Author: Justine

I am in Copenhagen ‘on my way home’ after my first kayaking trip to Sweden. The location was the pretty small island of Tjaro in Eastern Sweden. 250 people took a short ferry ride or kayaked  over to attend the 3rd Tjarofestivalen. The 3 day event was organised by Outside & Paddling magazines in Sweden with local & guest coaches including Gordon Brown, 12 times world champion surf ski racer Oscar Chalupsky & Jon Turk, who just won ‘Expedition of the Year’ at the Canoe & Kayak Awards in the USA for his epic first circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island.

The event was well organised with delicious food & a big tent where everyone could gather. Smaller tents littered the island, with some people camped inches from the water on bare granite rocks – a sight that always reminds me of Scandinavia – although I’d only seen it in photos until now. There isn’t much tidal range here so there are no worries of suddenly finding yourself sleeping in the sea!

Jon, Oscar & I gave talks in the evenings & a band played on the Saturday night.

Thanks to Nicolai for lending me one of his Arrow Kayaks for the event – I enjoyed paddling the Play LV. Thanks to Ulrika for running a ‘girls session’ with me – hopefully we shared a few skills & brought a few smiles! I also really enjoyed having a go on an Epic surf ski & got a few tips from Oscar. It looked like I had a long way to go to get great technique!

If you want to read more about the festival, or see more photos, then click on this link. At the bottom of this blog is a list of about 10 different blogs with photos and descriptions of the event.

Dave “Crocodile” Winky has reviewed “This is the Roll” for the KASK Newsletter (the Kiwi Association of Sea Kayakers). I apologise to the editor Paul Caffyn for stealing the review from the newsletter – but I call it revenge for him also publishing a comment about Barry and I when we paddled around New Zealand!

To give some background, Tara & Sim are currently kayaking around New Zealand’s South Island in Winter! They have had some tough challenges and their biggest epic involved losing each other for 5 days! Paul quoted Barry in the KASK newsletter as saying that Barry tried to lose me while paddling round the South island, but he only managed it for 20 minutes! Tara and Sim’s adventure makes good reading – check it out here.

Tara and Sim know the value of having a good roll! If you want to improve yours… maybe check out “This is the Roll”?

Meanwhile Dave Winkworth is spending 3 months on a solo trip in Northern Austraila. Good luck to him!

I am excited to be going to Sweden on Thursday. It’s the first time I’ve been to Sweden, except for a visit to the island of Gotland with the Jersey athletics team in the “Island Games” a long time ago!  It will be a chance for me to paddle in amongst the Swedish islands on the East coast & to meet some local paddlers. The festival is called Tjäröfestivalen & if you understand Swedish, you can see more information on their website. I don’t speak Swedish, but I think I understand enough of this Saturday evening activity to realise it will be fun; “Grillfest med levande musik”. My Swedish friend Ulrika is one of the local instructors & the two of us are running a ‘girls only session’ on one of the days. Girls can ask any questions they want, or we can just go for a fun paddle! I’m also running a session about making kayaking films & giving a talk about my ‘Tierra del Fuego’ trip.

Jon Turk is also attending so it will be good to catch up with him & hear about his Ellsemere island epic adventure. Gordon Brown will be there &  Oscar Chalupsky was also due to come.

P.S. I don’t have any photos of Sweden so this is Carmel Head on Anglesey last Saturday… it was a bit lumpy rounding it against the tide!

My new home arrived just before I headed up to Scotland last month. I love the Hilleberg Tarra that Barry and I used in Tierra del Fuego. It withstood the strong winds there brilliantly, but it’s too big for one person so I was delighted that Hilleberg sent me a Soulo tent for when it’s just me inside. When it’s dry, you can put the inner and outer up together – but when it rains (on those rare occasions during the British Summer), I can put the outer up first & clip the inner into it from underneath, keeping it nice & dry. The tent was comfy & well thought out with a big vestibule for wet kayaking kit! It’s totally free standing and only weighs just over 2kg. Now I just need another excuse to go camping….

Perhaps I should explain that the jumping photos were the result of Sarah Outen saying “There’s a rainbow behind the tent…. Do something interesting!?’ I tried!