Chill-out in Turkey

Feeling that a bit of sun and sand would be a relaxing way to finish off another summer of hard work, Trixi and myself decided to join my parents, grandparents and sister in Turkey for a week at the end of August. Our base, the Hotel Dogan (www.doganhotel.net) was 45 minutes drive outside of Marmaris, and was just idyllic, perfect for a week of enjoying doing nothing!

Reed bed in the Dalyan river

We did do a couple of cool trips though, such as a motorboat trip (inc bbq) out in the Med, another boat trip along the Dalyan River, complete with freshly cooked (and caught!) crab and giant turtle sightings, plus a Turkish mudbath. Turns out Turkish food is excellent as well – much better than the offerings at Bodrums Kebab Shop in Leamington! I’ll leave you with a few photos, taken by a mixture of us:

 

Trixi and my sister Hollie jump off a boat

My foot

Trixi sunbathing

Thank god cows can't fly!

 

Turkish bathing is a much more civilised way to become an Alpine Hobgoblin than Acorn's method!

 

Update on next years plans…

My Plans to go study in Innsbruck have fallen through – basically because I can’t get any student loans for it, and I couldn’t earn enough money this summer. So I’m off to Aberdeen instead! I’ve still got a bit of ski instructing work lined up in Saalbach during my winter holidays, and I’ll be skiing when I visit Trixi a couple of times a term in Innsbruck, but mainly this year is gonna be focused on my kayaking (bring on Scottish creeking! - unless the Scottish ski resorts unexpectedly have a bumper snow season! I’m really looking forward to it now – most of my family is Scottish, and it’ll be nice to spend some time in what is effectively my ‘homeland.’

The year after I plan to do the Erasmus exchange programme in Innsbruck – I’ll still get all my student loans , and won’t be assesed during the time I spend there – sweet!

Allt Mheuran - Photo stolen from UKRiversGuidebook.co.uk

Christening my new boat!

Last week I bit the bullet, sold my old Pyranha Burn and bought myself a shiny new Dagger Nomad. The main reasons behind this was safety – I wanted more volume and rocker up front, so the boat resurfaces quicker after drops, and rides up and over obstacles rather than pinning on them.

So later that week Dave and myself headed off for another Welsh mission – after Ross and Nick bailed again with very lame excuses(!).

We started off at Mile End Mill on the Dee  for a quick warm up – a very quick warm up, I’d forgotten how boring the venue is, especially in creekboats. Still, we had a little play in the holes, jsut to get used to the new boat.

The week before we’d had a look at Pont Cyffyng and one of the Swallow Falls slides on the Llugwy, but decided with only two of us there, we should really wait ’till we had more safety. This week we decided to just man up and go and do them, but on arrival we found higher water levels than we were expecting, and again deciding discretion is the better part of valour, left them for another day. So off to the Arddu!

On the way, driving along the A5, we past the Ogwen, and decided to have a look. Too low this time, but we ran the weir like drop above Ogwen Bank Falls just for the crack, and contemplated running the main falls, but with the lack of water it wasn’t really worth breaking a (shiny new!) boat over.

On arrival in Llanberris we parked up, shouldered the boats, and set off on the walk in to the upper Arrdu. It took about twenty minutes – there was no point going further up, as there were too many trees in the river, so we put on just below the bridge and paddled down to the top of Llanberris Falls, which took around 5/10 minutes, including my first roll of the Nomad (nice and easy).

Portaging the rather big and scary Llanberris Falls, we jumped on the lower Arddu, which is a great little gem of a river. Running right next to the footpath to the base of Llanberris Falls, you can scout everything as you walk up to the put-on, before bashing down it in around a minute! I managed to time it just right so that a group of tourists were right next to me on the path as I hit the first big drop, and got a rather pleasing, ego-boosting cheer! The next ten foot drop went sweet too, so we jumped back in the car, and headed off for fish’n'chips’n'beer.

I’m really pleased with Nomad, upon landing the ten footer the bow immediately scooped straight up to the surface of the river, and forwards away from the stopper. The rounded hull made sliding off rocks at funny angles easy, whilst still snapping around into eddies quickly. I can’t wait to get it on some Scottish creeks this winter now!

