Off to Uganda!

The day has finally come, and I'm all packed up ready to go to Uganda, for three months, returning August 12th
I will be out there volunteering for Soft Power Health. Soft Power Health is a charity run by Dr Jessie Stone, a kayaker and doctor who was appalled by the effects of Malaria she found when on a kayaking expedition to Uganda and set up Soft Power Health to do something about it.
I found out about Soft Power Health in a kayaking magazine about this time last year and immediately knew I wanted to volunteer with them, its hard to believe that its actually happened and I'm about to leave. Since then numorous emails have been exchanged between me and Soft Power, many begging letters have been sent and in the last few weeks the details have started to come together, with flights booked, insurance sorted, tent bought and packing (almost) complete. I'm flying out with 1 kayak, 1 bag and 1 hand luggge bag, and despite ruthless culling am still over the weight limit
Soft Power Health provides education, prevention and treatment for Malaria, one of the bigget killers in Uganda. As a volunteer I will be involved in various aspects of this, though I don't quite know what to expect.
I will also hope to do some kayaking out there in my spare time as SPH is based close to the White Nile.



For more information check out
www.softpowerhealth.org

All soft power volunteers are required to raise the money themselves and adonation of $75-100 is expected per week
Thanks to a number of organisations who I wrote to who have helped me out financially:
The Haberdashers Company
Allan & Nesta Ferguson Trust
Rotary Club of Chepstow
Lions Club International
Old Monmothians Club

Back to Wales

I've had a good 5 and a bit weeks now since I've been back and I haven't been totally idle.
Its been great to catch up with friends and compare stories, of other people's travels and university life.
I've also managed to get a little bit of kayaking done, including a trip to the Bitches and the Teifi on a family trip to West Wales. The Bitches, a tidal rapid off Ramsay Island in Pembroke were a highlight. It was a unique experience for me paddling through a moving current with huge waves for half a mile, before surfing standing waves in the sea.
I also got myself on an instructors course at Llandysul paddlers in West Wales. I learned a lot about teaching kayaking, as well as gaining a few tips for my own boating. We were taught a lot about how to structure a kayaking session for beginners and coach towards intermediate level. All I need to do now is get my canoeing up to speed and I'll be a qualified UKCC Level 1 Coach, and so could be paid to teach kayaking.
I've also been kept very busy planning my trip to Uganda...

West Coast - And then the rain came

Eventually, the rain did come, lots of it. The rivers were flooded.
We started off with Blue Bottle Creek, usually the river is just a trickle, in flood in truned to a chocolate coloured torrent with no eddies to be found, and rocks invisible and it took our first casualty, Ross took a swim after being caugt on some submerged rocks, his boat carried on downstream, hotly pursued by Toni, and was rescued, his paddle also floated off, not to be recovered until a week later when we returned to the river, which had emptied by then. Ross then had to walk out through though thick bust to get out.

Charlie B getting some air on Airmail on the Kakapotahi

The Upper Kakapotahi was next on the hit list. Despite advice from Yan, who had paddled the river before and insisted it was too high, me Toni and Steffan were determined to paddle it. After waiting a day for it to go down (about a centremetre) we got on at late afternoon. On the first of seven drops, Toni swam after getting stuck at the bottom of a drop, all was fine and we carried on through the second and third drop sweet as. The fourth and fifth drop, Postmans Falls and Airmail are known to be the hardest. We got to postmans and realised it was impossible to pick a line down the rapid from the boat. We had to climb up the steep walls of the canyon to try to have a look but when even this failed, we were forced to haul our boats out with throwbags and try and make our way to the road. The next day we were back with lower levels and this time conquered the river. Success.
That week continued with an awesome paddle on the Toaroah and another walk into the Styx.

Toni George drops in
Into the tunnel on KakapotahiWaterfall on the Toaroah

World Famous in New Zealand

Me and Toni then left to the West Coast to head to Bullerfest, a kayaking festival held in Murchison, New Zealand. Which included a number of competitions as well as massive parties.
First up was the boater cross, a short race with 5 kayakers at a time going as fast as they can down a rapid of the Matataki river. In my first race I came second out of four, giving me a good heat for the second race. In the second race though I got off to a bad start which Icouldn't make up for and ended up coming 4th out of 6 and being knocked out. The big air competions was also a lot of fun, with a specially built ramp being used to pull flips, spins and airscrews before landing in the water, I went backwards, and attempted a flip, but it didn't quite happen. I also entered the slalom, and raft race, however our raft had a big hole in and we sank and had to be rescued.
Everything kicked off in the evenings first at the Commercial Hotel and then with a neon party hosted by Ultimate Descents and building human pyramids in the middle of the road.



