Greece 2009

From ICCC

People

• Sophie 'outnumbered' Gore
• Rob '70s porn star' Tuley
• Mark 'what ditch?' Flower
• Terry 'I'm not partaking in this ridiculous facial hair grooming' Chambers
• Adam 'moustache repression' Holland
• Phil 'muttonchops' McDonald

Trip Report

Flying out

Mark's house was once again chosen as the meeting point for the trip to Gatwick airport, and so after Terry and Sophie arrived (with Sophie coming straight from a friend's wedding) everyone piled into Phil's car (who had driven straight from Nottingham) for a 3am drive to the airport.

During the customary round-the-back of Easyjet boat packing Mark noticed that the drain bung for the CFS was missing - providing him with a headache and Sophie with some light entertainment. Once Terry had collected his boat from left luggage everyone managed to check in without their kit being weighed and head off to a Weatherspoon's breakfast.

Mark and Sophie randomly sat next to a PhD student from UCL on the flight who was pretty keen to ask us about what we were doing - particularly since she lived next to one of the rivers that had been chalked up as a 'possible'. She ended up by inviting us over (something which Adam later became keen on, especially after finding out she was a bit of a looker) to her house if we were in the area.

After landing at Athens the advance team wandered off to their Hostel before heading into town to sample the local beer and kebab action.

Athens

With Rob and Adam not due to arrive until the following day the advance crew had a day to kill sightseeing.

After attempting to shower in the hostel (Mark used a shower without a shower head or hose whilst Sophie had a half hour mid-shower break when the water stopped) the four headed out to get lost at the acropolis and the other ruins that Athens has to offer.

After a hard days sightseeing they headed off to munch a take out kebab, savour some icecream (although no one tried the blue one with stars) and to laugh in astonishment at some people sleeping rough who tried to beg with the line "I am a junkie and I need money to buy heroin".

Driving North

After a not too early start from the Hostel the advance team returned to the airport to collect Rob, Adam, a Dagger drain bung and their hire cars. Rob and Sophie got a baby-blue Hyundi box whilst Mark and Phil got a slightly larger Hyundi I30.

After a few hours of getting scared (and used) to the Greek dis-regard for the traffic laws the sun began to set and Rob led the search for a place to camp for the night. After getting slightly lost we ended up on our first dirt track which gave Mark the opportunity to drive his factory fresh car into a ditch. It was only pulled out with help from a local (with a wife who wanted to go home rather than help these stupid foreigners).

Once free Rob managed to find the road he had been looking for a take us to a local fishery museum - complete with a friendly proprieter who not only had no problem with us camping there, but who bought us out free (unidentified) spirits. After Mark retired to bed everyone else retired to the museum bar for some rediculasly cheap ouzo.

Acheron

A reasonably early morning start saw the caravan head further north in search of the Acheron. Initially the river appeared tame (at least compared to the 2+ hour shuttle), with the Gates of Hades rapid being no more than grade II.

Fortunately the difficultly quickly picked up, with inspection required at a major rapid (later found to be Trident). Adam hopped out at this point and confidentally assured everyone that it went down the middle - a point which Rob proved. Mark attempted the next run, spooned and swam, loosing a shoe in the process. Phil and Sophie then styled the line whilst Terry also failed after finding himself upside down on the wrong side of the river. Another larger drop immediately followed, causing Sophie to swim in sympathy - and giving her some serious downtime; indeed Mark chase boating just saw the tip of her paddles (held above her head) for a good few seconds.

After a brief portage around a couple of syphons, and some suitably long seal launches the exit to the Canyon, and the take out were reached. Another two hour wait for the shuttle ensued - happily at a cafe, until the group loaded up and headed off looking for another site to bandit camp.

After a brief run in with a farmer ("the main road's that way you silly lost foreigners") and a close encounter with what appeared to be a boar the wild camp site was rejected in favour of some grass near a bar. This had the advantage of cooking facilities, electric lights, plumbing and some Austrian boaters who were just finishing their trip. After splitting a couple of beers it became aparent that the water levels up north were still pretty good and plans were made to continue to the Arachtos the following day.

