On Monday the 30 until Thursday the 3rd of May half of our International Outdoor education class took part in our Mountain to Fjord trip. This trip was comprised of three components a two day of canoeing and rafting one day of climbing and one and a half days of cycling.
We travelled by bus from Kristiansand to Bygland where we met Len and our instructor for the week Evan from Troll Aktiv. We spent the first our getting to know Evan and learning basic techniques of canoeing in pairs. We discussed fundamentals such as connectivity and different seating positions for and the conditions you might use them in. We also discussed basic paddle strokes and steering techniques like the stern rudder. Finally, a brief demonstration on how to perform a rescue in the event of a capsize which we didn’t practice as the water was too cold. After we had been through the basic skill session we headed back to the shore for lunch. During our lunch break Evan handed us out maps and went through the route plan with us and told us how the leadership would be divided up and left it up to us to take turns in leading and navigating small sections of the river. We paired up in our canoes and set off down the fjord. Marijn and I had some difficulty steering for the first half an hour spending more time paddling from side to side that forwards. Eventually we managed to find the issue and get rhythm to keep up with the rest of the group. The rest of the first day was fairly relaxing the bad weather which was due held off for the day so we where able to become used to the canoes and practice navigation in a new environment. We moved along the fjord and quite a fast pace and even reached the island where we where spending the night much earlier than expected. This ended up being to our advantage as we where able to set up our shelters for the night and be ready before the rain came. The first night was quite hard to get sleep as it rained constantly, and we had to keep waking up to remove the water the was pooling on top of our tarp.
The next morning, we woke up to find it was still raining, Marijn, Brad, Jed, Aaron and I quickly took down our shelter and had out things packed ready to go in Kayaks at 9.45 with our agreed time to be leaving being 10. It was quite frustrating to find that more than half of the group still had there shelters completely set up whilst we where left to wait in the rain. Whilst this was not a major issue it did highlight for me the importance of as a Veileder emphasising punctuality and sticking to times particularly when weather conditions are not favourable. Some possible solutions for avoiding this situation in the future as a Veileder is to put more emphasis on being on time or perhaps setting the agreed time half an hour before the necessary time.
Eventually we got onto the water just as the conditions begun to get better the rain stopped. We picked up where we left off the previous day each of us taking short sections of leadership. I took the second section of the day, it seemed to all go well. Evans feeback was that I should have kept the group closer together as it is easier to communicate and easier to manage if something should go wrong. In the future I would change this by establishing a set group management system to minimize risk. We continued the rest of the journey down the river until we eventually reached the dam just up the road from Troll Aktiv. There we took the boats out of the water and where met by Tim who helped us to load them onto the trailer and drove us back to Troll Aktiv. Once we arrived at Troll Aktiv Tim gave us the option of staying in tepee or Cabins everyone decided on cabins after having spend the last night in nonstop rain it was a good opportunity to dry everything. We quickly put our gear into cabins then 5 of us got changed ready to go white water rafting. The rafting was an unforgettable experience being in some of the coldest water I have ever experienced and jumping in to go swimming was amazing. After rafting we returned to Troll Aktiv and where able to have hot showers and use the kitchen it felt like luxury.
The next day we packed our things, some of us went down to make last minute adjustments to our bikes whilst the rest rented the nice brand-new Troll Aktiv bikes. We set off on our bikes heading towards our first destination the climbing Crag approximately 22kms away, it was a fairly nice easy ride along a clearly marked track. We reached the Crag around midday where we were met by Tim and Evan. We then spent the day going through top and bottom rope set ups as well as client abseils. Having done climbing qualifications already in Australia I found this a good opportunity to refresh knowledge by helping others, it was also interesting to company the slight variations that are taught about best practice between Australian and British climbing organisations. Tim and Evan left us around 6.30 pm and we spent the rest of the night exploring the area, Marijn, Brad and I Bivvied in a really nice place on the edge of the cliff overlooking the Fjord.
Our final morning, we woke up to the best weather we had all week finally some sun shine. We packed everything down early and met Len on the road around 9am to pack all our gear into the car. We then begun our 60km cycle back to Kristiansand, which was amazing to experience the same road we had driven along for many trips in a completely different way. The cycle was really smooth and problem free for the majority of the trip aside from when Zsofi got a flat tyre in Venessla and had to take the bus home. This was poor planning by us as a group as we did not have any repair equipment between us we where fortunate that we where close to towns for the whole ride so where able to get away with the situation. Other than that, the rest of the day was an enjoyable ride through amazing weather which was the perfect way to finish off what was one of the best trips of the semester to date.