It was now time to head back North for the plane on the 20th and for the legendary Fuljames trip the weekend before. Toni had a plane to catch ridiulously early in the morning, so we drove up to Nelson and camped in a park by the airport to ensure we could get there. I made my way North by ferry accomponied by dolphins and headed back to Auckland. On route I paid a visit to Katrina in the Wairapara and we raced sticks down a stream to get our fix of whitewater.
It was then on to Gisborne where I stayed with my cousin Celia, where I attempted surfing (its not easy) swam with a dolphin (he found the kayak really interesting, and tried to capsize me) and visited the Rere waterfall, and Rere rockslide. I then headed back to Auckland to sell my car

Rere rock slide - photo by celia

My final weekend in New Zealand was spent at Fuljames near Taupo and AUCC's annual trip and excuse to get excessively drunk and go kayaking. My mission was to run the famous Huka falls, where the Waikato river narrows into a steep gorge before finally dropping 25 foot.


Four of us were keen to run it, Me, Toni, and Pete from AUCC and Eric, a slalom paddler and friend of Toni and Pete. We waited till evening, as that as when the flow is at its lowest, before getting on. Eric and Toni went first, followed by me and then Pete. As I set off I could see Eric and Toni going down the gorge seemingly OK, I failed to boof the first weir and got, briefly recirculated, before coming out, shaken but fine. I then headed down to meet Eric and Toni in the last eddy before the drop. With a bit of effort I made it and watched Pete come down. Pete got rolled on a drop called Pencil Sharpener and got pushed sideways into a recirculating eddy. He tried to get out but every time he tried he got pushed back, he couldn't get out. I was watching from the eddy below, but couldn't do anything, and it was getting darker. The next 15 minutes felt like an age. I paddled down the falls, in fading light and came out at the bottom. Pete ended up having to be pulled out of the gorge by throwbags. Me, Toni and Erik then had to make our way thorugh bush for almost an hour in the dark, to get out of the river. In the end though everyone made it to the party that night and we all appreciated the power of the river a lot

A few more days to sort stuff out and it ws time to say goodbye to all the people I had met in New Zealand and head back to the UK to plan my next mission.

New Zealand is a beautiful country, with some stunning rivers. But it was thanks to all the awesome people I met and paddled with that I know I will definately go back, it was sweet as.

"I'm like gold...

"I'm like gold... ...I'm maleable, precious, girls like me and I can sometimes be found in rivers"

We arrived eventually in Nelson, in the north west of South Island after a relaxed drive and stay in Christchurch and up the East coast, where we picked up Toni George, and after a few days warm up in murch headed south to Hokitika where the plan was to paddle some of the challenging techinical West Coast Heli rivers.

Heli Tripping on the West Coast

River levels were low but we managed a successful mission on the Hokitika Canyon and me and Toni also paddled the Wanganui river which was a fantastic glacier fed river which turned from a tight technical creek into big water as it joined another river, made all the better by the sunshine beating down on us all day. We tried to walk into the Styx, but an hours hike with boats only gave a scrapey river, it was clear more rain was needed to make the rivers paddleable.

This meant a chilled out few weeks, hoping for rain whilst keeping ourselves occupied by builidng shelters on the beach, learning gymnastics, playing singstar, going paintballing and learning to slackline as well as a trip to paddle the freezing cold meltwater of the Franz Josef glacier, where you had to watch out for pieces of ice floating down with you.

Ross Whitome paddling on meltwater from Franz Josef glacier

Touristing up the East Coast

We left fiordland to head up the East Coast, via Slope point the most southerly point in New Zealnad (and furthest South I had ever been) and back noth. On the way north we did some sightseeing.

Dunedin was our first port of call, a famous university down based on Edinburgh, we visited Cadbury World (and found that New Zealand chocolates don't get close to British chocolates) and drove my old beaten up Subaru Legacy up the steepest street in the world, Baldwin Street, down which we also raced Jaffa's, hard red couloured sweets.

We continued north to the Maoraki boulder, amazingly spherical rocks which look the the eggs of some giant dinosour and seem to have been placed in a cluster on a beach.

Ross Whittome, Katrina Allen and Nick Roberts on Maoraki Boulders, photo by Victoria Anderson

Fiordland

Leaving Queenstown, Nick flew back to North Island, Tes headed for Christchurch, and I headed south to Fiordland and the Hollyford Riverwith Ross, Katrina and Victoria. Fiordland is a magical place where steep mountains rise up from the ground, including the famous Milford Sound. almost uninhabited by humans, but by billions of sandflies, and famous for raining almost every day.

We spent a week in Gunns camp, which really feels like the middle of nowehere kayaking on the Hollyford river and taking in the epicness of the surroundings. We also went to Milford Sound, which while beautiful was somewhat spoilt by the hordes of tourists taking a way the tranquility.

Waterfalls off the mountains in Fiordland

Kayaking the Hollyford River