Driving to the Arachtos

After waking up (and beating the Austrians to the showers - ha!) kit (and more food) was loaded into the cars for the long run north east to the Arachtos. The plan was to paddle the top section and attempt to complete the shuttle for the Kallaritikos (known to be pretty long) so it could be completed easily the following day.

That was the plan.

At about noon the plucky hatchbacks entered the dirt tracks shown on the map to be the correct road. After a couple of exhaust scapeing hours they returned to the tarmac and attempted a different route - arriving at the put in at about 3. Some swift unloading and changing saw Rob and Mark begin the 11km shuttle to the take out.

Or so they expected.

Sadly, after driving for a mere 45 minutes - and only 200m away from the tarmac road they needed, the dirt track was found to have been washed away and, however plucky the hire cars were, it was apparent they had no chance of crossing the gap. A retreat was struck to the put on, a campsite selected, and a four hour shuttle was undertaken by Rob, Sophie and Phil to take the cars to bottom of the second section, leaving 27km to be paddled the following day.

Back at camp Adam, Terry and Mark had a quick wash in the freezing river, sunk a few beers and lit a fire. Adam and Terry then spent the remainder of the afternoon attempting to suspend a pot above the fire using nothing but bunjee (found at the camp), sticks and their imagination. Eventually they gave up and barbequed the chicken by modifying a method originally suggested by Mark - resting the pans/skewers on stones around the fire. It must be said though that the chicken was excellent.

Arachtos

After breakfasting, and pushing everything into Rob and Sophie's baby blue box a relatively early start (10am) was made. Indeed just as the group hit the water some Germans were observed at the put in - hopefully shamed by the efficiency of the English.

Some beautiful grade II brought the group to the first bridge, and the start of the harder section. After a quick lunch and an inspection of the rapid Rob, Mark, Adam and Phil got perfect lines whilst Terry had two attempts (his paddles being eaten by a rock the first time but styling it the second time) and Sophie walked around after a swim from approximately the same place.

Piling further down the group reached the Arachtos gorge with it's infamous 'room of doom'. No one was really sure where the 'room of doom' was (it being that noticeable) with there being a couple of theories. This notwithstanding the gorge was fantastically beautiful, devoid of eddies, shear sided but very straight forwards - one of those places that can only be accessed from the water by a privileged few.

After arriving at the take out, consuming a few ice creams and waiting for the 3 hour shuttle the group turned back up the valley to find (and camp at) the put in for the Kallaritikos.

Kallaritikos

The group awoke the next morning with Mark taking Adam and Terry gnarl hunting away from the frequent tour buses which irritatingly kept stopping at the bridge the group were camping beneath. Adam thought that the boxed in grade v+ went fine and set about convincing Rob to run it with him. Sadly time was short (this shuttle only took about 1.5 hours) so the boyz only managed a few extra easy kilometers above the normal put in.

A quick run down the bolder garden at the put in upset no one - although Phil managed to break his paddle in two on the flood plane below. No futher problems were had either at the next road bridge where human intervention had created a twisting rapid - run by most (with a variey of concequences) down the middle, or at the following slot type drop - which was styled by everyone except Sophie (who walked round) and Mark, who only just managed to boof over the hole after paddling into the bit with the biggest tow back.

After taking out at the bridge on the Arachtos the group drove further north, found a spot to camp and ate the "meat and potatoes" from a local resturant.

Voidomatis

It had been obvious from an inspection the previous evening that the Vikos (one of the potential runs in the area) was too low and as such was abandonned in favour of the Voiomatis.

A brief trip by car saw the group near the put in - for, in the words of Sophie "sorry guys, we forgot to tell you it's a walk in". A quick session of changing, drying kit and chuckling at the tour bus which had to reverse a mile down the road to turn around (before reversing a mile back) saw some of the group ready to begin and the shuttle underway. The walk in was meant to take about an hour - which infact took the group nearly two. Mark led the charge and went back to help the others - help which was nearly shunned by everyone until he persuaded Adam (who had left last after helping with the shuttle) to let him take out some of his kit.

