Day 1 on the water

So today we hit the water for the first time, five canoes, three paraplegics, three walkers (as they call us) and four guides. Just by setting off on this trip we set a Guinness world record as this is never been done before so as soon as the three guys were on the water that world record was secure, which is very exciting!

The weather was actually in our favour for the first day. we had quite a lot of cloud cover which protected us from the beating sun but still very hot and very, very humid. Plenty of water taken with us and plenty of stops if we need to.

The guides have been fantastic And really know the river well so it’s just a case of following them and listening to their instructions. The wildlife is absolutely incredible, literally everywhere you look there’s something to see. hippos were the most common sight.

You could hear them miles before you saw them and usually they were in big packs on the sandbanks where it’s a bit shallow just keeping out the Sun, occasionally you see alone hippo we have to be careful of these as usually it’s a bull that has been kicked out of their pack, so they can be very territorial.

We also saw plenty of crocs, they tend to stay out the way, but we did get closer to one that was on the bank so we got in to have a little look at him and he eventually swam off in the other direction. Where we stopped for lunch we saw baboons and we also saw impala and more impressive a family of elephants having lunch by the river. so we actually stopped for our lunch opposite the elephants having their lunch on the other side of the river.

This trip obviously has its dangers and we did actually have one slight accident! We came across a submerged tree trunk in the middle of the river that we didn’t spot until very late and the back boat, with Liam in it, actually hit the tree trunk and tipped over. so Liam ended up in the water which is all a bit of a panic because we first thought was that a hippo that they’d hit. We were very close to it when we past it. We were about to go over it when I spotted the ripples very last minute and dug in to turn the boat away, but when I saw the tree trunk pass next to me I thought it was a hippos nostrils so so freaked out a little bit, but just managed to steer away from it. unfortunately Liam and his guide - Stuart, didn’t quite hear the warning to stay away and went right over it. It tipped the boat up, and Liam and Stuartcwere in the water. everything was okay, Stuart actual stood on the trunk holding the boat and Liam got back into the canoe. We had to catch a few things floating down the river was fine. He can swim and managed to get back into the boat but we then obviously had to empty of water so quick trip to the bank to empty it all out was needed.

We’ve actually done about 35 to 40 km which is the most these guides have ever done in one day. I think the weather helped us because it wasn’t so baking hot in the Sun but we actually caught up with the group that left the day before us. It  has taken them two days to get to the camp that we got to in one go! The guides for the other group couldn’t believe we had actually caught up.

Night was incredible. The stars were absolutely amazing and very very vivid. We had a campfire and dinner and obviously it gets dark around 6 o’clock so we all hit the sleeping bags early around six around 8 o’clock.

Sleeping wasn’t very easy. it’s incredibly hot and very very humid and the sleeping bags definitely weren’t needed so ended up just sleeping on the sleeping mat The noises through the night were amazing lions, hyenas, impala lots and lots of hippos and baboons what woke me up in the morning. luckily we’re camping on an island so the only real concern from the guides were that the elephants would make it across but there’s no grass on the island it’s mostly sand to the hippos wouldn’t bother us.

Today has been brilliant fun lots of laughs and the team get on really well even when Liam went into the water he’s got a great sense of humour so after the initial panic actually it’s gonna be a story to tell when he thought he got attacked by a hippo!!

now we’re up and ready for day 2, it it’s gonna be a fun one