The last of Norway, Family Visits and the Soca

Sorry I haven't updated in a while... things have been busy and sitting down next to a computer has not been a top priority. When I last wrote we had just arrived in Voss, Norway... what an incredible place! We spent about a week there and made some good friends and paddled some amazing rivers. I can't say enough about the rivers in Voss... but if you kayak you should definitely stop in for a visit. I found myself paddling rivers that I would have never imagined I ever would but such beautiful slides and gorgeous drops were calling out my name.

Mark on the Myrkdalselva

Mark on the Raundalselva

Michelle on the Raundalselva


Mark on the Urdlandselva

By the time we left Voss it was staring to get cold. Although we did have some rainy days, we finally found some sun. But it was starting to get cold... we woke up one morning to see snow only a few hundred feet up. So it was time to head south. On our way to Oslo our wheel bearing siezed (it had been squeaking for the last couple months) and we were stuck in Fagernes for a day before we managed to get it fixed. We stopped in Oslo for an evening to hook up with Mark's school mate Pari and her husband.


The following day we began our mission to get to the Czech Republic. A day and half later we were in Ceska Lipa at my Aunt's place. Thus began our week and half of visiting my family in Czech. I hadn't been there in about 5 years so I had a lot of people to visit... the worst part was that most of them could not speak English. So Mark was left sitting on the couch (usually drinking or eating something), just smiling and nodding occasionally. I throughly enjoyed myself, eating such things as utopenec and bramboraky which we cannot get in Canada. And of course had to partake in drinking beer and wine and various other drinks. But by the end of our time there I too was itching to get back into the kayak...

So Monday afternoon we managed to pull away from Brno and start to make our way to Slovenia, where the river Soca was waiting for us. Mark had asked me where I wanted to spend my 30th birthday and that was my choice. We arrived at the Soca early Tuesday afternoon... but the weather was less than ideal... lots of rain with a few dry patches in between. We managed to hook up with some paddlers (Sean, Laurent and Simon) so we could do an evening run on the Classic section of the Soca. The river had been on the rise all day... it had started at about 10 cms in the morning and by the time we ran it, it was somewhere between 160 to 180 cms. The level of the river was not the only issue, by the time we got on the river it was starting to get dark, the rain was coming down hard and it was blowing so hard that it was very difficult to see. We got down the river without any mishaps but let's just say that my birthday run will not be one I will ever forget. We got out of the river and the power went out so we went to the bar by the take out and celebrated. It was a good day.

The next day we woke up to blue sky and amazing mountains surrounding us... and it has been beautiful ever since. The river has dropped, just about as quickly as it has come up, so now we just have big smiles on our faces as we come down. What could be better than spending a day surrounded by amazing scenery, good friends, going down a river and finishing it all off with a wine in the bar?