So just shy of 6 weeks was this summer’s stay in Uganda.
Sam Ward, of Love it Live it fame, wanted me to run a couple of trips for him in Uganda. And even though I was very busy setting up my video production company (Rattle Media) back home, I still (selflessly) managed to drag myself down to Manchester airport and catch that flight.
When I first ran one of these White Nile trips with Sam, in 2006, it was a joint venture for my own company, Liquid Satisfation. In the years that followed, I was finishing my final year at Uni before heading off for 9 months, kayaking in Norway, Zambia and Uganda… I didn’t really have the time to push the whole coaching thing.
So that year Sam set up Love it Live it and when he was successful enough, I told him, that he needed to hire someone to run the odd trip, I would be more than happy to.
So that’s what happened. Liquid Satisfaction became my avenue for peddling low-budget kayaking movies – like Means of Production and the NSR Movies – on the white water community and running LiLi trips seems to becoming a very welcome addition to my calendar.
This time I was even obliged to go with the clients to Merchison National Park and see the falls.
I have a varied collection of photos attempting to capture the sheer madness of this wonder… But it’s pretty hard to get across the feeling of seeing the white water features you understand blown up to an obscenely senseless scale; such that the water no longer seems to behave in the way you’d expect.
Nick, Tom, Alex and Ed at the top of the falls.
Gotta love Nile Special, of course
Colin Wong throwing another huge Panam!
Me doing something as well.
And did I mention the rafting?
Some of my boys raft guide at Holme Pierrepont… So it was only fair I gave them a taste of Nile Rafting!
One long surf on Nile Special Please…
Incidentally, everything in these photos is still there, and will always be there, despite the Silverback dam. In fact, with the help of Sam and a few other people in Jinja, we shall be making a sequel to ‘A Dam Shame’ (which was a film about the rapids now gone); a film about all the wonderful white water, among other things, that still makes Uganda one of the best kayaking destinations on the planet.
Ah, Uganda, I shall see you again soon…