27.04 – 30.04 (Monday – Thursday)

Mountain to Fjord trip

 

We took the bus and met at Byglandsfjord on Monday morning.

We started with paddle training and I was in a canoe with Adele.

 

In a tandem canoe there is always a bowman in front and a stern man in the back. The bowman paddles normal the most of the time and keeps the pace of the canoe going. Both people should paddle at the same time while the bowman is setting the rhythm. The stern man is responsible for the steering and keeps the canoe on course. We learned the J-stroke and the steering while holding the paddle in the water. But its recommended to use the J-stroke because it doesn’t break the canoe and can be done while the usual paddling. Both people can do the sweep stroke. To move to the side both paddlers pull the paddle towards the canoe on that side where they want to go. To turn the canoe the paddlers paddle in opposite directions (one forward one backwards).

We packed our stuff waterproof and started our tour. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t very pleasant and we had rain, wind and even hail. It was quite hard to move forwards at some time. I tried to steer at some time and Adele helped me really well but we had to keep up with the others and didn’t really have time to practice the steering. So I spent the most of the time in the front of the canoe and only improved my forward stroke.

Another bad thing was that I didn’t bring rain trousers so I got really wet. The group decided to camp earlier than planned because of the bad weather. So we set up our shelters in the rain and got changed quickly. Later we met at the fire by the beach and even the weather got really nice and sunny. At least we had dinner in the sun.

 

 

On the second day we made our way back to Evje, still with rain. Adele and me had to separate and make tandems with Jochen and Os because we were faster and could save a bit of energy. Unfortunately steering with Jochen was impossible because he was too heavy in the front and too strong while paddling. So I couldn’t train steering at all on the second day.

The last bit was in moving water. That was quite exiting and we learned to break out of moving water into still water over the eddy line. In this case the bowman had to put the paddle into the water in 45 degrees while “looking on the watch” and hold it there. This makes a turning point for the canoe in front. The stern man makes a big sweep stroke on the opposite site to turn the back of the canoe.

 

At Troll Aktiv we had the chance to go rafting. That was really funny and our boat capsized and Will and Kirby fell into the water.

The night in the huts was comfortable and recovering. At the same time we felt a bit like in a holiday camp.

 

On Wednesday we got our bikes from Tim and drove around 20ks to Kiele Fjord where we set up our shelters again and climbed for the rest of the day.

Moritz’, Jannis’ and my shelter was really nice and it was nice to see how fast we are now in building one and finding a good place.

The routes we did for climbing were not too hard and we could improve our technique. It was enjoyable to be only 12 people so were able to climb a lot and didn’t have to wait too long.

We also learned how to set up an abseiling area and how to introduce kids to it.

We had a security rope with which you could get to the edge without any risk. The belaying person also is secured with the rope and overtakes the person who wants to go down.

 

On Thursday we had our biking tour home. We cycled about 60ks from Kile Fjord to Krisitansand. We didn’t have too many or long breaks it was still raining and really cold while not moving. The group didn’t drive together. As we had big differences between the levels of biking abilities the group split up quickly into two smaller groups. To reinforce the group cohesion Len talked with us and decided to have a group leader who sets the pace. After that we cycled together as a big group and were able to talk while cycling. To finalize the trip we decided to have a coffee in Venesla, unfortunately Jochen didn’t want joint us. We came back to Kristiansand at 15:30 o’clock.