The Ugandan Adventure has continued to be super!!As it turns out there are heaps of Kiwi’s here. This place is dominated by mainly British and Kiwi’s. We have been doing heaps of runs down the Silverback section, up until I had a little mishap where I rolled and broke my paddle and bruised my left arm on a rapid called Bujagali. My arm was pretty sore for a few days but came right pretty quickly and I could paddle again after about 2days, my muscle is just still bruised and swollen. We did a mass group day trip down the second section of the river, called Day2 with heaps of rafts and kayakers, it was really fun. We then cruised down to an Island called ‘The Hairy Lemon’ it is at the bottom of the Day2 kayak leg. It has no power in the dorms and long drops for toilets. You get all your meals cooked for you when you stay there and it is 5mins paddle from 2 awesome play holes, ‘Nile Special’ and ‘Club Wave’. We stayed here for a few days playing cards and doing lots of kayaking. Then cruised back to NRE for some relax and chapatti’s! Yesterday Mike and I kayaked from NRE all the way to the Hairy Lemon. It is about 40km and has a lot of flat sections! It took us about 3hours 30mins but we stopped powering it after 2hours and cruised the rest. We ran everything blind, was sweet though. We ran a rapid called Ithunder which is pretty massive and fun!
We are now preparing to fly home to New Zealand!! We have cruised our way to Kampala and are staying in a backpackers here. I am definitely going to miss life here in Uganda, but really am excited for home in New Zealand!!! I will miss the amazing Chapati’s and Samosa’s and smoothies, lovely people, boda boda’s etc. I won’t miss the crazy drivers, slow service and cars breaking down or running out of petrol! But it has definitely been an awesome experience here in Uganda. Such an amazing time and fun rivers. People here are great and the kayakers are all totally sweet.
So it is the end of such a long journey away from home for me. What an adventure it has been. Starting off in England buying our sweet van, heading into Europe, World Cups, World Champs, Trips to Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Holland and back again to the UK and then finally on to Africa! So many people have helped me out along the way and made for such an amazing year! I have memories that will I am sure last forever. There were Up’s and Down’s but definitely more good times then bad.
Cheers to everyone from Europe and Africa that contributed in whatever way to my fun! Now back to NZ for some summer school, Slalom training, catching up with people, work and more fun in the rivers, mountains and ocean!