Author: Justine

NAEROYFJORD
JOAKIM JUST STANDING AROUND!

Barry and I are in Norway for the Njord sea kayak symposium near Bergen. We came a few days early to go paddling with some locals in some of their favourite spots. Thanks to Ronny from the shop ‘God Tur’ ( the distributor of my DVDs in Norway) for organising a great couple of days and to the other great guys for coming along. Yesterday we drove up to Naeroyfjorden, one of the most spectacular fjords in Norway and paddled to a great campspot for a lovely evening around a campfire. The mountains rise over 1,200 metres from the fjord and we were constantly gazing up at different amazing waterfalls and overhanging grey cliffs. Amongst the paddlers was a 15 year old boy Joakim who had incredible balance and paddled standing up in his cockpit for 8km on the first day (!) and who could not only stand up on the back deck of his kayak, but jump from there to the front deck of the kayak! And back!

SEAKAYAKING THE BULKEN WAVE

Today we paddled back down the fjord and then headed to Bulken, which is a famous standing wave on the Vosso river which is popular with whitewater kayaks and surf boards but as far as the locals know has never been paddled in a seakayak before. Barry had the honour of being the first seakayaker to surf on the wave, which was really playful and fun. Camilla, Hallvard & Kjell also got stuck in. It was great fun but the water is VERY cold though!!

Tomorrow we are running an incident management course, then on the weekend is the symposium!

We’re back home in the UK and seem to have brought the good weather with us. It’s been a really hot and sunny week in North Wales…. let’s hope it lasts.

On Wednesday 14th May, I’m giving the first presentation about our South Island adventure. It’s at the Keswick Mountain Festival in the Lake District and I’ll be talking in the Theatre by the Lake at 7.45pm.

Check out details of the festival here

If you want to see who is talking and/ or get a ticket for my talk then go here.

I’m also taking part in a fun race with mountaineer Alan Hinkes to open the festival at 5.30pm on Wednesday. Apparantly we have to abseil down a climing wall, run to the lake, paddle a raft around a marker, then run back to town where we climb the wall again. Whoever reaches the top of the wall first, honks a hooter which officially opens the festival!

Barry and I popped into the Anglesey sea kayaking symposium last weekend and paddled around ‘the Stacks’ with 2 different groups on Saturday on Sunday which was fun. Since then I’ve actually had to remember how to sit at a desk all day as I’ve been loading video footage into my computer so I can edit together a few bits of footage for this talk in Keswick. I’ve got some great snippets of dolphins surfing by the bow of my kayak, me getting trashed in the surf and of us fighting not to get blown out to sea by strong sidewinds.

WALKING THROUGH CAVE STREAM – AN UNDERGROUND RIVER!
HOME ON THE BANKS PENINSULA
BABS, PAUL CAFFYN & JUSTINE WAVE SKIING!
‘THE BOYS’ ON THE BBQ!
JUSTINE WAVE SKIING OUTSIDE PAUL CAFFYNS HOUSE
A FRIENDLY KEA ON MOUNT ARTHUR
WE CAME ACROSS MISHA HOICMAN, HIS WIFE INNA AND A FRIEND FROOM ISRAEL. MISHA HAS PADDLED AROUND FJORDLAND THIS SUMMER AND IS TRAVELLING AROUND NZ WITH INNA AND THEIR KIDS FOR 6 MONTHS. WE HAPPENED TO NOTICE HIS KAYAK WHEN WE WENT FOR A WALK BESIDES A LAKE NEAR ARTHURS PASS! THANKS FOR THE PANCAKES AND CONVERSATION!
THE ANNIES FRUIT BAR FACTORY
WINE TASTING WITH BLAIR FROM ANNIES
BARRY ON MOUNT ARTHUR, TASMAN BAY BEHIND ( WHERE NELSON IS)
We’ve had a fun 8 days travelling around the south island in a little hire car, visiting some of the people who we met on the kayak journey, walking in the mountains, finally meeting Babs, the Swedish kayaker who also paddled around the South island this year and enjoying the open spaces and lack of people in NZ!

Our paddling mileage was 2399km !
( I’d have paddled around in circles a bit to reach 2400km if I’d known!)
The trip duration was 67 days,
we had 20 days-off ( and one day when we paddled 13km, to the end of Breaksea sound and back to where we started, but we’ve counted that as a paddling day).
47 paddling days.
Average of 35.8km/ day over all 67 days
Average of 51km / day over the 47 paddling days

Thanks again to everyone for their help & thanks for Matt & Paul for the photo! We will post every now and again from NZ from now on, but not every day.