Big Trip Summer 2008

From ICCC

This report refers to the Big European Road Trip. For the other big summer trips (parts two and three of this for some people), see India 2008 and Nepal 2008.

People

• Ralph "Edmund" Evins
• Rory "After Burn" Fyffe
• Mark "Betty" Wardle
• Rachel "Medusa" Fox
• Rik "Bug Eye" Williams
• Tom "Bedouin" Haywood
• Alexa "GI Joe" Batten
• Ally "Poncho" Cott
• Oli "can't find station" Carson

Trip Report

A Short Prelude

Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I'll begin. Once upon a time a not so very long time ago Holly and Apu, aged 12 and 13, decided to go on holiday. They went a long long way from home. Not very long after they had set off Apu started feeling unwell. Everytime he climbed up a hill he would feel all hot and flustered and have to stop to let off steam. Holly kindly took some of Apu's load, but eventually Holly was so worried by the strange sounds coming from Apu that he went to see a nice man who made him better. Apu still had to stop at the top of the steepest hills but at least he wasn't making any funny sounds anymore. Holly and Apu went to lots of places and met lots of nice people, sometimes the nice people wanted to see their papers. Sadly Holly had left her papers at home, but after a lot of talking to the nice man he let them pass anyway. Eventually it was time for Holly and Apu to go home, they had come a long long way so getting home seemed to take ages, Eventually tired and worn out they made it back home in one piece. THE END

For those of you who don't know Holly and Apu were out two trusty cars that just about survived the 5700 mile trip. Anyway I hope you really are sitting comfortably, because this might just be the longest trip report ever!

13 June - The first day the car broke 

Rory and Ralph set off, they got 500m from their house before a warning light came on on the dashboard. They managed to overheat the engine before leaving Watford an ominous sign of things to come…

14 June - The first day we got screwed at a border 

Rach and Mark set off and got stopped and searched at customs, making them miss the ferry by seconds. Mark blames Rachel's dreadlocks, Rach blames Mark for ticking 'special help required' on the ferry booking. Meanwhile Ralph and Rory arrived in L'Argentiere in time for the student boater cross. Apparently they had a great time, although neither can recall much about it.

15 June - The day we found Ralph without hair 

Rach and Mark arrived at the Slalom course in L'Argentiere at about lunch time to find a very hungover Rory sitting next to a complete stranger; which turned out to be Ralph minus dreadlocks. Rach and Mark went off to Canoe Control to recover from driving, while Rory and Ralph joined 'the oldies' for a run down the Onde.

16 June - The first day of proper paddling 

Everyone woke up keen to get on the water; we ran the section of the Gyronde from the campsite down to the Slalom course, which proved to be largely uneventful warm-up. The water levels were noticeably higher than previous years, so we decided to take advantage of this and paddle some sections that are usually too low. First up was the Lower Claree this would have been a nice grade II/III section, if it hadn't been full of trees. Rach took her first swim of the trip when Ralph forced her into a tree, Grrr. Another almost river wide tree caused some rolls and hand paddling action.

Next up was the Briancon gorge, which came highly recommended by Sophie. It turned out to be a continuous grade III run that was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone, except Mark who had to jog back up to find the car that had been left at the wrong take out.

17 June 

We started off with the Upper Guisane, Rachel took a stupid swim above S-bends, her boat soloed the rapid making a rather impressive dent in one of the grab loops. We met Luddy at the take out who joined the boys to run the lower section, which was 'not as hard as everyone was making out'. Having visited the oldies in their chalet the evening before, we decided to invade their kitchen to make dinner due to the unseasonal rain.

18 June - The day Ralph swam 

We arranged to meet the oldies at the put in for the upper Guil in the morning. Due to some fafftastic driving involving a sheep lorry blocking the road it was well past midday before we were ready to put on. Theo and Rach swapped their (black and pink) helmets, turning Rach into the ninja paddler and Theo in to a very camp one.

Rach and Rory went off to the Lake at the slalom course to do some flat water practice, while everyone else ran the middle section. Ralph got stuck in Letterbox and took a nasty swim, proving that paddling an Everest does not make you invincible. After lots of varied painkillers, we made it up to the chalet to collect all the junk we had left up there, ready to move on the next day.