Once more, I stupidly forgot to bring my camera along, so there aren’t any pictures.

Snowdome

Missing the snow so much, and desperate for a fix, Trixi and myself headed for the snowdome at Milton Keynes. It’s not brilliant, but it’s still a chance to slide on some (admittedly wet, slushy and damp-bag-of-sugar-like) snow.

Trixi ripping up the short turns

Ellis Brigham kindly let us demo some skis for free too. Trixi didn’t think much of the K2 Miss Demeanors she tried (but that could be ‘cos she’s Austrian and quite old school in her skiing, although she shreds pow on her slalom skis). I tried the new Salomon Suspects, which I didn’t think very much of. They may be good for freestyle (I wouldn’t know, ‘cos I’m not lol), but they’re fairly awful for general skiing. On the other hand, I absolutely loved the new Scott Punishers – brilliant skis, with a very fun flex, and the graphics are much nicer than the mingers they had last year.  I may have to find a way of getting a pair! I also purchased some new Oakley goggles (gotta love summer sales…) to replace my old cracked Scotts, and Trixi got some funky new sallopettes.

A very poor attempt at a grind from me

Rita Queen of Speed at Alton Towers

Trixi was over again, and with the aid of some half price vouchers we decided to have a day out at Alton Towers with my sister and her mate, Char. Most of the day, although fun, was just the typical Alton Towers rollercoaster stuff. However, Rita Queen of Speed is something else – it’s absolutely phenomenal! Along the starting straight, you go from 0 to 100 miles anhour in 2.5 seconds. It’s incredible! Everyone seems to have the same response – an adrenaline and shock induced stream of profanities. If your round that way, it’s definitely worth giving it a go.

Day out on the Conwy

Last Wednesday, it rained. A lot. So we thought we’d go paddling! On Dave’s advice, and as none of the rest of us (me, Nick and Ross) had doen it, we decided to go and do the Conwy, in North Wales (I have no idea what section, only that it wasn’t the hard bit).

We got a little lost on the way, and so didn’t have a chance to check the gauge before we put-on – we just assumed that after all the rain it would be high enough to go. Mistake. Within the first few hundred metres, it became obvious that we were in for a scrapey run, although with all the trees, it was probably lucky that we didn’t have more water.

Most of the run was around grade 2, although towards the end it picked up a bit with some fun technical grade 3 drops. It was a fun day out, it’s always good to paddle something other than the Leam, but it really would have been better if we had more water – I didn’t realise how quickly water ran off North Wales, it had been really bucketing down the night before!

Even with the lack of water, I still managed to take a really STUPID swim. Around a third of the way downriver there was a really ugly little grade 4 slot drop. After watching Dave get backlooped at the bottom, and Nick all but fall down it, I planned to drive my boat a bit more. My plan was to drop into the entry slide on a left edge to avoid the rock guarding the top of the drop, then plant a bow rudder on the right whilst edging right, before boofing off the right and flicking over to land on my left edge and carve away from a big boulder at the base of the drop. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really enough room. After planting my bow rudder, my paddle ended up stuck behind the rock at the top, so I had no way of pulling the boof stroke. Determined to avoid spiralling down into a rocky face plant, I pushed off the rock with my right hand. I couldn’t get enough power to flick over to my left edge, and so landed on my right, body twisted all the way over the side trying not to lose my paddle. The cushion wave at the base then tipped me over. Lying along the back deck, paddle in my left hand (but the wrong way round, with the other end still at the top of the drop), unable to roll, there wasn’t much more to do apart from bail out. Five weeks out in the Italian Alps with no problems, then I swim on a low water Welsh ditch – typical. Probably I should just have tapped for an eskimo rescue, but it’s been so long since I’ve even needed to practise one that the idea just wasn’t in my head. I should really get round to learning how to hand roll…

Dave about to get backlooped in the minging little grade 4 slot

Desperate for a Snowfix!

I’m missing the snow and mountains so much at the moment, I seem to be spending inordinate amounts of time watching ski porn on the web. This is one of the best videos I’ve found, utterly inspirational. Candide Thovex has to be one of the most talented skiers out there:

And home again…

And now I’m back in Leamington, for another summer of slaving away to save some money. Problem being, I can’t find enough jobs to slave away at! Bloody credit crunch, damn the recession!

