Kali Gandaki Valley

 

We  are back in Pokhara now and we have just spent the last 8 days on the trek down from Jomsom through the Kali Gandaki Valley.  The Kali Gandaki is a river definately on my hit list, but as it is monsoon the river is a horrible, brown, henious mess.  It will have to wait till maybe Easter.

 

 

 

The flight to Jomsom was one of the most interesting flights I have ever taken.  It gets about 10 m from the mountain side at one point, and has to do a rediculous banking manouvre to make the tight landing.

 

 

The trek took us through some amazing scenery, with a good view of the Annapurna range.  Up near Jomsom it looks a lot like Ladakh, a barren mountain dessert.  As you decend the valley it changed to Alpine pine forest and lastly Nepali jungle.

 

It was an excellent way of getting back into shape but now it is time to get back into boat. 

 

 

 

 

Where to start?

Me and Eleri have been in Nepal for about 10 days now and have done a silly amount of things so it’s hard to know where to start.  First off all our Delhi to Kathmandu bus was a nightmare, and decided to take a bit of Eleri’s nose off. 

Monkey Temple, Kathmandu

When we arrived in Thamel, we quickly left again to paddle the river Trishuli.  Eleri had fun in the raft, while I was safety boating. It is Monsoon so the river was really high, a great test for me as I havn’t been on big water for a year now. 

Rafting the Trishuli river

Getting kit back when there is transport strike

After three days on the river we headed for some wildlife action in Chitwan national park. Doing an Elephant Safari is highly recommended!

The unlucky Elephant that took us for a ride

Rhinoes in Chitwan National Park

We are now in Pokhara, having just spent the day doing all the sights and riding around the town on a moped. 

Devi’s Falls, Pokhara 

 

Me on my trusty moped above Pokhara

We are about to go and do the Jomson trek which is in the Annapurna range, which I am told was higher than Everest only a mere 700,000 years ago.  It should take a week and hopefully will provide us with some much needed exercise.

 

Hurley on 3

                                        Dave Fairweather, Hurley Weir 

Hurley has gone up to 3 this week.  It is typical that I have been in London for 4 years and now, only two weeks before I am about to leave, do I start playboating in the Thames Valley. Been down twice this week already.

                                          Myself, Hurley Weir.

Anyway tested out the Rev and it handles really well, I’m really pleased with it.  I’ll see how much playboating I can get done in this last two weeks.

Photos thanks to Tom Laws.

 

The Hottest Day Yet

Anyone who is London at the moment will not fail to have noticed that is bloody hot. With Hurley down to one gate, the only place left for people in the South East is Chertsy weir. Myself and some friends went down for what turned out to be a very pleasant hot Sunday mucking about on old father Thames.

Back to India

There hasn’t been a lot of updates on here recently, mainly due to the quite large amount of work over the last term meaning not a lot of paddling. However I have finally got my act together and a team of us are heading out to the Indian Himalayas to pick up from where we left off in 2006.

Back in 2006 a group of us headed out to paddle the Tsarap Chu and Zanskar, which we did in quite terrifying flood levels. This year we aim to paddle some of the other ‘classics’ such as the Chandra and the Chenab, and explore some of the little explored valleys in the area. We also intent to seek out Monsoon possibilities in the Uttarnachal Pradesh area.

The expedition will be from the end of July to the end of August and if it is anything like 2006 should hold a lot of adventures.

Four Borders Expedition Trip Report

 

 Here is the trip report I wrote originaly for the Imperial College Exploration Board.  It has a detailed breakdown of the trip and an insight into our budget.

You can dowload it here: trip-report.doc

Granite Goodness in Portugal

Just spent new year in Portugal enjoying some great smooth granite steep creeking.  Read more on the Pyranha blog.

Four Borders Expedition Video

 We finally have some footage together for a small trailer.  There should be a full DVD available in the near future.

East meets West

Myself on Hoar Oak Water (all photos: Ralph Evins)

 

December is here and that not only means Christmas but the annual Adventure Paddlers Weekend down in Devon. Hosted by Gene17, the weekend includes a lot of messing about on ditches on Dartmoor and talks in the evening at the River Dart Country Park about various adventures over the last year.

As there was a shed load of water predicted for the weekend a group of us from London headed down on the Thursday night to get three full days of paddling. We started the weekend off with a high water run of the East Lyn and a fantastic blast down some drops on Hoar oak water.

Adam Holland on the East Lyn

The next day we headed over to Dartmoor to find every river in full flood. After looking at a stupidly high Erme we decided to head to the West Dart, which is rarely in condition. This was a fantastic continuous run from high up on the moors to Dartmeet.

Tom Haywood on the West Dart 

That evening myself and Graham gave the headlining talk on the Four Borders Expedition. Despite a rather noisy crowd it seemed to go down well.

The Sunday was a bit more lazy after a rather heavy night so we only managed a blast down the East Dart, which was entertaining to say the least as it is full of overhanging trees at head height and no eddies!

Hoar Oak Water 

A fantastic weekend all round, one of the best I have ever had on Dartmoor. More pictures can be seen here.

 

 

Four Borders Expedition River Rats Talk

 

Date: 7th November 2007

Time: 7:45 (Doors open at 7:00)

Venue: West Reservoir Centre

Cost: £5.00 

In the summer of 2007, 8 student kayakers went out to explore the rivers of the Altai mountains, where Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China meet.  The so called ‘Four Borders Expedition’ spent 2 months paddling some epic multi-day rivers in Siberia, first decents in Mongolia and a lot of adventures in between.

For more infomation go to http://www.newriverrats.org.uk/