19 June - The day Mark got food poisoning 

We woke up to find that Mark had spent all night throwing up having eaten some dodgy crème fraiche. We packed up slowly and headed over to the Seravassie valley, stopping at the top of the Romanche pass for crepes. Due to Mark feeling ill and Ralph not having recovered from his swim, paddling was postponed til the next day.

20 June - The day we watched 'Channel fire' 

The La Chappelle to Le Borg section of the Serevassie was first up, with Rach and Rory taking it in turns to lead. We then headed up the valley to paddle the harder upper section. Rach got psyched out by a strainer and ended up walking off, everyone else had a great blast down. Mark took Holly to the garage since she had gotten a flat tyre from the previous days drive. That evening we turned our BBQ into a fire pit, which we all stared at like slobs in front of a TV set, hence the name channel fire.

21 June - The day I actually rolled 

After a faff free start we drove over to the Drac valley, we began the day on the Drac Blanc, a steep grade III section with few eddies. Ralph paddled in Mark's stylish combat waterproofs because he left his cag at the take out. Rach surprised everyone (including herself) by rolling rather that swimming when she capsized above the first major rapid.

We then moved on to the Drac proper, this section is quite some distance after the confluence with the Noir, and turned out to much more interesting than the guidebook had led us to believe. By this point the river had become quite big and bouncy reminding us of the big volume rivers in Austria. The Ubaye valley was next on our list for tomorrow, so we started the drive over there stopping for dinner in Barcelonette to celebrate the last faff free day (before Rik and Tom arrived ;-). We had possibly the most civilised evening ever on a club trip, sitting in the town square watching local live music.

22 June - The day we bashed it hard 

In spite of the boys having been drinking, Rach was the one that woke up with a hangover; it is therefore entirely the boys fault that she swam on a piece of grade II. We started off the day on the Bachelard, which quickly got nicknamed the 'Bash it Hard'. Mark was up for abseiling into the grade V bit. Everyone else opted for the sensible option of just running the main section. The section ended quite suddenly with a cross river pipe a few inches above the river, just above our intended take out. The Boys went on to run the Ubaye Racecourse, leaving Rach to run the shuttle. The high water levels meant they blasted down in about 30 minutes!

Rory and Ralph missioned off to Milan to pick up Tom and Rik while Rach and Mark went to find a campsite in the Aosta valley, after some dodgy driving and lots of cursing at the stupidity of the Italian road system, all made it to the campsite by 2am.

23 June - The day we paddled through Moby Dick 

We started off with a nice warm up run down a III+ section of the Dora for Rik and Tom. Rik took a swim half way down the river and faff ensued while he crossed to the wrong bank to find his boat. Rach decided to have another go at this rolling thing, when she got caught by a hole and discovered it worked really rather well.

Mark and Ralph persuaded Tom that he needed further warm up and took him down what turned out to be one of the most difficult sections of the trip, further down on the Dora. We met a local and talked to him about the possibility of running the section, he looked at us like we were mad; the boys put on anyway. Apparently the run was going fine and had flattened out when a rapidly approaching horizon line reminded them that there was still one big hole to go. The hole is named Moby Dick, because, yes it could swallow a Whale. Ralph reached the top first and signalled hard right, while Mark signed hard left, Tom bringing up the rear realised the line was 'not centre'. After some Duracell Bunny like paddling they all just punched it.

That evening we had to start the BBQ with a wood fire again, because we'd forgotten to buy fire lighters again; prompting a gimperial discussion about optimising combustion (we stopped just short of ringing Flower to ask the best way to burn coal). That evening Rach finally couldn't stand sharing a tent with Mark anymore (a combination of snoring and the smell did it), so she decided to be hardcore and sleep out under the stars.

