Zambezi bound

Tomorrow I leave for the Zambezi, similar to last year in Uganda I opted for the cheaper flights which were way more hassle. I said last year I wouldn't do that again, saw the price difference and changed my mind and am beginning to regret it already.

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning on the most charming Ryanair, facilitator of much stress in previous trips, to London Gatwick, making my way across London to Heathrow, and flying with Ethiopian Airlines to Lusaka. I'll be attempting to find accommodation there for the night, (Kuomboka Backpackers don't seem to respond to e-mail, so I'm not quite clear if I'm booked in there or not!) After that it'll be a six hour bus journey to Livingstone. It seems to be recommended that I go with the "Blue bus", hopefully Lusaka Bus Terminal is nothing like the one in Kampala, or else I'll be looking all day.

But once all the logistical stuff gets sorted It'll be some of this!

Zambezi - Gopro HD Hero from Peter Csonka on Vimeo.

I've purchased a similar camera, so watch out here for some (hopefully!)epic footage!

DCUCC in Slovenia!

For the first time in several years, DCU Canoe Club officially went foreign. Steve Fahy, Andy Cahill, Joe Downes, Catherine Farmer, Orla Croarkin, Ger Gleeson, Steve Quinn, Emer O'Leary and Myself based ourself on the Soca in Slovenia for a week.

Myself, Steve and Mateja preparing to run the Slalom course

Our flight out was far from easy, with Ryanair insisting that we move our stuff around until each individual piece of luggage weighed an assigned amount (even though what we put on the plane ultimately weighed the exact same anyway.) Things got easier on arrived, where we picked up our rental cars and van, packed our stuff away with a lot more ease than on previous Alps trips and set of on the two and a half hour drive to Bovec. When we arrived seven hours later (some of that extra time was spent showing extraordinary restraint in Decathlon), we were able to pick up some rental boats for the week and set up camp in between the rain showers :(.

The River at our campsite

Our campside was nice, located right on the river it even had a covered drying rack so we could dry our gear even when it rained.

Lifesaver - our gear was dry all week!

Over the next few days we got several runs on many sections of the river. The levels were perfect for most of the week, aside from one day, where heavy rain caused the river to rise over a metre and double in volume! This meant that the river became much pushier and faster, much to the shock of some in the group! Nonetheless, the Soca is the perfect river for learning, it's safe and clean, with plenty in the way of features, with runs ranging from 1-4.

Myself, Steve and Mateja on the Slalom course

There is more to Slovenia than just kayaking however! As well as stunning scenery and other adventure sports (such as Canyoning, Biking and mountaineering) the Soca Valley was the location of 13 major WW1 battles as well as Battles from the Napoleonic wars. This all means that the place is full of history, so we visited some WW1 trenches after the river one day.

Slovenian Scenery!

World War One Trenches

Catherine mountain biking!

This was a fantastic trip in a perfect location and with luck the Soca valley will see DCUCC returning next year for another alpine adventure!

Galway polo comp

June bank holiday weekend is the traditional home of the Carrick on Shannon polo competition. However that got cancelled a few years ago so we had to go to Galway instead.


The DCU polo team, Catherine, Ciaran, Orla, Alan, Myself, Joanna, Ashling and Eoin.

Not that any of us were complaining, Galway never fails to come up with the goods when it comes to weekends away!

It was almost a year since I'd played polo before this weekend so I was looking forward to getting back in a polo boat. I was playing with the DCUCC team in Division 3. The weekend didn't start well when the slowness of my car. (It cant do above 90kmph any more :( ) and the severity of the Galway tragic led to us abandoning our plan to go to the beach, so we went to the pub instead.

The next morning encouraged by much funny bunny and memorable quotes we were all fresh(ish!) for our half nine start. We had a good time playing polo, qualifying for the semi-final by wining two, drawing two and losing two games. Our semi was a hard fought game against Galway Kayak Club, but we just couldn't manage to break down their zone, and three breakaway goals saw us lose 3-0.

Our 3rd/4th play-off game, was against a team who had just lost some players, and it was starting to rain, so we generously offered to play a game of rock-paper-scissors instead of polo to settle the tie. Most ungenerously of them they won 2-0, ensuring that we finished in 4th.


The 3rd/4th place play-off got caught on camera.

The plan at that stage was to move on to Easkey for some surfing, but lack of surf put a dampener on that one, so it was back home to Dublin in the hope that the rain had hit Wicklow.

Back to Paddling and Lv. 3 Instructer!

Haven't updated this in a while so here's a rushed version of what I've been up to for the past few months!

Apart from studding and working on college assignments I've got a bit of paddling done. My shoulder seems to have finally fully recovered and I've got out for a few club trips on the Boyne and Avenmore. I also got one good day up in Wicklow with Oisin and Ger from Wild Water, where we ran the Annamoe at a perfect level and than paddled the bottom section of the Glenmcnass at a very high level.

Oisin got a video of the day, not great quality, but an idea what levels were like.



I also got my Level 3 Instructor assessment last weekend and I was quite happy to pass that. The assessment was though, two tiring days. Day one was all about rescue skills and personal paddling at the sluice. The second day had us leading a group down the Liffey and training them up in Level 3 skills. Was a good two days to take a break from the monotony of study. Next up now is my exams, than hopefully a summer with plenty of paddling!