Thursday 19th June 2008

Wow......Tony and I have paddled all of the Grand Rapids with just one portage.......and I have to say, it's quite an exhilarating feeling!!

The Old Town canoe has been a great choice, it's felt stable even with its heavy load of gear. Today, as we paddled on one section of the river it looked like the river met the horizon and as we paddled along I decided that we would move over to the left hand side. We paddled across easily but as we got over, I saw the ledge. My mind raced as I thought "Oh no, I've done the wrong thing here" then verbalising "Oh Shit"and the tone used to verbalise certainly left Tony with no doubt that we were coming into something pretty big.

Well it was big, in fact in was a huge, huge, massive wave that spanned almost the entire width of the river. From where we were, it towered above us like a double decker bus and Tony and I had no other option other than, straighten the canoe, drop over the ledge and head straight into it.

The volume of water that slapped into Tony and onto our deck was immense. Once through it seemed like we were padding down into a valley, it was quite a spectacular feeling. Coming out of it felt as though we were trying to climb Mt Everest and it seemed to be taking forever. We had no idea what to expect once we climbed on top of the wave or what the next wave would be like. Fortunately it didn't get any worse and the waves dissipated and the river continued with its fast flow.

The fact that we came through the rapid unscathed though very wet can be attributed to some excellent paddling and given that Tony hasn't paddled anything like this before, he really needs to be congratulated. Having said that however had we known what was coming up, there is no way we would have done it. I think both Tony and I have strained buttock muscles after coming through this rapid that must have been a grade four!!

As Tony and I shot the last rapid, I looked back at an amazing scene . The two mountain ranges met and I could see a valley with the river flowing down. It appeared as though we had closed one door and opened another because as I looked forward the scenery was quite different.

We are now in a motel room in Fort McMurray after being advised against camping in this town and our canoe is behind a fenced area along with a float plane. Fort McMurray is a mining town that unfortunately has a fairly large problem of antisocial behaviour and petty theft. The town itself isn't unpleasant though I haven't yet had a good opportunity to check it out properly.

We are staying for only one night and will be back onto the river tomorrow. Though I must admit having a hot shower is a very special treat and, we've taken the oppotunity to do some laundry!!