24 June - The day we let Rik navigate 

We packed up in the morning and headed off to Val Sesia; Apu, containing Ralph, Rory, Rach and Tom took the pre-agreed route, arriving in Sesia just after midday. Rik spotted a 'short cut' over a mountain pass and attempted to navigate Mark over it; four and a half hours later than planned Rik and Mark arrived in Sesia. We'd decided that if they turned up after 4:30 we wouldn't get on, since it was 4:20 we ran the shuttle and put on, forgetting to inspect the take out. The Lower Sesia turned out to be just as beautiful as we had been told with clear blue waters and lush tree covered hill sides. At one point a bridge crossed the river, Rik pointed out that this was where his short cut would have come out if they'd kept following it; Mark heroically kept his temper.

Our lack of take out inspection meant that only one group got out in the right place and it wasn't the group with the car key. Mark hitched to the top to get Holly, while Rach and Rory chased after the others. Eventually all met up and we found somewhere to camp for the night.

25 June - The day Mark swam 

Last night had been Rory's turn to get food poisoning and we found him groaning in the morning. Mark, Ralph and Tom went to paddle the Middle Sesia while everyone else went to get lunch. Rik put in for a short grade III section, taking out before the gorge section which the boys went on to run. They had been expecting a nice grade IV section, what they found was a portage fest. At the last drop Mark got bored of inspecting and decided to run it blind because he 'had balls like coconuts'. Tom scrambled up to inspect and saw Mark window shading for his life in a hole. Mark eventually swam after putting up a good fight, losing only his £230 blades and his ego.

Having stopped off at every rafting station in Val Sesia to enquire after Marks blades we started the drive to Switzerland. We stopped halfway up Lake Como for dinner, Ralph had a cheeky beer making Rach drive Apu. He regretted this halfway up the mountain pass in Switzerland when Rach made the tyres squeal for the millionth time.

26 June - The day I nearly Died 

We got up and minimised faff and set off for the Inn river. As soon as we set off we discovered that Apu's radio had broken, 'someone' had plugged something into the car at 10am and had fused the radio, cigarette lighter and clock. It dawned on us that without a radio we would have to actually talk to each other for the next 3000 miles. Clearly this was not an option. We found a spare fuse but didn't have the code to restart the radio. Fortunately after several frantic phone calls Tom's dad found it for us.

We all had good memories of the Schuls section from the Alps 06 trip, so that was our river selection for the day. We neglected to pay attention to the bit in the guidebook that says 'becomes difficult in highwater'. The river was high but the grade IV rapid at the top looked runnable on river right, unfortunately the put in was on river left. Tom started off and made the line, Rach broke out to go next. As soon as she had left the eddy Rach realised she wasn't going to make the ferry and had to run it on the left. Apparently she punched a few of the holes before capsizing, failing to roll and going for the worst swim ever. Several holes, a lot of downtime and half a lung full of water later, Tom picked her up and got her to the side. Rach bravely got back on but swam again on the next grade IV section and wisely decided to get off. Rik had a similar experience on the river but was a lot less traumatised by the whole experience. We then drove on to Austria to meet up with Ally and Alexa, who were arriving that evening. During the drive down Ralph decided it was his turn to get ill and celebrated arriving at the campsite by throwing up everywhere.

27 June - The day Tom had an Epic 

The easy section on the Trisanna was first up for the day, Ally took a couple of swims and Alexa styled it. Tom, Rory and Mark continued down the harder section lower down. Tom had mentioned earlier in the day that he had never completed the Trisanna without an epic, and true to form took a nasty swim on the last rapid. Mark and Rory got his boat to the side just before the gnarly weir of death at the end of the run.

The evening was spent amusing ourselves with the various possibilities involving kayaks on the children's play area next to the campsite. We also cooked the best meal of the trip cheese fondue followed by chocolate fondue. The remaining chocolate fondue was combined with coco pops to make cakes, Best Idea Ever.

28 June - The day we went Biking 

We got up and faffed a lot. Eventually everyone decided to take a rest day, most went to do some downhill biking on brand new uber downhill machines, the more frugal went for a very pleasant walk down the mountain.

29 June - The day Rach conquered her demons 

In spite of Rach's protests we decided to paddle the Imst gorge, the site of her previous worst swim (before Schuls). Alexa started feeling really quite ill at the put in so she stayed behind with Mark. After a lot of telling Rach it 'would be fine', the remaining six of us got on. The high water levels meant that many of the features had washed out. We blasted down the river not stopping to catch any eddies and overtaking some rafters on the way. Rach was most surprised to reach the bottom still in one piece and would like to thank everyone who bullied her into putting on.