This section of the Voidomatis is spring fed, and known as the 'Champagne run' (due to all the bubbles from the springs). This means that it is really clear - with it being possible to see to depths of up to 3m. With springs down both banks the volume increased as the run progressed - indeed the put on was luckily opposite one of the larger springs which provided enough water to make the river run.

The clearness of the water probably confused Terry who suffered from an OBE after being pushed up against the rock. He claimed that being able to see everything made it even more scary!

After taking out in a tourist car park (and being filmed / photographed / asked who organised kayaking here) the group headed even further north with the aim of reaching the Meleopotamos that evening. Sadly this was again overly optomistic and a campsite was found near a motorway construction site. Phil seemed pretty pleased by this, being convinced it was a local dogging spot giving him good front row potential. Sadly no action materialised, although a couple of HGV's were spotted right next to the road the following morning...

Meleopotamos

The weather, by now, had taken a turn for the worst - and after a thunderstorm the previous evening most people were boating in more thermals than they had been for the previous few days.

The Meleopotamos has two sections and everyone did the top few kilometers of grade II/III. This was probably the 'dud' of the trip, lacking any of the beauty of the previous rivers whilst being too low.

Upon reaching the take out for the first section everyone except Rob and Adam got out - probably a concequence of the previous days walk in, the cold, a lack of breakfast and not really wanting to get stuck in a grade IV gorge. A few Slovakian boaters also took out - complete with hilarious hair styles and a shuttle bunny.

After a bit of chatting Rob and Adam carried on down the black gorge, which was actually at a good level and not too hard. They only needed to inspect one thing and thought that everyone would have been fine. The cars and boaters arrived at the takeout together - somewhat lucky since otherwise both Rob and Adam would have continued to the bridge immediately before the unrunnable canyon and would have had to have walked back up.

With the sun shining the boats were loaded back onto the cars, the ford across the river was very briefly inspected, but quickly abandoned as a possible exit route (the water being thigh deep and flowing very quickly) and a retreat was beat back, over the dirt tracks.

With having eaten not-quite-enough that day Adam, Phil and Mark were feeling in a rebellious mood and dragged Rob, Sophie and Terry to a local restaurant for some food - once again consisting of some pretty tasty meat and potatoes.

Stomachs full any attempt to reach the next river that evening was abandoned and the convey turned towards the meteora for some cracking views and photos. Shunning the banding camping of previous evenings a campsite was found - with some actual plumping. Everyone had a hot shower that evening and, making use of Terry's disposable razors, comedy facial hair was crafted by Rob, Adam and Phil.

Kamneticos

More rain that evening soaked the towels of Phil, Rob and Terry (who had left them out overnight to dry) dampening the mood a little. This was lifted by Mark who drove to the local bakery and invested in some still hot from the oven bread and a pot of butter. After Sophie's second shower the little convey hit the road heading south for the Kamneticos.

Rapidly running out of petrol, and in miserable conditions Rob, Adam and Mark set about doing the top 4km - which was suitably gnarly (although later described by Adam as a choss filled ditch). Terry and Sophie then joined them for the next 20km (where the gradient eased somewhat), whilst Phil (who wussed out of paddling that day) and Rob did the shuttle. This took them about 2 hours one way - a bit of a mission!

The river was surprisingly continuous and filled with river wide trees forcing numerous portages. Although the guidebook claimed nothing above grade III, there were certainly sections of grade IV. After about 11 km, the confluence with the Acheloos was reached, allowing a 9km float out with nothing harder than grade II. With everyone pretty cold by this point (having not really seen the sun for a few days) the dam construction site at the take out was a very welcome site.

The construction of the dam meant that a new road and been built (which went over the top of the dam and no where near the river) with the old road being used solely by construction traffic, lost people and kayakers. As such it was maintained by dumping several feet of gravel onto the dodgey bits meaning that only trucks could get up it. Some rally techniques from Mark and Rob saw the cars reach the top of the track, although there was concern that at least one of the cars would end up over the cliff and everyone noticed the gravel dislodging itself from the cars underbody for the next few hours.

After driving for a couple of hours (and buying some massive sausages) darkness fell and a campsite next to what appeared to be a racetrack was found. With a sad lack of people doing donuts (or dogging) Rob and Phil went to bed somewhat disapointed.

