Kayak Intervarsities 2010

This years Kayak Intervarsities were hosted by NUIG in Galway. DCU went as defending champions having won last years competition hosted by UCD. Unfortunately due to my shoulder still being injured I was unable to participate myself and had to be satisfied with taking pictures!.


Me with the Varsities cup and the white-water cup that we won last year

Due to the early start to the polo, we were up bright and early for a 8.30am departure for Galway. In typical DCU Canoe club style we left closer to 9.30. Still we weren't that late arriving and shouldn't really blame that for not showing on time for our first game against UCD. Fortunately for us, UCD were sound enough to give us a replay later on in the day. Therefore our first match was against Maynooth and their Div 1 Kilcock players. Not to surprisingly we got beaten by eventual champions. Our second game was against UCD and we drew 2-2, putting us through to the quarter finals on goal difference to play UCC. UCC had a very strong team and despite a good performance we went out in the quarter finals for the second year running.


DCU in action against Maynooth

The Friday night party was in the college bar and than on to Karma nightclub! so it was a tired morning when everyone turned up to the Long Distance for an 8am registration time! we had participants in almost every class, but unfortunately the only medal position was Ashling Conway who secured a top 3 finish for the second year running, this time in the Women's HP class. Comic relief was provided by Ger, who capsized metres from the finish line!


Men's GP start in the Long Distance

After that it was of to Clifton for the Rodeo. Participating for DCU was Ronan Matthews, Ger Gleson, Ashling Conway and Ciaran O'Sullivan. The lads put in a good performance, particularly given Ashling and Ciaran had never done freestyle before. Ronan Matthews put in a good run and Ashling secured a unexpected 3rd place with the tried and tested fall over & swim combo! UL dominated the event however securing 1st in the women's event and all top 3 positions in the men's freestyle.


Ronan Matthews playing in Clifton hole

The final event was on the Sunday, and was the white-water race on the Boluisce in Spiddal. DCU's team was Ger, Ashling and Ronan. Unfortunately for us the river was low and rocks impeded on our ability to finish the race! The final shootout was made up of UCD, NUIG, TCD and GMIT Castlebar, with Paddy McGovern of GMIT wining ahead of UCD.


Paddy McGovern of GMIT on his way to wining.

Overall the event was won by the University of Limerick who put in strong performances in every event to take a thoroughly deserved victory. DCU came a disappointing 10th, but it was always going to be hard to defend our title with a number of injuries and absences to contend with. We'll be back in force next year though with the competition to be held in Cork.

Uganda Video

I have finaly managed to get the Uganda video that Chris made online. (I'm studying for exams right now so finiding ways to avoid study is well up my list of priorities)

Uganda 2009 from Kenneth Hynes on Vimeo.

WUDC Turkey 2010

This years Worlds University Debating Championships were hosted by Koc University in Antayla, Turkey and I was lucky enough to get to go along as a Judge to this magnificent event.

Koc spared no expenses in hosting this tournament, with the entire delegation (of about 1,500 people, making it the worlds largest student event) put up in the 5 star Maritim Pine Beach Resort. This fantastic venue was made even better by the fact that everything was free! Including the hotels many bars, a service which was availed of frequently by the Irish contingent.


Aerial View of the Hotel Complex

The Social events organised were amazing, the highlights being the Full Moon New Years party hosted on the beach including with a spectacular fireworks display to boot, and the closing night white themed "Atlantis Party".

Not all the nights went without hiccup though. One night we were brought to what we were promised was "Turkey's best nightclub", only to arrive at a converted industrial building with an interior that reminded me strongly of the Palace. Drinks were priced at a suitable rate to compensate for the free bars at the hotel. To top all that though it soon proved to be in fact a mafia club, and the mafia of at least 3 different nations later showed up complete with armed bodyguards.

The only regret I have was that despite spending over a week in Turkey, I got to see very little of what I'm sure is an amazing country. Free 5 star hotels are amazing, but they could be anywhere. I'll definitely be returning sometime in the near future to see more. I would have stayed for longer afterwords, but for the scheduling of my exams in January (this blog post is an attempt to postpone study!) Sadly I have a lack of Photos for all this as I have mislaid my camera, hopefully I will either find it or get a new one before I go somewhere interesting next time.

As for the debating, DCU's teams did very well. Adam and Derwin (DCU A) finished on 14 points (a very respectable score) while Declan and John (DCU B) finished on 12, that despite Declan having to miss 4 rounds with a nasty bug that was going about. I got to Judge good rounds throughout, and even got to be a chair judge which I'm happy about.

Scotland 2009!