I’m getting rather jealous of all my mates who are off travelling, especially Dan Mackenzie who’s in Asia – check out his blog: www.danmackenzie.wordpress.com

One good thing about coming back was Trixi coming over just a few days after I arrived – I’ve wanted to show her what a proper, english-style breakfast is for ages! Bacon, sausages, potato cake, muffins, baked beans… ooh yeah

Turns out she’s rather a natural at kayaking too – we went for a paddle to the Saxon Mill pub (her very first time in a kayak), and she dropped all four weirs on the way with nor problems at all – even the one my mate Rob Wheelhouse nearly drowned in (lol, funny times!). It made me really rather proud of her! With a bit of training, I’ll get her on something Welsh and steep soon

I’m praying for some rain now, preferably on my day off, to bring some of the Welsh rivers up into condition – after lots of big waves and holes in the Alps, I want to find something steeper and more technical. Hmm, now I’m back, the Wet West Paddlefest up in Fort William may be feasible…

Italia!

Two weeks after I arrived home from Austria, I set off to Italy, to work as a kayak instructor in the Alps with Acorn Adventure. I was supposed to work there all summer, but I actually left after a month – I have decided to go to Innsbruck university with Trixi next year (improving my german, living together in a flat and LOADS of skiing, even in the summer on the Stubai Glacier sounds good to me!). Unfortunately, although the UK government has commited to providing studen loans for Brits studying abroad, they haven’t implemented it yet. This means I have to pay for everything myself (around £5,500), which involves trying to save at least £2000 over the summer – somehting which can’t happen working for Acorn.

It’s a real shame, because I was having an amazing time in Italy. The staff were a really cool group of people, there were no tensions or factions within the group, everyone got on really well, and the location was ace. Highlights include:

• Kayaking loads after work on the Dora Baltea (even though on one high water run I nealy took a beating in a big scary hole called Moby Dick)
• Climbing and bouldering – there was lots of experience in the staff
• Chilling out with beers at bar Central
• Going to Sidebar in Zoe’s skinny jeans, dressed as a vampire, with Bryce dressed as the 118 man(!)
• Whitewater rafting with the guests (possibly the easiest day of work ever, as the guides do all the work)
• Chilling out in Aosta with Trixi, and doing the ‘Italian thing,’ drinking prosecco and eating cold meat and cheese
• Going up to the ruined castle with Trixi ;D
• Rolling around screaming, covered in mud, eating bananas as an Alpine Hobgoblin during evening entertainment for the kids
• Pizza! 

I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone when they get home, and there’s definitely some paddling action in Wales on the cards!

Unfortunately, I was stupid enough not to take any pictures during my time there, but it’s a really cool place to live and work, and I’d recommend it to anyone – Acorn’s a very fun company to work for.

More time in Vienna

It seems rather stupid to call it Vienna, the Austrian name for the city, Wien, is shorter and easier to say…

So after my eventful journey from Saalbach, I arrived in Vienna to spend some time with my lovely girlfriend, and also the rather scary prospect of meeting her family! I hadn’t needed to worry though, they were all really nice,  and her grandmother took us out for a really good meal. Mmm wiener schnitzel…

I also spent 24 hours ont he red cross base where Trixi volunteers. It seems quite a strange system to me, being English, but the red cross volunteers are Austria’s only paramedic and ambulance service… It wouldn’t work in England (maybe we’re all too selfish), but fair play to them, giving up so much time to help people! The Fire Service are also nearly all volunteers…

Most of the ten days I was there we just chilled, but we also took a walk up a hill to see a cool old church, and went out with some of her friends for a meal, then on to the Ride Club in Vienna – which in some ways is a little bit like Smack at home. I also spent some time watching Trixi train for ‘cheerleading,’ which is actually much more like gymnastics than the American style of cheerleading – basically four people chuck her up a few metres in the air, so she can pull flips and stuff… it’s mental! On the same day I left, she was off to America with her team, to compete in the World Championships!! (In the end they came last lol, but still, the Worlds!)