We then drove on to Kitzbuhel where the boys went to paddled the Kelchsauer Ache, they came back quite disappointed with the 'rock filled ditch'. However the river had contained enough water to make Rory take his first swim of the trip. Oli was due to fly in to Trieste that day however since we were still in Austria we sent him on a wild goose chase across Europe to meet us in Worgl.

30 June - The day we paddled a ditch 

We picked up Oli at 8am which felt stupidly early, and then went to paddle the Windauer Ache. This turned out to be even more of a rock filled ditch than the day before. Ally managed to lead Oli into a boxed in hole, Rach tried to eddy out on a rock above the drop, lost her paddles, dropped in sideway and subsequently swam. Having inspected the drop while extracting Rachel's boat from it Mark elected to walk around it. Feeling a bit disappointed with the river levels in this part of the Alps we decided to tick off the Brandenberger as well and then move on the next day. The river was pretty but again quite low.

1 July - The day the exhaust fell off 

Mark had heard good things about the [I can't recall what on earth this river was called] which was on the drive east. We stopped off at a rafting centre to enquire about sections and discovered a slalom course at which an international competition had recently been held. This section proved to be good training for eddy hopping and playing in waves and holes. Sadly for Rory he swam after playing in a small hole, he claims to have taken a breath of water as he over, using this both as an excuse for swimming and for yelling at Tom when he resurfaced. Most people then walked up to run the section again.

We had planned to sunbathe by the Lake at Zell Am See, however the lack of sun meant everyone was keen to keep driving over to Slovenia. We stopped for dinner somewhere along the way, where Rach took over driving Apu. As she pulled away everyone commented that the noises coming from Apu were much louder from their new seat. Holly flashed us over having seen a lot of sparks coming from the bottom of the car; it turned out the exhaust had finally fallen off. Lots of gaffa tape and several pieces of wire later Apu was 'fixed' and ready for driving. Driving at 1800 revs however caused vibrations so loud even the music couldn't block it out.

We eventually found the campsite at about midnight and most people went to check in. Ralph wandered off to talk to some locals smoking at the bar, we found him later grinning like a child who had found his favourite toy…

2 July - The day we all drove in different directions 

To paddle on the River Soca you need river permits (the money goes to the national park), one car went to get them while another went to get the shopping. We had decided to paddle the section from Bunkerji to Cezsoca. Unfortunately due to some bad directions/miscommunication/bad map reading, Apu drove to the top of the valley, Alexa's car drove to the bottom, and Holly actually made it to the put in. Of course no-one had their phone on. Eventually everyone made it to the put in. The Soca proved to be one of the highlights of the trip, the clear turquoise water and forest covered Julien Alps made for some truly stunning scenery. Oh and the white water was pretty good too. The section started off quite tame with some grade II until we came to the first exclamation mark on our river map, the river gorged up for some interesting grade IV rapids. Rach stared at it for too long and subsequently swam and was rescued mid gorge by Tom with the comforting words, 'now I've never done a deep water rescue before'.

3 July - The day I paddled some grade V 

After the faff of the previous day we decided to drive to the put-in in convoy. This was fortunate since the road to the take out looked a lot like somebody's driveway. One of the nice things about the Soca is that they hang little signs over the river before each section telling you what grade the next little section is. We put on in Srpenica where the river is grade II/III then III/IV the third section we paddled had a IV/V sign hanging over it. Rach eddied out and refused to go any further, eventually she was persuaded to continue with what turned out to be a fun grade IV pool drop section.

4 July - The day with the grade VI put in 

We decided to run the last few sections of the Soca, while we left Apu in the garage to get the exhaust fixed. We had been told the put in was down the small steep track, this is an understatement. Rory Tom and Rach tried roping their boats, however this turned out to be more trouble than it was worth since they nearly lost Toms throw line in the process. Oli decided to take a different track and ended up walking so far down river we had to send a car to pick him up. Fortunately the section was well worth the put in, Alexa and Rachel talked each other into running the main line on the first drop which they both styled, unlike Rory and Oli.