On the October bank holiday weekend a group of us headed over to Scotland to see what whitewater it had to offer! DCUCC members Aisling Doherty, Trevor Ebbs, Brian Mc and I joined up with former DCUer Steve Fahy and a group from Wicklow Mountain Kayak Club.

We set of from a very rainy Ireland early on the Friday morning intending to hit the Scottish rivers by sometime in the afternoon. The journey to the ferry was not without incident though with Brian sleeping through his alarm and making the 3 hour journey from his gaff in Wicklow to Belfast in just under 2 hours!

Such pace was not found on the Scottish side of the pond however and much faffing and a few wrong turns lead to us looking at a dirt low Orchy far too late to get on it anyway. We were not comforted much by news that Wicklow and Kerry were pumping in our absence. So we made our way to our bunkhouse to relax in the sauna with some 2% water like liquid which we were dubbed into purchasing by its ridiculously low price tag combined by the label which identified it as beer!

The next morning was we were up bright and early and off to run the Etive! The Etive is one of the most photogenic rivers I have ever seen as well as being one of the most fun to paddle ever! It starts off with the imaginatively named triple step.


Clara Cleaning the Line on the last drop of Triple Step!

It was then on to a further series of fun drops, all imaginatively named, letterbox (keep left unless you want to get "posted"), Crack of Doom (a drop into a small gorge which looks like a crack in the ground, one that you'd want to consider some rescue on :-) ), crack of dawn (quite like crack of doom) and ski jump falls (guess what it looks like?).


Myself doing rescue on Crack of Doom

The river than reaches its biggest and most impressive fall, the 35ft(ish!) Right Angle falls. Unfortunately my line was a little less impressive and I rolled both above and below the drop.


Trev running right angle properly!

Right angle is almost the end of a fantastic river, but there was one more surprise waiting for us where on the last drop Trev decided to ignore the "the lines on the right" signal and ran it left attempting to wear down some Scottish rocks with his elbow. Perhaps unsurprisgly the Rock won (Scottish Rocks 1- Kayakers 0) and we had the first (and only!) DCUCC swim of the trip!

Leaving Trev in the car to recover the rest of us trekked up an Etive tributary called the Allt a' Chaorainn. It's described in the guide book as "more bizarre fun than should be legal!", and it certainly lived up to that promise! It's packed with fun slides and drops. All great fun until Aisling decided to try and revenge Trev's defeat to the rocks by attacking one with her boat. Once again however the rocks proved stronger than expected and it was Rocks 2- Kayakers 0.


Brian Mc running "pinball" on the Allt a' Chaorainn

The next day the rain had finally arrived from Ireland and levels had risen drastically, which meant that we abandoned our plan to run the Roy Gorge and went off to do the An tSuilleag. A great fun little river, with a bit of everything on it. The top rapid was the only difficult one on it which Steve F, Brian Mc and myself ran (relatively!) cleanly. This inspired Jim Ryan of Wicklow Mountain Kayak Club to give it a go, however once again Scottish Rocks proved the downfall of a kayaker making it 3-0 to the rocks and causing a rough looking swim and a lost bung!


Steve Fahy on the top drop of the An tSuilleag


At this point it was decided to split the group with some going of to run the Gary while Brian, Trev, Aisling and I decided to run the Roy, the river we decided not to run earlier. We were not put of running it by the large number of Scottish groups making the rather demanding walk out of the gorge, and put in 3 hours before darkness! The Roy has to be one of the best rivers out there, it was great fun with a few set piece rapids before the gorge, a demanding line through a nasty looking rapid at the start of the gorge (I portaged this one, but kudos to Brian and Trev for running it along with another ex-DCUCC member Alex Stanley who we meet on the river.)And than a great continuous run through the rest of the gorge. We just made it off in time to avoid paddling in the dark but it was a fantastic run a well worth doing again. (Apparently it was a few feet above the level described as "Very High" in the guidebook!) Unfortunately no pictures of this one as we were tight on time. In a side note another bump appeared on Aislings boat, making it presumably rocks 4- Kayakers still nil.

Our last day was Monday, where we set of early to get a paddle in on the Orchy which, had risen since Friday, before we set of for our ferry. The Orchy is another good river (but no Roy, Etive or Allt a' Chaorainn). The main rapid on it was shallow and contained many Scottish rocks. Given our track record it was walked by many, but Steve Fahy, Aisling and Trev gave it a go. They had nice looking lines through it, but the shallow landing took its toll with further marks on Ais and Trev's boats making it 6 to the rocks. Steve appeared to get through fine however so there was a consolation point to the kayakers at the very end!


Aisling boofing on the Orchy

After that it was the long drive home, been miles to early for the ferry (Never thought that would happen) and eventually home to sleep of the weekend!


Me on the Etive