Karpenssiotis

The plan for the day had been to paddle the Agrafiotis, but a quick read of the guide by Terry suggested that the shuttle was only possible with a 4x4. As it had rained for the previous few days and no one was feeling like they wanted to attempt a muddy track with an overloaded hyundi hatchback the convey stopped in town to try and decide what to do. The decision: to drive for a few hours, have some lunch and decide what to do then.

After a quick bite to eat two suggestions were made: walk up a mountain, or attempt a lesser classic, described by a guidebook author as "a bit too continuous for my liking". Happily we chose to go paddling and hence set off for the Karpenssiotis, a major tributary to the Krikellopotamos.

After putting on slightly lower than the normal put in (it looked boring above and interesting below) Adam, Rob, Phil and Mark lept into action on what was initially thought to be a grade III float trip - something which turned out to be completely wrong.

Rounding a corner in the first gorge the river suddenly steepened into continuous grade IV, put smiles onto everyone's face and becaming a contender for the best river on the trip. Although flattening out after a few kilometers the Karpenssiotis kept everyone on their toes and even made a few forget that it had, once again, started raining.

Taking out at the confluence with the Krikellopotamos saw the convoy heading into the hills, towards that evenings campsite - at the put in for the Krikelloptamos. With this meant to take up to 8 hours the next day's shuttle was run that evening, with the cars returning to the campsite at about 10pm after being forced to follow the white lines down the middle of the road as they crept at 20kph through very dense fog. Happily Mark didn't this time drive off the road when the white lines briefly stopped on a fresher bit of tarmac!

Krikellopotamous

A few were woken in the night as a random animal wandered through the camp, knocking over the carefully stacked up pots and rummaging through the rubbish. Whilst Mark was a little worried it was a bear (there being a massive hole the other side of the river) Sophie was a little less concerned, coming to the conclusion that it couldn't have been since it didn't like carrots.

The Krikellopotamous itself was at 75cm on the take-out gauge - a little on the low side. This meant that it was scrapey and freezing for the first few kilometers - making some rather miserable paddlers. However, as more tribs joined and it narrowed through some gorges it picked up to a good level and the sun even came out.

The Krikellopotamous has some really nice drops and incredible scenery - including a gorge named Jurassic park although sadly no dinosaurs were seen. Mark managed a lame-ass swim at what he claims was the hardest rapid on the river, inadvertently encouraging some even more lame-ass portaging from Sophie, Terry and Phil - who by this time had joined Adam in the broken boat gang after discovering a 6" crack in the hull of his boat and needing to empty every 5 minutes.

Highlights of this river included some incredible overhung waterfalls and the awesome rock formations of 'puff pastry gorge'. With an extra 10cm on the gauge (relieving the top and bottom of their scrappiness), this river would have become a contender of the best river of the trip.

Leaving the river fairly late a decision was made to drive through the night and reach a campsite near the Rio-Antirro bridge. Arriving pretty late, and shunning the overpriced campsite pizza everyone except Phil (who had retired to bed) overdosed on pasta and tomatoes (Mark having earlier smashed the pasta sauce in a pique of clumsyness), finally making it to their sleeping bags at about 1am.

Lower Lousios - Alfios

Unsurprising an early start failed to materialise, and after showers and a comedy facial hair tidying session (with Terry even shaving himself a goaty) the hatchbacks headed south along good roads towards the Lower Lousios.

It turned out that the distances involved were larger than expected, with the put in not being reached upon about 1pm. After a comedy shuttle down some stupid roads Rob did the sensible thing and made an executive decision to shorten the run to a mere 7km.

The Lousios was beautiful and whilst it was relatively low volume grade III, still felt pretty full with there being unexpectidely few eddies. This was explained when the seething, bank-full, brown Alfios was met after 3 km. With most rapids being washed out the only drop of note was a rather mean ledge-drop backed up by boiles, which led to one OBE from Terry. Sophie also electing to swim in sympathy shortly after.

Given the biblical levels it was disappointing not to have time to carry on into the 'Great Alfios Gorge' - rather the decision was made to instead press north to the classic Erymanthos...

