Road Trip Slovenia
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| The Great Splash and dash |
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| When this first came about with junky asking for 2 more people to fill a car to Slovenia so he could take Cerys away for a few days, it snowballed a little break turned into a full on RIVERCREW roadtrip blowout, and it certanly was. My wife said yes I could go, whoop, one car turned to three with ten buddies. When my car was confirmed and filled my initial thourt was irish? mills? I hardly know them this could be a long trip what have I let myself in for? 1200 miles of possible hell followed by 1200 miles back. True RIVERCREW style it was going wrong from the off, bloody garlic sniffing, snail eating b'satrdos blocked the ports and the trip was nearly off, but junky stepped up as well as fazz and rearanged plans last minuite to get us eurotunnel or alternative ferries, back on. My car gelled straight away all four of us decided a plan, money for fuel in my pocket, decisions were majority, sat nav was not king, we bought a map. Traveling down we listened to traffic reports and re-routed to suit and soon caught up with the others, when we met up with the chucky car (dave had to catch a ferry) exitement ruled WHOOOAA were off, Dave and Fazz allready setting sail and eating dinner as the ferry left port we were sat at eurotunnel, Chucky/Junky missed the fuel stop (100mph? slowly slowly catchy monkey) missed the duty free and junkys pre arranged euros , slowly monkey? Off the other side and enemy teritory we met Dave n Fazz at the first truck stop in Belgium, more group WHOOPS were off the convoy traveled through the night with odd stops for general laughs, "You like ferrari eh?" "ahh but THIS MUCH" poor foraign fella who Fazz met in Luxembourg services. Time and stress taking its toll and a few squibbles take place (ahh I love THE RIVERCREW) we stop for breakfast in Germany and it was a German power breakfast FIVE eggs (cos were well ard), road works split the group at Munich but some how re-gather at a service station in Austria and convoy again, a wrong turn sets us over the mountain pass from hell, chucky gone no probs my car, well it struggled 4 boats loaded, boot loaded and 2 big lads and me n mills, THANKS DAVE for helping out 2 guys walked nearly 4km vertical,I srtuggled up at 5mph 4000 rpm and hot hot engine, at the top were all good and the campsite was only minuites away. Camp lasar, Kobarid was the destination 24hours after leaving Calais and were here, tents up and time to let off steam. On site theres a bar/grill some had mixed grill some went to town/supermarket and cooked there own dinner, then we all gathered to celabrate getting there and Fazzers birthday, beer flowed we took over the bar area as usuall THE RIVER CREW are here "c'mon". usuall antics were played out new freinds met and we all retired to tents. Saturday was gonna be first day on the water (Junky and Pete allready got a sly float on friday eve) and with the mighty Soca running at nearly 200 cumecs well over high water there was tension amungst some, A twist to the tale new guy we met at the bar was tagging along with little experiance, it all brought fun and brought out PETES awesome paddling ability. Big volume, fast water, massive waves and holes, hehe was fun. At this point I should add that the trip was for a laugh (for me) not 100% paddling most had said they wanted a paddle but nothing to push there limits, so we started on grade 1/2 then 2/3 with half calling it a day the others continued down a solid grade 4. We met at the get out and had a stroll down siphon canyon, man what a scary looking place at nearly 200 cumecs. We split into groups again some paddled to the campsite solid 4, some went to town for a pizza mmmmm to all meet up on site for a easy evening at the bar. The same happened on sunday really 2 went to do some upper tribs, some went to town, some just chilled at the campsite with a plan to meet at 2.00pm for a group paddle but unfortunatly we missed each other and ended up on plan B just the sections we did on saturday, back to the site and dinner consumed and a few beers, we had decided on an early dart for the return ferry,so with camp packed and breakfast done it was 10.00 am dash for the ferry (Dunkirk) although we had 22 hours to spare we went full on for an earlier ferry, less stops more speed and a 80mph autobahn food fight followed by Fazzers request for sex bitter in a Dutch fuel stop? 14 hours after leaving kobarid and we'd arrived in Dunkirk, sneaked onto the 2.00am ferry usual RIVERCREW antics at the port/passport control " yes please stop the other cars they have drugs on board and the other car picked up illigal imagrants". food and green people on the ferry and were off the other side and HOME.... In all I went with the impression that it was not a full on paddling trip, rather a RIVERCREW weekend with good buddies/new buddies (to me) a bit of paddlin and a big road trip with giggles. It was. True to our nature of head strong egos there was plenty of tit for tat arguments which were extremely funny, I realised that letting things happen rather than dwell on what might is the best way to keep chilled and have fun. Nige and Craig are great lads (as Steve, but I knew Steve well before I hardly knew the others). Slovenia - great place Soca river - awesome Camp lasar- one of the best sites I've used. countrys we went through- England , Wales , France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria , Italy ,Holland , and off course Slovenia.. Miles covered 2500, smiles hell yeah go again hell yeah........ Big thanks to everyone who went. Big thanks to Chucky/Pete for use of mobile phone to keep me in touch with my wife Cheers from Bounce (dave) |
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