Okere Enduro Race

Last Saturday we had the first ever Okere Enduro race. The race was Ben Robson's invention and the concept was a 6 hour endurance race with a team format. Each team had 3 people 1 of which had to be a girl, this was a cool idea as it massively boosted involvement with 50 people competing, 15 teams and 5 solo competitors.

The race began with a mass start at the top of the river, this resulted in 5 swims in the first lap! When you reached the take out you had to carry your kayak to a trailer which shuttled the kayaks back to the start then run roughly 2.5 kms up a track to tag your team mate in.

As a second thought Ben added in a solo division which ended up having 5 competitors, 4 men and 1 woman. Jamie Sutton smashed the men's class with an amazing 21 laps and Kylie Laxton-Blinkhorn put in a staunch 19 laps beating about half the teams division all by herself!

The winning team, 24 laps

Jamie winner of the solo division

Kylie takes out the women's solo

Thanks heaps Ben Robson and Brendan Bayly for organising this awesome event. Big ups to all the volunteers for helping with the time keeping, shuttling, and safety! Cheers to the sponsors of the event Okere Falls Store, Paddle Power, Macpac, Sandiline, Southstar Adventures, The Wall, Cumec Magazine and Keith from Cascades for allowing us to use his land. Shot to everyone who competed. I hope this becomes an annual event!!! 

Josh made a sick edit of the day, check it out!


Kaituna 6 Hour Enduro Race from Southern Underground Productions on Vimeo.

Storeelva

After breaking my boat on the Myklebust we borrowed a mini gas powered heat gun from Jakub's Slovak friends and Benji did a neat job fixing the front of my kayak. We headed to the Myklebust again just to show Jakub's Slovak friends where the put in was and ended up doing two laps down the super fun race section. Great start to the day!

A spot of plastic welding to start off the day

Benjamin Hjort, tea drinking extraordinaire!

Me trying out one of Benji's super flash lenses on my camera, I like

Jordbær kake yum!!!

Then we got news that some crazy German friends who were riding bikes round Norway towing their kayaks on bike trailers were paddling the Storeelva that afternoon. Needless to say we beat them to the river. Putting on a 6km section which is supposed to take 5 - 7hours at 5pm sounded a little bit ambitious to me but in true Norwegian style thats exactly what we did.

Benji didn't even scout this drop and he still got a better line than me

A couple of rapids in I went deep off a drop, hit the ground, and completely ruined Benji's weld job. Luckily I had a big roll of duct tape which slowed sinking rate enough to keep on paddling. Then at the half way point Olaf gave me some bichathane which did an even better job.

Rangi as on-river repair job

Olaf dropping in

Green submarine, if you can't go over it, go under it...

Scouting

Just to keep the second half of the trip as exciting as the first I decided to explore a pocket eddy. This was at the bottom of a cool twisty waterfall boof which I managed okay but got pushed over by the boils at the bottom and held against a wall by the current. After multiple roll attempts on each side I decided to swim. Thanks to my awesome fiveten boots I managed to rock climb to a stable brace mostly out of the water. What ensued was some great target practice as the boys took turns throwing bags at me from the other side of the river. Olaf had the best aiming and got the first bag straight into my hands, I clipped my boat on to the first bag then my paddle into the next bag and finally clipped the last bag onto my lifejacket and did a dive of faith swum through a hole and pendulumed into the eddy. Chur for the rescue boys!!!

Jakub (photo by Benji Hjort)

One of the must runs in the upper section

Benji on a drop with an 'interesting' lead in

Boof fun on the Valldola

Jakub on the Valldola (Photo by Benji Hjort)

Me on another Valldola boof

Camping in Norway

Thanks for the day everyone!

East Kaweah

So in between Amot laps on the Sjoa and falling off waterfalls in Sogndal I found these pictures of sunshine and good times and thought I'd share them. Thanks for the photos Tyler, also thanks for giving me season 1 of Game of Thrones. Jakub and I are now completely addicted and its starting to seriously impinge on Jakub's work rate.

Kaweah Massif, kind of like Okere Massive, but on top of a rock in Sequoia National Park (photo by Josh Neilson)

With a large group of us putting on the East Kaweah we decided to split into two teams. There was team alreadyonthewaterwaitingimpatiently and the people still getting to the river. I was in the former group so away we went. What followed was a very enjoyable day on the river. Due to Sanga's amazing memory for rapids we barely scouted anything and cruised to the confluence then continued to the camp ground at Three Rivers to hang out in the sunshine and wait for the others.