Apu was later picked up from the garage, the exhaust fully welded back on and jacked up at a cost of €25! For six of us this was our last night in Slovenia so we went out for dinner. We had been looking forward to going to Club Elvis afterwards, sadly this was closed, so we settled for a random bar that Rik found instead.

5 July - The day we got strip searched 

We got up, packed up and paddled the middle section of the Soca again. We then said goodbye to Alexa Mark and Ally as we began our long drive south. We were making good time and arrived at the Croatian border at about sunset. We had naively assumed that our British passports would make all border crossing quick and simple- how wrong we were. The border guards decided that two English cars accompanied by two people with dreadlocks *must* be carrying drugs. We were pulled over and taken into their office building. The boys were taken one by one into a small room and made to strip off and bend over; apparently they all cringed when they heard the guard snap on some gloves. Rach was only asked to empty her pockets, which contained: 2 tampons, 1 sanitary towel and The Last Tea Bag. The guard was suspicious of the teabag and clearly didn't understand its importance; however he was so horrified by the tampons he didn't take it any further. The guard then proceeded to shout at us to go inside, INSIDE! We eventually realised he meant outside, and promptly stepped out of the building to watch the border guard spend a long time poking around in the front of Apu. Eventually they gave up looking for drugs, returned our passports and let us go.

We stopped in a lay-by just past the border to recover from being searched, get rid of excess adrenaline and cook some dinner. We kept driving through Croatia's A roads, since the motorway on the map hadn't been built yet, and eventually wild camped on a small beach by the Med.

6 July - The day we portaged through a cave 

We got up and kept driving south, Rik managed to redeem him self as a navigator by spotting a river, The Cetina, going through a national park that was almost on route. We spotted a rafting centre at Omis which was promising. We drove up the river, causing Apu lots of overheating problems, and stopped at a rafting put on. We met a local raft guide Ivan who told us all about the river, including a 'death rapid'. Ivan also provided lunch for us sorted out our shuttle and invited us to paddle with his afternoon raft trip. We were all amazed at the quality of river we had literally stumbled across on drive south, with some interesting grade III rapids and nice gorge sections. Death rapid turned out to be a constriction with a nasty siphon, Tom and Ralph spent a long time looking at it and then walked around. Everyone else put their kayaks in the rafts to be taken down by the raft guide. We were given a lift across the river by raft and portaged the rapid with the rafting clients, by walking through a cave cut by the old river. Walking through the cave was a very creepy experience especially where the guides had to shine torches to show us where not to step in the cave so we wouldn't be washed through another siphon. More driving took up the remainder of the day, we crossed through our 9 miles of Bosnia and back in Croatia stopped in a lay-by to cook dinner. Apparently this is illegal in Croatia; some police turned up and tried to fine us €300, in the end they let us go if we promised to be gone in 10 minutes.

7 July - The day Rik wandered off… across an international border 

We arrived at the montenegrin border at about midday, we successfully left Croatia and got in the queue to enter Montenegro. As Apu was getting to the front of the queue we got a call from Holly: "Err… we got turned around at the border, because we don't have a car registration document for Holly". Realising we didn't have a proper registration document for Apu we approached the border with trepidation. After some fast talking and waving the DVLA temporary slip at the border guard Ralph succeeded in blagging Apu across the border.

We now contemplated what to with half of us in Montenegro and half in No Mans Land. Thanks to Rory's indomitable spirit we decided we were undefeated and came up with multiple plans for what to do next. The series of event that got us across the border went like this:

1. Rory and Rachel sweet talk the border police into accepting a faxed car registration document, this is apparently not legal but if we got the border guard a job when he came to England he said he would let it pass.
2. They then check with the border guard that it is ok if the named owner on the document isn't here.
3. Next we phoned Andy at IC to get the phone number for Mark's mum out of the Book of Death. We considered phoning Flower as well and racing him against Andy, but thought that might be cruel.
4. We called Marks mum and had a conversation something like this: "Hello is that Marks mum? No, don't worry he's fine. Umm you might not know this but he lent us his car and we need the registration documents could you go into his room and find them and fax them to us please?"
5. Mark's mum doesn't have a fax machine, but she does have a scanner and email, so she scans the document and emails it to Rory's dad.
6. Rory's dad is in a meeting so one of his colleagues prints out the email and faxes it to the number of the police station.
7. The fax doesn't get though, apparently the number is wrong. After the border police assure us several times we have the right number they give us a new number to try.
8. The new number worked and we had a car registration document, albeit one so fuzzy you couldn't read the number plate or Marks name on it. You could read the words car registration document and 3 door hatchback, but that was about it.
9. We phoned Holly and put here back in the border queue. Somehow Rory talked this past the border guards and the insurance people to successfully get Holly across the border.

