to see much of the next day. The clearwater is an good river, but the best thing about the Fesival is the people, brilliant, and you can buy T-shirts with extremely short, gay looking sleeves:

There was a couple of people who couldn't understand how we practised whitewater in the UK, I mean on an Island so small, where do you find Whitewater, and if they're reading this, I don't really know you grandma from Birmingham, HA!!!

After leaving the Clearwater, the team headed for the Rockies, and came across the Upper Fraser, an awesome run, especially Overlander Falls, a big tourist waterfall where they love taking photo's of people running it!!

This was followed by a trip into Alberta, did the worlds lowest volume 'creek' run, got drunk, agreed to do a death run thats only been done by 5 people in history, got scared, and ran away before actually having to do it!!

Us and the Scottish Girls in Whistler

Yes, I am a Fitness Professional


As good as Rich's impressions are, this is a REAL bear!


Good job this wasn't in the Bigg Market

Upper Fraser, probably shouldn't have hidden those rocks in Si's boat!!

Careful, the Stormtrooper might want those back!

James on the Callaghan, probably my favorite river ever!

If the Olympic Team need a hand, we're all practised now!!


Si on the big drop, Callaghan!!

That's all for now folks, basically we had a great time, ate lots of really bad food, mark ate more burgers than an average American, that's saying something! if you're wondering, we gave the Ozark trail to some homeless looking people on our campsite!!

With special thanks to: Ozark Trail, The Scottish Girls, Ozark Trail, Clearwater Paddling Festival, The Cows that went into our many burgers, Ozark Trail, FlyGobespan, Aussie Jo and Si, Ozark Trail, Sea to Sky Kayaks, Ozark Trail and to the Canadians in General really for living in such a good place and letting us come visit, feel free to pop over here anytime.

Mark

Poo Point

Oh it's been a while since we have ventured down the concrete ditch wonderland of HPP. They have made a few changes since our last trip. The top wave now has eddy service from the bottom which makes the q's a pain in the arse, and the looping pool has become more loopy and less pooly!



Ralph (Zeus) the human god joined us (Billy & Lou) for the day having helped the Novice Mens 8 to bronze medal in a big rowing competition the previous day.



We did a little recruiting of new talent to NUCC while we were there by showing some of the new kids our skills. Ralph showed one kid how to fall off the wall, Lou flawlessly demonstrated the half side loop and Billy showed them watching from the side was all the rage.




We did have a lovely time though and the sun showed himself making for some nice piccy's, enjoy.

Uganda '07

So we have returned from Uganda all alive... but not so well.





We spent about three weeks in Africa all together, with some sneaky appearances from Jimmy and Chez to bulk up numbers for most of the time too.

Having only had one hit and run on the way from the airport to Nile River Explorers campsite everyone was in fine spirts for the first few days paddling. Jimmy arrived the following morning, joining Huw, Kev, Chris, Ian and Mark for the first spanking of the holiday. As we set off there was much rolling practice and whimpers, but all this was washed clean out of our systems once we'd flushed through the first grade 5 of the trip. Bujagali Falls.



The rest of the run was similar in size, making us all feel pretty small and humbled, but at the same time the worst that seemed to happen would be a short dicking in a whirl pool or hole and then you were washing into a nice big flat pool:)



A run from NRE down to the bottom of Silverback was our prefered run for the remainder of the first week, allowing us to test the delights of the Boda Boda men. A beer in the bar after a days kayaking would normally be spent discussing the excitement of the boda ride home, rather than any kayaking!



Mark took the prize for the best fall in the rain.



Kev won the 'who can take the longest boat on a moped' contest.



We moved on to the wonderfully tranquil island of the Hairy Lemon after our stay at NRE, however the journey down was not uneventful.

1. Chez managed to have a good arguement with the rocks at the bottom of Bujagali falls as him a Jimmy were paddling down. (just to add this is as bad as it looks!)



2. The rest of us ripped the roof rack off the minibus with our boats, much to our drivers disappoinment.





The hairy lemon island is possibly one of the most relaxing places to stay in the world! A big call I know, but with tea, coffee and more importantly beer on tap, and pretty much nothing to do till 5 in the evening it's pretty difficult no to pro chill. 5 is when Nile Special starts to run, and following a short paddle you are sat in the eddy of one of the worlds greatest play waves. Sitting in the eddy is no mean feat though, and getting on the wave with the tow rope is an art form.







Apart from some world class freestyle moves, a near death experience (made near by Huw, cheers Huw) and a lovely time there is very little else to say about the Hairly lemon and nile special, so I shall move on.

A few of us then tripped up to the Red Chilli campsite in Northern Uganda for some safari fun. We saw many many birds, a few giraffes, a couple of elephants and that was about all. Oh actually I forgot the hippo, which wandered past our tent at night so I guess that counts as well.



We had a little time left so popped over to Murchison Falls to watch the whole of the nile squeeze its oversized self through a 7 meter gap and dissappear over a 45m drop, which I must say, as someone who isn't a massive fan of views and stuff, is incredible.



So all in all an amazing trip, everyone had an ace time even though we did come back a little more injured that we left. Also if you come across a couple of Ugandan toads knocking about in Newcastle, it was Kev!!



Word from everyone to describe UGANDA: EASY, PROPER GOOD, EXCELLENT, NOW THEN, NOT ENOUGH ROOF RACKS

FRANCE '07

Jim's verdict 'It rained a lot'

With most of the original EST members making excuses like 'dissertations', 'exams' or 'hospital' it was up to Kev and Jim to take the young guns to visit Rhene at Le lac. Unfortunately when we arrive at le lac Rhene had gone, move on to a bigger lake, worse still, the new waiter Jean Luc didn’t know what a formidabla was!

Day 1/2

Drive...Drive...Drive...Forget passport...Ferry...France...Drive...Drive...65mph max...Drive...Drive...24 hrs later arrive at vallouise. Vallouise closed. La Argentarre. Sleep.



Sunday

Crazy mental lower Guil, Greg wouldn’t do it especially when he heard Jo had swam that section before. Eventually we got him on the water. We did the slalom course that day too, mint. In the evening the team were christened the 'Sketchy splash squad' - EM, Ela, and Greg being the co-founders.




Monday

Upper gusain - and the river gods claimed their first victims - both Em and Ela had a couple of swims each, but even with these swims everyone did really well - it's a hard river - with some awesome paddling from the girls and Greg solid as ever. Jim did some sketchy paddle throwing/deck grab move over a drop. Em almost had to leave us - she got as far as Lyon!



Other Highlights

Tuesday - The mighty durance!



Wed - The upper upper Guil



Upper and middle - Clarie - High water - Sweet! - Everyone paddled really well - Ela lost her bung.




Climbing - Durance gorge - High - Shit scary!




Upper Ubaye - Em had an epic - but it didn’t damage her confidence. Oh and Greg and Em did the bridge jump.






Despite several warnings, with signs in english warning of the dangers of the Onde - things like 'building debris in the river' - what the hell does that mean anyway? Kev and Greg found out pretty soon... rumour has it both Kev and Greg just ignored the signs, didnt inspect the rapid and got F**ked up by a tree, but unfortunaly there is no evidence of this so it porbably didnt happen.

Swim Count = 19




A really good trip - everyone has improved loads - the girls have improved loads - and Gregs ready for some scary stuff!