Greece Kayaking – March 2016

Trip Report

This was probably my first foray into an independently organised expedition as an adult, and really provided a springboard for my future trips. Although I’d already done lots of things (and some of the quite remote as per this website), most of these had been cloaked in the more comfortable guise of gap years or university club environments. This was the first time, as a fully employed person, I’d been brave enough to give this sort of thing a go. It was liberating.

And in retrospect there was nothing really to be afraid of. Logistically it was challenging; we couldn’t find decent information on any of the rivers so identifying put-ins and take-outs took a lot of internet research and ultimately picking our own spots using Google Earth. All we had in terms of river descriptions was simple river grading – for example “the upper section is grade 4” – this isn’t much detail when the upper section is 6 hours of paddling!

I’d wanted to go to Greece for a couple of years after reading a brief statement along the lines of “Greece is filled with lots of remote multiday grade 3 gorges”. For one reason or another I hadn’t got round to it but finally we had a team together; Hannah and Tim, who I knew from uni, Dr Dave and myself.

Over the week we’d intended to paddle 4 rivers; the Erimanthos (2 days), the Aracthos (2 days), and the Kalritikos (1 day) and the Aoos (2 days). The Aoos was meant to be the culmination of the trip, a grade 4/5 river leading to a spectacular conclusion in a committing gorge. However there had been heavy rain for most of the week (and unseasonal hail at one point!) and some local raft and kayak guides we bumped into stated that it was higher than they’ve ever paddled it. We ended up swapping out the Aoos for a one day paddle on the Voidamatos – a beautiful river in a national park.

Each and every river was fantastic, and we all agreed it was some of the best paddling of our careers to date. Clean water, warm weather and easily readable rivers made a nice change from the traditional South Wales kayaking day.

I found certain elements of the trip quite stressful. I’d never done this before and felt a huge amount of responsibility for bringing my friends into this environment. All of the rivers were, in places, a long way from any road, and were often inescapable for long sections – for example the Kalritikos had a long narrow sheer sided gorge section that would have been impossible to portage or escape from.

We had a couple of scary moments but that isn’t unusual for a week long kayaking trip. We all came away from that expedition buoyed from our success and more confident in what we could achieve.