Erymanthos

After getting lost in the dark on the drive north and spending the night in a patch of mud by the side of the road the put on for the Erymanthos was not reached until 10am - meaning the group (with the exception of Phil who's boat was broken) set off with around 8-9 hours of daylight remaining.

This turned out to be barely sufficient.

The river started off being very easy - pool drop with clean grade III/IV drops. An acute lack of mupetry from everyone saw the group arrive at an easily portagable section of grade IV with plenty of time to spare. After a tough ferry glide and a long inspection Sophie, Terry and Mark walked around whilst Adam and Rob ran the section. This brought the group to the top of the second, unportageable, gorge.

The entry to the gorge was powerful causing Sophie to miss the eddy. In turn this meant that she missed the river right line and was forced to attempt the gnarl on river left. Rob and Adam (the only two on the water) watched in horror as her (and her boat) was thrown almost clear of the water into a large backloop before they set off down the gorge in chase. Sophie ended up loosing her paddles and swimming the entire gorge on the back of Rob's boat.

Mark and Terry, meanwhile, got onto the river with Mark attempting to lead down. He inspected the river right line and fell over it with too little speed. A failure to roll saw him swimming below the drop in mid stream. Terry styled the drop and carried on down, making it to the final (easy drop) before having a OBE. Mark meanwhile managed to swim to an eddy and climb out. After scrambling down the bank / swimming where the bank ended he managed to join the rest of the group at the end of the gorge.

The guide suggested it was grade II for the next 2km. It wasn't. This caused another OBE from Terry.

Upon reaching the third gorge everyone's paddling remained in some shape. With no choice other than to just run it everyone buddied up and headed down. Rob and Mark styled the hard drop in the gorge with Sophie attempting to take a chicken shoot that wasn't really there. This resulted in another OBE and the loss of the splits. After a brief portage by Terry and a cracking line by Adam the group re-united at the bottom of the gorge and considered their options.

There was perhaps one hour of daylight left.

The decision was taken to tow Sophie and Terry's boat down the river whilst they followed down the bank. Mark led the way with Adam and Rob towing boats. Unhappily the river unexpectedly dropped into the final gorge adding a little stress to the experience.

The boaters reunited below the gorge and waited. Terry and Sophie didn't appear. After a further 10 minutes Adam and Mark boated down to the take out (still expecting a grade 4+ rapid which they had actually already just run blind) leaving Rob to walk out with Terry and Sophie.

Terry and Sophie meanwhile couldn't walk down the river, electing rather to walk at least 2km up a steep hill to a road, reaching it just before dark. They were picked up a little later by Phil in a car.

Rob meanwhile realised that Terry and Sophie weren't following down the bank, stashed the boats, maned up and soloed down to the take out. A boat collecting mission by Rob, Adam and Mark failed to find the boats in the dark. Realising that it wasn't possible to collect the boats the next day and still make the flights the group split with Phil, Mark and Terry heading to the airport and Sophie, Rob and Adam staying behind, expecting to have to boat down from the top in the morning to collect the boats.

Sunday

Phil, Mark and Terry made the flight with some ease having no problem checking in overweight kit. Equally the hire car company had no problem with being brought back a car that had carried three burly blokes and their boats across Greek dirt tracks for two weeks restricting their comments to "you did a lot of kilometers" and "Sir, were you in a rally... at least did you win?"

Rob and Adam meanwhile managed to walk up the bank to the boats and paddle them out, arriving back in the UK the following day on a rebooked flight.

Logistics

Greece is easy - as part of the EU it's straight forward to hire cars and the roads remain pretty good with the odd dirt track. Camping by the side of the road never seemed to be a problem - we were just left to get on with it.

The satelite navigation though was utterly pointless - we attempted to use Navman Greek maps and suggest you don't waste your time or money. Buy a decent Greek road map either in the UK or before you get out there and be prepared to spend hours doing shuttles.

There is plenty of information available about the rivers - either on http://www.teamadara.com/ or in the Greco guide book (according to the Austrians we met part II has naked ladies in it).

Overall we drove 3380km in hatchbacks over 12 days. We got stuck a couple of times - normally when the drivers didn't get it quite right so if you're an accomplished offroad driver you should be fine because we knew nothing.