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
No comments:
Post a Comment