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Tuesday 30 March 2010

Backlog of Blogs!!!

The week or so has been so busy I have barely had time to get any blogs done. So lets go back in time a week or so. Thursday/Friday a week and a bit ago saw me taking part in a four star kayak training course with Tom Parker. The course only had a couple of people on and was pretty mellow, thourghly enjoyable and not too cold. Result!! .

Tom Parker showing (a) Lovely Flare

The weekend that followed that was my first slalom race of the season, my home ground Shepperton. A solid first run saw me into second place with Pete 'the Scud' Scutt in first place. Pete was a good twenty seconds ahead so there was little chance of me catching him, my second run sealed second place for me, not too shabby
Setting up an 'S'

Making a breakout

Gunning it.

Fast forward one week and I made another long trip down to Shepperton, this time with a different boat, my new Molan. Shep was on a meaty five gates, and my boat performed brilliantly, swift edge transitions and big air, SWEET.
Little bounce

Pete throwing a helix

Thursday 25 March 2010

Uganda Video

I finally got round to sorting a quick flick of our trip this year, enjoy



Monday 22 March 2010

New Toys

Finally got my new Molan on the water both yesterday and today. At hurley it was class, I really noticed how quickly and smoothly it changed edges, at HPP earlier is was like paddling a well balanced Rocket ship.

Check the Pics

See you on the water



Balanced Cartwheels


Big Air





Wednesday 17 March 2010

Team Pyranha

I am happy to announce I am a part of Team Pyranha, meaning I am currently the proud owner of a new Molan, and have got a brand new Burn for a while as well. I super excited to be a Team member, and can't wait to get my boats on the water.

Getting a sit in my new boat

Picking them up from the factory







Monday 8 March 2010

National Student Rodeo 2010

The weekend just gone played host to the worlds largest and funniest freestyle kayaking competition, the National Student Rodeo. As ever 'My Lot' from the Buxton, Derby University Canoe and Kayak (D.U.C.K) were in attendance with more than double the amount of people than the previous year.

For those not in the know, NSR is a freestyle kayaking competition for uni students from all over the country, tailored to suit all abilities from novice to expert.

Since its a student event the Friday evening when everyone arrives is a big party, even though it goes on well into the night the competition still began on time at 8:30am the following morning. The format of the competition begins with an extreme slalom, this puts people into there respective categories either novice, intermediate or expert. Heats would then happen across each category throughout the afternoon. I was in the expert heats and paddled well enough to get to the final the following day.

Sofa Cross race

Saturday Evening, after a dinner had the premier of the new Rush Sturges/Tyler Bradt Film: Dream Result, the second this was over we hit the bar, a number of others had headed up for the party including Pete "The Scud" Scutt, Ed "Egg" Kay, Sam "Rambo" Ellis and a load of other people who don't have good nicknames.

General camping shinanigans.


The following morning with a stinking hangover I took up a bean bag at the Pyranha stand and began watching the days events, starting with the Topo Duo semi-finals. Eventually it was time to get on for the Men's Expert Final. It was a fun eddy with many familiar faces including two other D.U.C.K.s. Regrettably the amount of alcohol consumed the previous evening ment that i struggled to avoid being sick and needless to say did not paddle that well.


Big turn out for the Final

After that was done everyone gathered to watch the Topo Duo Final which is easily the funniest event of the competition.

Topo Duo Final

Great Fun was had by all, and i'm looking forward to next year already.

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Best trip ever....Uganda.

So i've just returned from a two week spell in Uganda where the sun shines, the water is warm and the whitewater is massive. Spending most of our time in the Dorms at Nile River Explorers set us in the perfect location to paddle both the day one and day two sections of the river.


The White Nile from the Air.

I flew out from Heathrow Airport on Sunday 14th Feb with Ed 'Egg' Kay. We arrived at NRE the following afternoon where we were greeted by a great view and cold beer. We booked ourselves into the Dorms and had a few more beers while we caught up with our old friend Jon Best who has been living in Uganda since Early December. The following morning we headed out to do our first Silverback run, a quick blast of blind grade 5 whitewater from NRE to the take out below Silverback where we were met by our Boda Boda drivers (Little motorbikes that you sit on the back of). The run takes around half an hour and we were back in time for a chapati lunch.

Bujagli Falls on the Day one section

The best Chapatis ever



A few days later after some heavy nights in the bar and some fun paddling we loaded up a car and headed to Nile Special. This was the first time I had ever used a tow rope and it took a while to get use to it, however it was definitely worth the effort as the wave was great. We also did the full day one section following a raft, great fun but i got pretty badly sun burned.

Using the rope


After nearly a week we were joined by Pete 'the Scud' Scutt and Richard Marrill. Now we had a good crew the first thing we did was another day one trip so that Pete and Rich could get a good go on the River, at the end of the day we finished by doing all of Itanda Falls a big (fairly scary) grade 6. That evening much celebratory beer was consumed and the next day was much more docile.

A bounce on Special

A tasty river lunch


Later that week we did the day two section which includes Kalagala falls, vengence, hair of the dog and Kulu Shaker. This section is also home to some great river waves including Nile Special and Mutts Nuts (A morning wave which is easily better than Special).


A Crazy Boda journey


Uganda is one of the friendliest, greenest countries I have ever visited and although the people are poor by Western standards they are fairly well off compared to some of the other african nations as they can cultivate crops and keep animals. Its a great place to be and I would definitely say it is the best holiday i've ever been on. I could say so much more but you would probably get bored of reading about how much i enjoyed it, just get out there if you can.


The view from the bar.