After waking up at 6am on Sunday morning, I spent the next hour persuading Alex it wouldn't be too low and persuading Louis that this time of day actually did exist... Eventually we headed off and met up with Hugh Graham and Rob Haley for a day of stomping stouts in South Wales.
With the Mellte hitting 1 on the gauge we decided this was perfect Nedd Fechan territory, and decided to put on a very brown looking Nedd Fechan at 8.30am!
The first 20 footer known as a notorious "ankle breaker" was at a perfect level for us to fire up. Like many other waterfalls in South Wales it's not overly deep, therefore it was a good time to test our boofs out at 9am on a Sunday Morning!
Louis Frost sending the 20 footer on the Nedd Fechan.
Hugh Graham hidden in the mist on the same drop.
Shortly after the first drop you come across a less appealing second drop, this time the river drops about 25ft on to a concrete slab followed by another 10ft drop. This has only been run a handful of times and Hugh decided to fire it up.
Hugh Graham styling drop 2 on the Nedd Fechan.
Following this drop is some fantastic steep class 4 whitewater down to the Pryddin confluence. We then jumped out our boats and hiked up the side of the Pryddin hoping for enough water to run Sgwd Gwladys (Lady Falls). This is a sweet 11m drop with a flat lead in! Unfortunately there is a slight catch, its not overly deep...
I opted to run the falls first and mistakenly attempted to pull the biggest boof I have ever done, the resultant was an extremely flat and slightly sideways landing, and I'm now writing this blog entry with a very sore back.
How not to run Lady Falls...
Rob showing how to run Lady Falls...
We reached the take out for the Nedd Fechan before 11am, and with the Mellte still at a decent level we headed for a camera-less sprint down the Mellte! Due to time constraints we opted to run double drop blind which dished out the standard variety of lines... we then blasted down the rest of the run which is now tree free! Thanks to the paddlers who have removed the trees.
By 2pm we were on our way back to Cardiff and I was back in time to fund my paddling adventures in my new job as a pizza delivery driver... Running Waterfalls and delivering Pizza in the same day. Done.
Cheers all for a great day on the river, and thanks to Hugh for some of the photos.
Shout out to Overboard for keeping my gear dry, check out their gear at www.over-board.co.uk
I've quickly tried to piece this blog together before I head off to Pembrokeshire early tomorrow morning for my surfing and coasteering fix...However this summer started with plenty of kayaking and sunshine in Norway, the land of expensive beer, trolls, fjords and incredible white water...
Norway is different to your common summer
paddling destination, it’s not sunny everyday, it rains a lot, you don’t get
drunk in the local bar every night because if you did that you would probably need
to re-mortgage your house. However it's a great place to kayak for any
class 4 kayaker, there is a never ending supply of slides, drops, canyons and
rapids to keep you occupied for weeks. However Norway also does often make class 4 UK paddlers run away scared and spend the whole trip worrying about what
is round the next corner….
Admittedly we were extremely lucky this
summer, as soon as we arrived in Norway we were greeted by bright sunshine and
this was pretty consistent throughout the whole trip. It also seemed that
wherever we travelled we had almost perfect river levels. For those who have travelled to Norway from
the UK before, you will all have faced the most common Norway dilemma….fly, drive or
ferry?
We opted for the ferry option, this reduced
the total driving time to about 10hrs and the time spent on multiple ferries to
about 21hrs… This still meant it took nearly 2 days to get out there. Once we
finally arrived at 7am on the Friday morning we headed to the Sjoa for a few
warm up runs before heading out on our road trip.
Our trusty VW loaded with bikes and boats for our road trip
That evening we drove over to the Rauma area and
set up a great wild camp spot only 5 minutes walk form the Ullva slides. We
woke up bright and early the next day to hike up and run the 3 slides on the
river, the last one of which being a long slide which throws out a variety of
lines. We then headed up to the Upper Rauma for an afternoon run. The Upper
Rauma is as pool drop as they come. Great class 4 drop and rapids all of which
empty into a huge pool to pick up any pieces. This was the first real test of
the trip and everyone was throwing great boofs and getting nice lines. We even
ran Mini Huka again because we were having far too much fun:
Attempting to pull a boof on the last Mini Huka drop.
We headed back to the wild camp spot and we
were joined by the guys from the Pyranha Team van. We got to watch some GoPro
footage of some crazy First D they had racked up in the day. They then helped
us out with a bunch of river information, levels, take outs and all the details we
needed for the rest of the trip. After a few beers the sharing of the days
footage, we headed to bed ready for a bright start and the climb over
Trollstigen into Valldall. Cheers to the guys in the Pyranha team van for all the information they provided!