We would all like to thank Andy, Mark's mum, Rory's dad and his colleague, without all you guys we wouldn't have made it across the border.

This whole process took about 6 hours, during which Oli Tom and Rik tried to think of interesting things to do in No Mans Land, the best they came up with was drying their washing AND creating an entirely new river by accidentally/on purpose leaving the tap on. Alas this torrent quickly went subterranean after encountering a drain at the border post… In Montenegro meanwhile, Rachel managed to spill 300g of melted chocolate on her shorts (don't talk to her about this she may cry). It looked a lot like she had a bad case of diarrhoea, unfortunately all her spare clothes were in No Mans Land. A little while after this, Ralph, Rory and Rachel we sitting by the car waiting for a phone call when they looked up to see Rik walking towards them. We were utterly bewildered at how on earth it could be possible for Rik to wander off across an international border. After everyone had shouted at Rik for several minutes, he looked very affronted and informed us that he had Okayed this with the border police first.

Our Lonely Planet guide had warned us that we were likely to get pulled over all the time Montenegro for the most minor traffic offences and pay a fine/bribe to the police. We were therefore extremely careful to obey all traffic laws especially speed limits. Montenegro also lacked the same abundance of campsites we saw in Croatia, and we were keep to get well out of the bigger towns and away from main roads before we found somewhere to wild camp. This result of this was that we drove till dawn looking for somewhere to camp. Given how crap we all felt the next day we agreed never to do this again.

8 July - The day we saw Kosovo 

Having had about 2 hours sleep between sunrise and 'the time when it gets to hot to be in a sleeping bag' we packed up and kept driving. Although the road was marked as a major 'red' road on our map it deteriorated quite badly, even being untarmaced in some places. We stopped to confirm with a local that we were in the right place (which we were), and to look at the map. That was when we discovered that we were really very close to the Montenegrin borders with Albania and Kosovo, to the extent that the mountains we could see in the distance probably were Kosovo!

Our first multi-day river was to be the River Lim, we stopped off at a village near the top of the river to stock up on food and water. While the boys scoured the village failing to find a fountain to fill up water bottles, Rachel sat in the shade and made friends with a local girl Alexandria, who let us use her parent's house to fill up our water bottles. By the time we had run the shuttle for the river it was clear that we weren't going to put on today. So we organised our multiday gear and camped at the put in.

9 July - The day Rik used a watermelon for a helmet 

We put on to the Lim at the lake in Plav, we had eaten a watermelon for dinner the night before and Rory and Tom noticed that the inner diameter was roughly the same as size as Rik's helmet. Rik therefore proceeded to gaffa the watermelon shell to his helmet and paddle most of the first day with half a melon on his head!

We were all a bit nervous about paddling with loaded boats for the first time. The first section fortunately was flat giving us time to adapt to our sterns were sitting much lower in the water than we were used to. The river never really got above grade II on the first day but we still managed to tick off several km's. Rik ended up swimming because he went to practice sculling for support in a loaded boat.

We found a small grassy area to camp in and set about cooking the evening meal, since we didn't take our large pots we ate in shifts of two at a time. Because Rach eats less than everyone else, the person who shared cooking with her always got considerably more food. We built a fire and settled down for the night, Tom and Rik definitely regretted not taking sleeping bags.

