D4DR The Austrian Road Trip weeks 3+4

D4DR The Austrian Road Trip

We left for Austria on Thursday 3rd July with what we thought we would need for camping. I bought a tent the day before coming to Slovenia as the two others I have were too big or heavy for the flight. I paid the grand sum of £10 in argos & they will be receiving a letter of complaint when I get home, the reason will be revealed later.

The drive from Slovenia was fairly relaxed, lots of beautiful scenery, we were making good progress until, not long after crossing the border into Austria, we were waved into a checkpoint by the short hairy arms of the law. He checked our passports & weighed the van, when he realised we were clean he waved us on with a cheery frown.

We arrived in Lienz, found the campsite & while the others erected their tents I read the instructions for my new purchase, 'This item is showerproof not waterproof!' What sort of lunatic would design a tent & sell it in a country renowned for rain without that little gem of info on the outside? Thinking about it, a very rich lunatic!

After deciding I would sleep in the van we drove to a put in on the River Isel. We put on & instantly felt the river had more power than the ones we had paddled before. The eddies were man made & quite boily, making for some interesting break ins & outs. The wave trains were bigger & the pourovers were grabbier with not many calm portions.

On Friday we had a look at a part of the River Drau, a dam release river with almost as much power as The Isel. We put on after lunch & practiced eddying in & out until we got to the slalom site. Big boulders had been put in strategic positions to create pourovers, stoppers & eddys. Deb P. & Rob were playing around with the various features, attaining (going up) the rapid & going through the hanging gates. I was happy to ferry glide from one side to the other & hope I didn't get washed away. Deborah had a go at attaining but was pushed back into the eddy I was in. She had another go, got caught by the main flow & hurtled towards a mid-stream boulder. She was pushed around it & into the boil behind which tipped the boat. After quite a few roll attempts in aireated water she swam & was carried off downstream with Deb P. & Rob in hot pursuit. I caught up with Deb P. & we eventually got the boat into an eddy after being bounced out of two.

Reunited, we carried on to the playhole a bit further down. Sat in the eddy river left, I grabbed a rock so I could watch the playboaters fooling around & managed to pull a muscle in my arm. Deb P. & Rob jogged for the van & Deborah had a swim in the nearby pool.

Deb P. & Rob had entered the rodeo which took place on the Saturday. The funniest moment for me was when the anouncer called out the womens heat starting with "World freestyle kayak legend DEB PINNIGARRRRRRRRR" everytime Deb paddled. Deb won the heat, semi-final & final. Rob put in quite a rousing performance for someone unfamiliar with freestyle in a borrowed boat, sidesurfing, flatspinning & even a backloop! The world number two was in his heat & I think Rob just didn't want to show him up.

On the Monday we went for another paddle on the Isel, dropping Deborah at the put in we went to before. Deb P. Rob & I went further up. Putting on & paddling into the first set of waves I realised I'd left the iron on, or hadn't fed the cat, or hadn't put the milkbottles out, any reason why I should be somewhere else. The waves were breaking over me, one second I could see Deb, the next was just a wall of greyish with white foam. I paddled hard & got used to the way the water was acting, eventually breaking into a smile, that was until THE stopper. The one that flipped me over & had a mate behind it that gave my roll a spanking. I swam & swam & swam some more, getting to the bank to watch Deb trying to push my boat to the side. I found myself on a gravel bar, out of sight of Deb & Rob. Thinking I could be in for a bit of a walk, I looked for a safe route to cross river right through what looked like a tributary stream. Rob appeared on the next gravel bar & said I'd have to swim down a bit to Deb & my boat. Wading out, the river was grabbing at my feet just three feet from the bank, I did a reverse swan dive with two twists for artistic impression into the current & was carried swiftly downstream to see Deb waiting with my boat. Knackered, I clambered in & we picked up Deborah just around the next corner. Without any major wobblies we got to the takeout & travelled on to a town called Loafer.

Nice campsite with all singing & dancing toilet block.

Went for a paddle on a nice easy grade I/II, practicing breaking in/out. Back to the campsite for a quick coffee then met Debs' friends Ingrid & Olli Grau, paddled a stunning grade I, great to see world class paddlers fooling around on the easy stuff like us mortals. I capsized while seeing how far I could edge my boat & Rob laughed.

The next day Deb took Rob & I for a paddle from the campsite down to a slalom course where I grew in confidence running the section three times. Rob & Deb went further downstream into a class V section. We stopped on the way back to Slovenia at a couple of lakes to do some rolling practice, then paddled a 20k section through a gorge where I had two swims in shorts in freezing water & ended up speaking an octave higher.

Back at Trnovo we dropped Deb P. at the train station & eagerly awaited the arrival of Gez to start the raft training.......

By Martin Mills