Avon - Day 1.

Lined up for the start.

Day 1 done. 56km of flat, rapids and Ti trees. Started off with a sprint off the line, dropped the rest of our group down the shoot and onwards for many km of flat water intersperced with some small ish rapids. One big wier. Which I portaged as it was a rocky slide, no fun, and a boat breaker. Also a good stretch of the legs after 30km.

Extract Weir

From there it was into the Ti trees. It was insane. Paddling moving fast flowing water, though a forrest, of bushes in the middle of the river. I had to get out 3 times to extricate myself from the branches. Talk about tree blocks. If you don't know the channel (30cm wide turning at 90 degrees every 10m.) then you are in "Seve sorte KaK" as an Cape Town paddler used to say.

I eventually made it through the 10km bush section - finishing in 85th 22nd/65 K1s in 4hrs 36km.

Can you smell fear?

Tomrrow is worse. 6km of dense tress to start off with. Then 40 km of grade 3/4 whitewater through the valley. Then 30km of tidal flat estuary. AAAAAhhhhh!!!