10 July - The day we entertained the locals 

We paddled down to the Berane the major town on the river where we stopped to go and buy lunch. Rach solved the chocolate melting problem by discovering a special chocolate cooling pouch in the mamba enabling 600g of chocolate to be transported fully cooled whilst on the river. We had left Oli and Rory behind to look after the boats, when we came back they were surrounded by a small crowd of local kids trying on our gear. They were very impressed by our river knives. When we put back on they all wanted a ride off the back of our boats everyone else had a small light child except poor Rach who had a large 16 year old sitting on the back of her boat.

As we paddled through the other side of Berane we found some less friendly local kids who through rocks at us, nice. After Berane the river gorged up and became an interesting grade III, the river guide claimed there was a grade V in this section but at the levels we had everything was easily runnable.

11 July - The day we ate everything on the menu 

The run down to the take out at Bijelo Poljie was more grade II and fairly easy. Since the river had gone through several built up areas there was a lot of rubbish in the river including several car wreckages, some of which looked suspiciously like Apu. We found both cars intact at the put in and take and proceeded to drive over to the Moraca stopping along the way for dinner in Kolasin. We went with the local popularity in our restaurant choice. Ralph was pleasantly surprised to find that several of the local delicacies listed on the menu were in fact vegetarian, while Tom and Rory were so impressed with their food that they ordered a new dish every time the waiter went past, much to his bafflement. We had hoped to find a proper campsite that night so that we could all get showered after the multiday, unfortunately due to Ralph's drunken navigating we couldn't find it and were reduced to wild camping again.

12 July - The day we couldn't find the put in 

Since we had lost a day at the border crossing we decided to run a day section of the Moraca rather than multiday the whole thing. What we didn't count on was how difficult it would be to find a put in and take out, the river flows through a beautiful gorge and the road follows the river 100m up a vertical cliff. We left our campsite at 10am by 2pm we discovered that the only place to put on was down a little track further down the road we had camped on. A take out was equally difficult to find since the bridges marked on the map didn't exist.

For all the driving around the river was well worth it and was arguably the most stunning river we paddled all trip (and that's saying something). The car wreckages we saw in this river seemed to add to the sense of commitment. Our vague river guide mentioned something about an unrunable siphon somewhere in the gorge. We eddied out above this a spent some time figuring out the best way to portage 3 unrunnable siphons in a walled in gorge. Ralph and Tom proved that if you wear canyoneers you can leap around wet rock like a gazelle, for the rest of us it was considerable more complicated. Rory attempted to swim across the flow at one point narrowly missing swimming into the siphon through careful use of a throw line. Rach and Oli opted for an easier route round. The major consequence of Rory's swim was that he somehow managed to take all the skin off his sunburnt shoulder. This made the rest of the river excruciatingly painful both for Rory and the rest of us who had to listen to his moaning. Whilst running the shuttle for the river we managed to get Holly stuck on a gravel track (don't tell Mark). After some careful driving by Oli and some very manly car pushing by the rest of the boys we managed to get her back up the slope.

Our time in Montenegro was running short and if we were going to paddle the Tara gorge we realised we were going to have to start the shuttle that evening. Matters were further complicated by the fact that Rory really needed a shower to wash his wounds, and we had 1.7 kg of mince slowly going off in the back of the car. A plan was devised allowing all things to happen and keep everyone happy; the only slight flaw was its dependence on the campsite near the put in actually existing. After driving up and down the road the campsite was supposed to be on (several times). We found a place offering chalets that would let us camp in their garden. Rik however thought the right thing to do was to pay for a chalet, which he did, and then volunteered to map read for the shuttle. Tom and Rory were left at the chalet to cook the chilli while everyone else drove into the night to run the shuttle. After several wrong turns some advice from random hitcher, we pulled over at 1am to get some sleep.

13 July - The day we paid for access 

One of the reasons we wanted to paddle the Tara was its remoteness, the canyon section we were going to run is 60km in length; the road around for the shuttle is 150km. When we planned it in London this seemed like a great idea, getting up at sunrise to continue the drive we were less convinced this was a good plan. We got the MSR out to make coffee only to discoverer we had left all the pans with Rory and Tom.

The river guide had been a little vague about where exactly the take out was but we knew the road only crossed the river in one place: the village Scepan Polje. We arrived in Scepan Poljie to find that the village consisted of the rafting station, a closed restaurant, and the border post. The take for the Tara, we discovered, is in the No Mans Land between Montenegro and Bosnia, we were definitely going to need our passports on this river.

