Page 39 - Wish Stream Year of 2016

nal night of the trip. Camping out was good fun as it allowed us to enjoy living with nature with- out the additional stresses of being on a tacti- cal eld exercise. We cooked our rst outdoor meal of spaghetti Bolognese using the cookers issued for the expedition. The conversation was lovely and we all sat around enjoying the land- scape surrounding us. For the remainder of the trip, we stayed in another village called Undredal. This was a luxury as the campsite had showers and toilets. On the majority of evenings, we used disposable barbecues to cook our food, and it is not an exaggeration to say we ate like kings and queens.
The toughest challenge faced by everyone on the expedition was ‘rolling’. The idea behind this is that if the kayak capsizes, we needed to be able to put ourselves back upright without having to remove the spray deck, hence lling up the kayak with water. On his rst attempt to demonstrate this skill to us, our instructor Nick failed to complete the manoeuvre, showing just how dif cult it can be to get right. The majority of the members of the expedition showed enough stubbornness and determination that by the end of the trip, they could complete a roll. The proud- est achievement though was OCdts Jenkins and Curtis completing a synchronised roll, an achievement guaranteed to get many likes once the video is shared on social media.
On average, we kayaked 15-20 kilometres a day through the fjords, classed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Every day our instructor would challenge us with various exercises designed to improve our control over the kayak. Overall, we all felt that our skills signi cantly improved over the trip. All nine of us left Norway with the full intention of returning one day to further discover more of this incredibly beautiful place, preserved in all its natural perfection.
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