After two weeks of rain every day, we decided to pack up our stuff, load the car and go north to Sweden again.
We spent two awesome days in Zurich before heading south towards Interlaken and Meiringen. The rain left us climbing indoors in the town of Bulle after trying our luck on some wet and slippery rock in Interlaken.
We've been climbing every day now for the past week, rain or not. We had to go inside only once thanks to the fast drying rock in in the valley around Dorenaz, but even the indoor climbing gave us some good experience and we left with a couple of new friends.
Finally we finished the trip in Friburg with Jeremy and Sandrine, friends of Johan. We climbed the bolted routes under the bridge that goes into the city, 200 meters in one wonderful day, before packing up for the last time for the drive back home to Sweden.
We're finally back home now after a loong drive through Germany and Denmark. Now it's time to take a look at all the photos and info that we gathered along the way, to put together a little trip report for you to read.
This will be up within the next few days.
/Marcus & Johan
tisdag 11 maj 2010
onsdag 5 maj 2010
Update!
Zürich.
We are now in zürich, enjoying good times with relatives for a couple of days before going back on the road.
We had a total of 70hrs of paddling around italy. Far from our original plan, but since we only did the best parts of the coast we are more than happy.
We have seen beautiful parts of the coast, including Parco Nazionale Del Cilento, Amalfi, Cinque Terre and Como Lake. After doing half of Lago Di Como we ran into a thunderstorm and with no place to camp we had to go back to the starting point.
The weather looks bad for the next week so we figured we would try our luck climbing and kayaking aruond Interlaken here in Switzerland. The beautiful valley around the town includes views of the Eiger Nord Wand and other beautiful mountains. There are many nice climbing areas that offer sport routes between grade 4-6 and that in perfect for this wet weather.
One of our best days was by far the coast along the Cinque Terre (5 villages). It's located just north of La Spezia in nothern Italy. We had 30 degrees, sunshine, no wind and 9 hours of great paddling. A place we really recommend. Cilento national park was another highlight with water visibility of around 40 meters, beautiful rocky coast, caves and jelly fish. We will post photos and detailed info about this when we get back home.
We also would like to thank Hilleberg again for providing the tarp that we sleep under each night. With a tent, this trip would have been hard for sure, with no room for a real tent the tarp is great with it's gazillions ways of pitching over uneven ground. It even served as a great rock fall shelter one night.
Maxim's energy bars is a life saver. When paddling along stretches like Amalfi, with no place to land, it's great to have a high enery snack to bite into. So, thanks again to Hilleberg and Maxim/Intersport.
Now we drive to Interlaken and start a week of climbing/kayaking. We'll keep you updated when we can.
ciao from Marcus & Johan.
We are now in zürich, enjoying good times with relatives for a couple of days before going back on the road.
We had a total of 70hrs of paddling around italy. Far from our original plan, but since we only did the best parts of the coast we are more than happy.
We have seen beautiful parts of the coast, including Parco Nazionale Del Cilento, Amalfi, Cinque Terre and Como Lake. After doing half of Lago Di Como we ran into a thunderstorm and with no place to camp we had to go back to the starting point.
The weather looks bad for the next week so we figured we would try our luck climbing and kayaking aruond Interlaken here in Switzerland. The beautiful valley around the town includes views of the Eiger Nord Wand and other beautiful mountains. There are many nice climbing areas that offer sport routes between grade 4-6 and that in perfect for this wet weather.
One of our best days was by far the coast along the Cinque Terre (5 villages). It's located just north of La Spezia in nothern Italy. We had 30 degrees, sunshine, no wind and 9 hours of great paddling. A place we really recommend. Cilento national park was another highlight with water visibility of around 40 meters, beautiful rocky coast, caves and jelly fish. We will post photos and detailed info about this when we get back home.
We also would like to thank Hilleberg again for providing the tarp that we sleep under each night. With a tent, this trip would have been hard for sure, with no room for a real tent the tarp is great with it's gazillions ways of pitching over uneven ground. It even served as a great rock fall shelter one night.