Me on a cool double slide (photo by Tyler Fox)

Tyler flying fox (photo by Toni George)

Sanga lining up the first drop (photo by Tyler Fox)

This was supposed to be synchronised boofing but Chris couldn't keep up (photo by Tyler Fox)

Sanga on a chunky slide (photo by Toni George)

I really like this photo, something about the combination of sunshine, smooth granite and whitewater (photo by Tyler Fox) 

Everyone crashed out after a great days paddling (photo by Sam Roil)

Not much of a story when everything goes right and there are no dramas but thanks heaps everyone who participated. What a great day.

Some nice photos

Heres a couple of photos courtesy of my Canadian friends Mikkel and Lianne.

Sweet slide on the Teigdalselvi (photo by Lianne Germaine)

My first day back in a Tuna: Double Drop, Teigdal (photo by Mikkel St Jean-Duncan)

Borrowing Brendan's Tuna for the Brandseth race (photo by Mikkel St Jean-Duncan)

Dagali River Festival

The Dagali River Festival is a grass roots Norwegian river festival held on the Numensdalslagen River. It is strongly supported by the local raft company Serious Fun who provided not only shuttles to all the events but also a place to camp, hang out, eat waffles, and enjoy the sunshine.

Marcio after a hard days racing...

Kayakers trying to organise themselves

The Master of Ceremonies Lucie Sediva

This river festival is awesome value for money as entry only costs 350NOK which includes all events, camping and two dinners cooked for you by awesome Nepalese chefs...

Interesting apron

There is also cheap (by Norwegian standards) beer served to you by the other main nationality of Dagali... Czech elves... Matej on bar duty

Pretty much sums up the Ducky Demolition Derby

John Free, winner of the Duct Tape Party

Some of the events included in the event: Time trial down an awesome stretch of rapids, boater X, teams race, raft race, raft X, ducky demolition derby, duct tape party, hula hoop competition, raft wrestling and so on and so forth.

Mens final in the boater X, I raced with the boys cause no girls entered and was stoked to make it into the final

Raft race

Raft wrestle, I think Tzak and Lucie are the men's and women's champions

Tzak showing off

So the results were... 

Norwegian Whitewater Cup Race

Name	Time	Place
Jiri Kopecny	1:55	1
Marcio Franco	2:03	2
Matej Holub	2:05	3
Toni George (1st Womens)	2:06	4
Vojta Hejtmanek	2:12	5
Jonny Haugen	2:12	6
Thibault Dufour	2:17	7
Nicolas Caussanel	2:24	8
Øystein Resser	2:32	9
Jack McDonald	2:38	10
Marek Blascik	2:44	11
Jan Motyl	2:47	12
Lucie Sediva (2nd Womens)	3:01	13
Dag Sanvik	DNF	14

Kayak Boater X

Qual	Semi finals	Final	Place
68 Matej Holub
02 Thibault Dufour
66 Marek Blascik	68 Matej Holub
	02 Thibault Dufour
21 Vojta Hejtmanek	74 Jonny Haugen	75 Dag Sandvik	1
74 Jonny Haugen		68 Matej Holub	2
63 Jan Motyl		02 Thibault Dufour	3
64 Nicolas Caussanel	75 Dag Sandvik	60 Toni George	4
	21 Vojta Hejtmanek
60 Toni George	60 Toni George
62 Øystein Resser
75 Dag Sandvik

Kayak Teams Race

Team Name	Team Members	Place
Øystein and Jonnys Fan Club	Dag Sandvik, Vojta Hejtmanek, Marcio Franco	1
Brumiks last journey	Jan Motyl, Nicolas Caussanel, Thibault Dufour	2
Team Shamemememememe	Toni George, Øystein Resser, Jonny Haugen	3

*Sorry Øystein and Jonny for slowing the team down, if I hadn't collected 30litres of water in the bottom of my kayak by the end of the race I reckon I would have been able to go a bit faster (excuses)

Ducky Demolition Derby

#	Names	Place
61	Marcio Franco & Martina Hlavackova	1
74	Thibault Dufour & Nicolas Caussanel	2
11	Marek Blascik & Jan Motyl	3
62	Erlend Groven & Kjetil Nørstebø	4
21	Jonny Haugen & Øystein Resser	5
02	Eirik Neste Bratteng & Endre Piotr Sivertsen	6

Duct Tape Party

1st John Free

Duct tape party

Boater X

In summary: Dagali River Festival, awesome event, great mix of sick race courses, fun parties and a great crew, 2013, be there!

See www.dagaliriverfestival.com for more information.