We arrived in Valldall in early afternoon
on Day 3, with the aim of ticking off a new river in the Upper Valdola. This
river was great and extremely similar to the Upper Rauma, however there was a
bit more rock and a bit less water then the Rauma! After a numerous amount of slides and drops
we headed down to the Middle Valdola for some evening laps. We met a couple of guys at the wild camping
spot at the put on and we blasted down the run which was about 1ft higher then
we had done it before. This run has got to be one of my favorites in Norway,
it’s continuous grade ¾ but it’s just far too much fun and always puts a smile
on my face. We ran this once more and headed to a mosquito infested camping
spot for a very early night!
A GoPro screen grab from a sweet boof on the Upper Valdola.
On Day 4 we knew we had a long drive down
to Voss however we were extremely excited to go and check out the Mickey Mouse
run (Micklebustelva) before we headed South. Luckily the two guys from the
campsite had done the river before and joined us for a morning run. It was
higher then they had done it before and that certainly made the lead in to
Fight Club rather interesting! Due to the first rule of fight club no scouting is allowed on this river which makes it extremely interesting....
That evening we headed down to Voss, whilst
on route Lenny decided to stop for a spot of snowboating. This involved a 10
minute walk up an icy snow slope followed by an insanely steep descent into a
shallow lake. After hiking up to the top Lenny managed to drop his boat which
then slid all the way down into the lake only for him to hike up again. On his
actual decent he managed to catch air and land on the lake rather hard, which
led to a brief Voss hospital visit the next day. We pitched up at
the Tvindefossen campsite which was perfect. It was a 2 minute drive to Money
drop and 1 minute from the take out for the Lower Strondelva. It also had Wi-Fi
and great facilities, definitely recommend to all paddlers in the Voss area.
A beautiful view on our way down to Voss. Shout out to Overboard for providing me with their latest adventure back pack.
We jumped onto the Brandset racecourse
section, for our first day in Voss, this is a great little creek which is the location
for the Veko Extreme Race in June. After a quick morning paddle we headed into
Voss to get Lenny checked out at the local hospital, luckily brusing was his only
injury!
On Day 2 in Voss, we headed up to the Lower
Strondelva. Putting in at Penny Drop and running it back to the campsite. We
ran this a few times, and Penny Drop very quickly became one of my favourite
drops of the trip. After some lunch back at the campsite we got the cameras
together and headed up the road to fall off Money Drop. This drop looks rather
manky but is surprisingly clean. You just drop in on line, suck up and go deep.
All good. And a great thrill when you roll up and look back up at it.
Tom Matthews dropping in on line on Money drop.
After another night in Voss we headed up to the Astre which is a great super short gorge near Lom. The river was about a
foot higher then we did it the year before and Lenny and I jumped on for a test
run, slightly anxious about what would be waiting in the gorge. What we found
was some of the best and most continuous white water we had had for the whole
trip. The river is so continuous and with virtually no eddies your arms feel
like they’re about to fall off when you reach the bottom. After an evening hole
dodging on the Astre, we pitched up at another wild camp ready to enjoy our
last few days in Norway. (Check out the dedicated Astre section in my video at the bottom of the page).
The following morning we had a quick wake
up run down the Astre, always exciting without a warm up… We then headed over
to Sjoa to join the Sjoa River Festival for the last few days. We had planned
on ticking Amot Canyon of the list, however upon our return to Sjoa the levels
had risen massively, and without much knowledge of the Canyon and the river looking
rather high we decided to give it a miss and have a blast on a High Sjoa
Playrun. We then kicked back at the Kayak camp ready for our final day in
Norway.
With more sunshine on the morning of our
final day we headed up to the Ula slides to tick off one of the classic
Norwegian runs before we headed home that evening. Once we reached the Ula
slides the heavens opened and we were treated to a fantastic thunderstorm and
some great slides and drops. A few interesting lines were had on the final
drop!
Landing flat and taking the hit on the final drop on the Ula slides.
We headed back to the kayak camp just in
time to watch the Sweet Rumble take place on Amot Canyon before jumping in the car for the long journey home.
For anyone thinking of heading to Norway I hope the below tips help....
1. Buy all your booze and food before you go. A beer costs an arm and a leg.
2. Take spares. Things break. We had 1 set of paddles break on the first river of the trip.
3. Be prepared for rain although we were blessed with bright sunshine.
4. Campsites with Wi-Fi are amazing, although these can set you back £22 a night....
5. When you bump into other paddlers quiz them for everything they know....Slightly annoying for them but we ended up with loads of information about levels, put ons and take outs, this made our trip work out pretty smoothly.
6. Enjoy it.
Team Norway.
Check out my edit of the trip:
And another edit by Tom Matthews:
Shout out to over-board for the bags they supplied me with for our trip. For anyone interested check out their waterproof bags which are perfect for kayaking!