Maxim's energy bars is a life saver. When paddling along stretches like Amalfi, with no place to land, it's great to have a high enery snack to bite into. So, thanks again to Hilleberg and Maxim/Intersport.
Now we drive to Interlaken and start a week of climbing/kayaking. We'll keep you updated when we can.
ciao from Marcus & Johan.
fredag 23 april 2010
Good times :)
Update!
A wrist that wouldn't even open a zipper after 150km of paddling made us abandon our original plans in the town of Vieste. Johan's wrist was 3 times bigger than normal and had some kind of fluid in it wich made it hard to move... must be hardware trouble he said...
Anyways, we had to look at our plan and make some changes to it... here's what we have in mind.
Instead of an "around Italy" trip, we now focus on paddling only the best parts of the coast so that the wrist can get some rest between paddling. We now do around 15-30km a day instead of 40-70 aas we did before, the wrist still gets swollen but gets good care in the evening.
We left the kayaks in Vieste after beeing stuck for 2 days on a shrinking shore benieth 100m of collapsing cliff, a very interesting experience. But with a gazillion 2 meter driftwood logs over our heads we slept like a charm, feet dry and heads intact.
We went back to Marco in Mondàvio who is Italy's most amazing person. He gave us food again and we got some good paddling advice and loaded up the car to drive 300km back to vieste.
Got the kayaks after sleeping for free in a camping that was located roughly 500 meters from the shore/cliff that we got stranded on. We went to Marina di camerota on the west coast and then we started our new adventure.
Awesome paddling the first day with big cliffs, nice beaches and caves along the coast. Went swimming and took in the sunshine and had fun in 2 meter high loooong waves.
Second day was a bit different, not as dramatic of a scenery but the water gave us roughly 50 meters of visibility. The area was around the northern point of the same peninsula.
We are now in Pompej and got to see the ruins here. Johans wrist could need a rest and only hurts when its cold, 18 degrees C ;) . He's enjoying a pain free time...
Tomorrow we go south again for the Amalfi coast. Weather reports are looking on the bright side and we hope to get our life jacket tan within a couple of days.
Then it's north for Roma for 2 days before going to a Vinery in Siena. Then we will paddla for a week around Cinque Terre, a.k.a The 5 villages.
After that we head up to the lakes of Garda, Como and Maggiore. We plan to spend a week paddling there.
It will not be as planned, but you can certanly look forward to a great story with lots to tell about Italy's most awesome paddle places!
And by the way. Marcus has learned to drive like a true italian :)
Ciao from us! Johan & Marcus.
A wrist that wouldn't even open a zipper after 150km of paddling made us abandon our original plans in the town of Vieste. Johan's wrist was 3 times bigger than normal and had some kind of fluid in it wich made it hard to move... must be hardware trouble he said...
Anyways, we had to look at our plan and make some changes to it... here's what we have in mind.
Instead of an "around Italy" trip, we now focus on paddling only the best parts of the coast so that the wrist can get some rest between paddling. We now do around 15-30km a day instead of 40-70 aas we did before, the wrist still gets swollen but gets good care in the evening.
We left the kayaks in Vieste after beeing stuck for 2 days on a shrinking shore benieth 100m of collapsing cliff, a very interesting experience. But with a gazillion 2 meter driftwood logs over our heads we slept like a charm, feet dry and heads intact.
We went back to Marco in Mondàvio who is Italy's most amazing person. He gave us food again and we got some good paddling advice and loaded up the car to drive 300km back to vieste.
Got the kayaks after sleeping for free in a camping that was located roughly 500 meters from the shore/cliff that we got stranded on. We went to Marina di camerota on the west coast and then we started our new adventure.
Awesome paddling the first day with big cliffs, nice beaches and caves along the coast. Went swimming and took in the sunshine and had fun in 2 meter high loooong waves.
Second day was a bit different, not as dramatic of a scenery but the water gave us roughly 50 meters of visibility. The area was around the northern point of the same peninsula.
We are now in Pompej and got to see the ruins here. Johans wrist could need a rest and only hurts when its cold, 18 degrees C ;) . He's enjoying a pain free time...
Tomorrow we go south again for the Amalfi coast. Weather reports are looking on the bright side and we hope to get our life jacket tan within a couple of days.
Then it's north for Roma for 2 days before going to a Vinery in Siena. Then we will paddla for a week around Cinque Terre, a.k.a The 5 villages.
After that we head up to the lakes of Garda, Como and Maggiore. We plan to spend a week paddling there.
It will not be as planned, but you can certanly look forward to a great story with lots to tell about Italy's most awesome paddle places!
And by the way. Marcus has learned to drive like a true italian :)
Ciao from us! Johan & Marcus.
måndag 12 april 2010
Day before departure :)
Today has been a busy day. Two newspaper interviews, a lot of packing, a lot of unpacking, shopping and bathing in the warm sunshine!
We are finally ready to go! We found the most amazing Italian guy named Marco on the east coast of Italy. he will help us getting started and we thank him and we also thank Jocke who helped us get in touch with him, you are awesome!
We got one of the papers to post our stuff right away, you can see it here http://www.skanskan.se/article/20100412/ESLOV/704129882
We leave tomorrow morning for denmark, then we'll make our way to Italy through a sunny and beautiful Europe, arriving early in the morning after 24 hrs on the road.
We also wanna thank Intersport in Eslöv and Maxim for giving us enery bars that not only give you energy, but they also taste awesome!
We will post photos as soon as possible and then let our friends in sweden post most of our entries for us here on the blog.
Nice to see we have 2 followers!
Ciao, Johan & Marcus.
måndag 1 mars 2010
Presentation
The two paddlers are...
Johan Nordholm
Guide/photographer/snowmaker who likes being out and about. Climbing has long been my main interest and I see this trip as an opportunity to experience something new. A few years ago I rode my bicycle from Herräng to Zurich, that was 2500 beautiful kilometers along the roads of Europe. This time I leave my bike at home and hope to see things from a different point of view. I will have my camera ready at all times, so keep a look out for photos from this awesome adventure!
Marcus Andersson
Guide/ski instructor who likes nearly all outdoor activities. At the moment it's mostly alpine skiing, cross country skiing and ice climbing, but as we move into spring time I have new things to look forward to. This will be my first long expedition, so it's all a new experience for me, and I hope there will be many more to come. I'm looking forward to some beautiful scenery, nice meetings and of course some good paddling.
Read more about the plan in the post below.
The Plan
Starting on April 14 we will hit the road! Driving our car from Eslöv in southern Sweden down to Italy, with the two Prijon Kodiak kayaks on the roof.
At the moment we dont know if we will se out from the area around Genova or from Venezia, it depends on where we can find a place to park the car.
We will paddle along the coast with the intention to experience the Italian coastline in a relaxing way. This is not a race, but some days we will go hard and try to cover long distances with the help of our kayak sails of Johan's own design. These 55kr sails work like a charm and will give us a few extra knots when we want to rest a little.
We have between 4-6 weeks to finish the trip, depending on our mood and the weather.
We plan to catch at least one of the giro d'italia stages along the way as they do a couple of stages along the water.
On the way home we hope to visit our friends Sandrine and Jeremy in Friburg, Switzerland and hopefully get some good rock climbing. If not we hope to at least get some good cheese and a beer :)
We will keep you posted as we go whenever we can find internet access or when we can send text messages to someone back home.
Big thanks to Hilleberg Tentmakers (www.hilleberg.com) for providing us with a shelter, Campus Åre for lending us each a paddle and also big thanks to everyone we've spoken to on the phone and in person, We've got a lot of usefull advice from many people all over Sweden.
More information will be up shortly.
Prenumerera på:
Inlägg (Atom)