It was already midday and we were shattered from the driving so we employed 'Boris' from the rafting centre to drive us back to the put in and pick up Rory and Tom on the way. The only slight problem being that Boris didn't speak any English, and we certainly don't speak Montenegrin. After some clever diagrams and a lot of pointing on the map we got our message across. Boris had a 4x4 and hence drove us over the mountains to get back; we got a great view of Durimitor, Montenegro's highest mountain, and the grassy plateaus at the top of the mountains. We arrived back at the chalet to find Rory and Tom looking very pleased with themselves, having been given more breakfast than they could eat by the chalet owners.

Arriving at the put in we discovered tickets to paddle the Tara cost €88, each. Outraged by this extortion we sent Rik and Oli with Boris to find a cash machine, while the rest of ate the chilli from the night before. After a lot of faff we put on at about 6pm and paddled for a few hours. We also found a small trib joining the river which Tom and Ralph walked up to paddle.

14 July - The day we went to Bosnia 

Shortly after we put on in the morning we stumbled upon a moss covered waterfall by the side of a river, that look like it had come straight off a herbal essences advert. Several people borrowed Rik's soap and had a thoroughly satisfying (if somewhat bracing) shower under the waterfall. We had intended to have a fairly leisurely day and finish the river on the 15th, when crossed under a footbridge. We eddied out river right and got to check where we were on the map, we learnt two things:

1. We were 8km from the take out and… 2. We were standing in Bosnia.

Buoyed by these fact we paddled on to finish the river, the last section proved to be interesting grade III and the less hardcore resorted to putting their cags on since the sun was going down. Taking out in No Mans Land was interesting; since the river is (obviously) the lowest point in the valley getting to the border crossing meant carrying our loaded boats 100 meters up a steep mountain road. Rach walked her boat out in bare feet because she is hardcore (also her river shoes had broken). The border guards looked at us like we were mad, but after closely scrutinising our passports let across.

The restaurant in Scepan Polje was still closed so we drove to the nearest town, where we found another awesome Montenegrin restaurant, next to which was a field/plum orchard we were welcome to camp in. We spent the evening talking to the owner of the site drinking his plum brandy made with fruit from the trees we were sitting under. Just as we were turning in a huge thunderstorm broke over the valley, we were all glad we finished our multiday early.

15 July - The day we dove 300 miles in 14 hours 

Our paddling was done and it was time to drive home, we got out our map of Europe, it had a scale of 71 miles to the inch, we had to drive about 3 feet. Trying not to think about the number of miles ahead of us we set off. Not being insured in Bosnia we wound our way back through Montenegro to the border with Croatia. We approached the border with warily remembering the events of the previous week. Fortunately we were waved through with no problem; we pulled away playing 'Rule Britannia' very loudly through the car stereo. We stopped in Dubrovnik in time for tea, where we heard other people speaking English for the first time in several weeks.

16 July - The day we finally got showers 

The previous night we had found our first campsite 10 days that actually had showers. Keen to take advantage of this everyone took a shower even after the hot water had run out. The rest of the day consisted of driving, sleeping, and driving some more. It started drizzling just as we entered Germany, confirmation that the holiday really was coming to an end.

17 July - The day we pimped Marks car 

We stopped at some services for breakfast, where a considerable amount of time and money was spent pimping out Marks car with stuff for lorry drivers. We got a silver falcon to stick on the bonnet, some leopard skin fluffy dice, a green hand waving hello, some lights for the dash and a socket converter so that we could have 3 cigarette plugs. The result of this was that the cigarette lighter broke, severely limiting the music we could play in Holly. We drove the length of Germany and camped somewhere on the Germany/France border

18 July - The day we got back to Blighty 

We got up obscenely early to catch our ferries Holly won the race across the channel and headed to stores, while Apu went straight back to Watford. Astonishingly both cars and 6 shattered paddlers had made home in one piece.

It just remains for us to thank Ralph for organising an awesome trip, even buying a car so it could go ahead, Mark for letting us use (and abuse) his car and everyone who made it such an awesome trip

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