Planning process:
For one of my last self-organised trips, we decided to go Canoeing for two days close to Kristiansand in a local area. Because of the fact, that we had one week earlier our Mountain to Fjord Trip, Len allowed us to go Canoeing and recommeded a local area. Otherwise we would have to drive too far away with the canoes. Moreover it was only possible to use Flurin’s car to carry always only a single canoe from the garage of the university to the starting and ending point of our trip. That’s why the group of Sharon, Steven, Katja, Jais, Roman, Flurin + Lea & Jana and me decided to go on a two days canoeing trip in Topdalsfjorden next to the airport of Kristiansand. The girls wanted to expand the trip to go hiking in Jegersberg, but I decided to skip the last day, because I had to plan a trip with my grilfriend instead, where we hiked among other things up to Preikestolen at the Lysefjord.
Execution of the field trip:
Day 1 (Monday, 27th of April):
On Monday morning we all met at the garage of the UIA (University of Agder) to upload every single canoe on the roof of Flurin’s car and bring them together with the paddles and life vests to our starting point, Roligheden harbour/bay. Unfortunately, this took us 2 hours before we started our trip with 4 canoes paddling around Roligheden and heading towards the big bridge crossing the Topdalsfjorden. We were canoening in a relaxed tempo, because on the one hand we calculated only 4 hours to get to the end of the fjord and on the other hand we all had to take a look at Flurin with his girlfriend and their daughter, who joined us for a daytrip. During our canoeing, we had nearly every hour a small break at a beach or on an island and we switched the pairs in the canoes. Luckily, the wind was blowing from our back, but when at the middle of the day it started raining quite heavy for about 15 minutes so that we found a shelter underneath someone’s jetty. Around 2 p.m. we arrived at our destination for the day. All of us tried to take a look for a good sleeping spot, what turned out as very diffcult. Either the area was not flat enough or to close to a house/private ground. After some time we found a nice spot and we build an improvised shelter with tarps, ropes and the three canoes, hidden behind some rocks on a grass field in the same way, as I did it the week before on the island at Byglandsfjord. We used the three canoes as the outside walls and the tarps as wind and rain protection on top of our construction. All together, we decided to go on a hike along the main road to Vennesla for some grocerie shopping. When we came back after 3 hours, some of us took a nap and Steven and Roman started collecting wood for a campfire. The time I went out of the shelter to help the two guys, a Norwegian man was already wating for me to tell us, that we have to leave this place in the next 20 minutes. He told in a really unfriendly way, that we this is his private ground and we are not allowed to camp here. On the question, where we could go, beacuse it was already 8 p.m., he answered me unhelpfully: “That is your problem, you have 20 minutes to leave or I call the police”. We were not shure, whether the right was on his side or on our side so that we decided to pack our equipment and paddly backwards in the direction of Kristiansand to find a new spot. Unfortunately, we needed more than one hour, to get finally to our sleeping spot, the Hamresanden Beach next to the Kristiansand’s airport. Quickly, we build up our shelter again and enjoyed the rest of the night around a warm fire at the beach and ate some hot dogs together.
Day 2 (Tuesday, 28th of April):
On the next morning we had our breakfast at the beach, where Steven started a small argument with some swans. We left our camp around 11 p.m. and decided due to the fact that the wind was pretty strong, to cross the Fjord and paddle back home on the same side of the fjord as the day before. After a long break at a beautiful sand beach, we had to canoe against the heavy wind and waves. Nobody of our groupmembers was talking anymore, because everbody had to paddle very strong and focuson the water movements. While Sharon and me saw Jais and Steven getting out of their canoe below the big bridge, we also decided to get out of the water and decide together, what we are doing next. Although it was too exhausting and struggling, we paddled a bit backwards to end our canoe trip at a boathouse. We hid the canoes below our tarps and walked 30 minutes back to the University to call Flurin, that he can pick up the canoes togehter with me.
Challenges:
There were some challenges during our canoe trip, but all of them luckily ended up positively for us. The first small challenge was the rain shower during the first day, but we found rain protection below a jetty. Actually we could have stayed longer on a small island, to wait until the rain shower passed us, but full of hope we decided to try to paddle faster than the clouds are moving, which turned out as the wrong assessment.
The second challenging moment was, when we had to leave our first sleeping spot, although nobody knew on which side the right was. But we did not wanted to risk, that the Norwegian guy calls the police. For the next time we learned, that we better should check out the regulations about the Outdoor Recreation Act.
The last challenging part of our trip was the storm on our way back. Nobody of us wanted to capsize so that everybody was paddling very concentrated. It was a weird situation, when it is complety silent and you can only hear the paddles are clapping into the water and the waves are beating against the canoes. At the end, we were so happy, that we did not have to continue our trip until Roligheden, but stop the canoeing more safety a bit earlier.
Group dynamic processes before and after:
Sometime it was quite new for me, to take into consideration, that we are coming from different countries and have different opinions, what the decicion-making makes more difficult and time-consuming. But in general, it was great to go on a trip with other fellow students to learn more about their behaviour and characteristics. In particular, I liked the improvement of our group dynamic processess such as the collective decision-making in challanging situations.
Reflection on the learning outcomes:
I really enjoed this trip, because we worked togehter very well and I had a lot of fun during the two days of canoeing, although I haven’t been on a trip with some of the groupmembers, I was afraid of capsize againg after my bad experience in the week before it and we had some annoying challenges. Personally, I would say, that we had a great group cohesion and we very flexible in dependence of unexpected situations such as the heavy wind or the leaving of our first camping area in the evening.
Original plan of our Canoeing trip: