Raft Guide Courses

I have just finished 2 six day raft guide courses run back to back with Splash White Water Rafting. They were 2 great courses with some excellent people. It was totally knackering but well worth it. We now have 14 more potential raft guides in the world and members of the SRA.

The first week was a small 5 person course and the second we had 9.
Myself and Bruce ran the courses and we used a variety of rivers. We must have clocked up around 100 river miles over the 2 weeks.
We used the Orchy, Tummel, Tay and Garry.

Dave getting it wrong on Sore Tooth on the Orchy.

Me trying to attach an anchor to realise the wrapped raft.

The Campbell Wedding

Jax and I went down to North Wales on the 29th of September to join Bob Campbell and Allison Collett for their wedding near Llangollen. It was tight but we got there in the end after getting a little lost on the way. We had left Perth at 10am for a 4pm service and yes we did have to get changed in the carpark of the church kayaker style and we ran into the church just before the bride. oops.

The ceremony took place in a cool little Welsh church just outside Ruithin for and the reception was at Trevor Villa just outside Llangollen

It was a fantastic day and evening. We stayed at the White Waters Hotel in Llangollen on the banks of the River Dee.

There were friends all round. Doing the catering, PJ. Doing the photos Jason (from Canoe Kayak Magazine). Doing the music Cheese. It was a real cool get together to celebrate Bob and Ally tying the knot.

Bob with his new Father in Law.

The Best Man's job is done.

The Bride showing off her new shoes...........

The First Dance.

Congratulations to Bob and Ally. These are some of my shots but check out Tim's Blog for more.

Wheels in the Woods

Last weekend I was helping out at Wheels in the Woods. This is a SORC event held in the Borders around Walkerburn. Anyone who is not a SORC member can come along and test themselves on a variety of stages. From easy Green routes that are suitable for brand new out the showroom truck to Red and Black routes for more prepared vehicles. The Black routes needing winch equipment on board.

As it is a promotional event for SORC we are not allowed to take part but we do get to marshal and make sure no one is doing anything they shouldn't.

I was posted out a Black Route as I had the Toy with me I would have been able to help out if someone had got too stuck.

There were only 8 Vehicles that chose to try the stage I was at. It had an extreme steep slope to start with and continued up the hill into some very boggy terrain before descending back to the Forest Road through tricky tree stumps.The start was so steep that the first vehicle to try the stage snapped a winch rope and killed the solenoids. The picture above shows them trying to fix it. Unfortunately they were unable too and so had to continue just doing the Green and Red Routes for the rest of the day.

I saw some well prepared Trucks thoughout the day. One of them being this 200tdi Lightwieght buildt on a converted to coil spring chassis. It had only had it's winch fitted on the Friday before the event.Just as well. They needed it.

Tay Forest Challenge

I was marshaling at the Tay Forest Challenge at the weekend. It was only up in Pitlochry so an easy trip up the road on Friday and I met up with Bob and Helen and camp on the banks of the River Garry. Had a BBQ and crashed out ready for the fun and games of the weekend.

You Marshall a team on this event and follow them round to the special stages and make sure they don't do themselves any damage. The vehicles are not so lucky.

Team 19 in stage 22.

The Teams have to get their 2 vehicles to punches that are in very tricky places. They have punch card attached to their vehicle and the punch is on a wire attached to a tree or rock.

This means some careful driving and winching to get there.

Plenty of running repairs were carried out over compulsory 30 min lunch break. This Series 3 with 200tdi engine had driven from Cambridge to compete in the event. The owner was planning to drive it home afterwards. He is used to being far away from home. He shipped the same vehicle to Malaysia in 2003 to compete in the Rainforest Challenge.

Driving between stages on Forest Roads.

The front tyre is not punctured. They were running them at extremely low pressures to get maximum traction.

There were some very tricked up trucks at the event some that were worth 10s of thousands of pounds and this Discovery Hybrid that had taken the owner 2 years to build and had 39 inch Tyres. and full Hydraulic Steering and Winches.

The Truck's First Competitive Outing

I was out last weekend the 5th of August with the Toy. I drove it from Perth down past Glasgow to a site in Drumclog. I camped out with a group from SORC and then competed the next day.

I managed not to break anything and not embarrass myself too much either. I've taken this pic from the SORC Gallery. I think Gavin took it so thanks to him cause it makes my truck look great.
I'm looking forward to the next outing.