I love it, I simply, bloody love it. Travelling to a new country to check out new rivers. It's my favourite thing to do in the world and if I'm honest, my biggest source of motivation to train and be ready to go when opportunity knocks.
When the photographer - David Sadomka, expressed an interest in exploring Kenya myself and the crew jumped at the opportunity.
Photo by David Sadomka
I have spent a lot of time in Africa throughout my life, starting out when I was sixteen years old in Uganda. Though there are obvious differences throughout the countries on such a large land mass, I find there is a collective magic shared here. A sense that time exists, but just barely and it's never something to worry about, let alone rush after. If you are in Africa and expect things to happen at similar speeds in other places you will be very frustrated, very quickly. Instead, It's better to just go with it and embrace it, Hakuna Matata and all that.
We arrived in Kenya to find a bleak rainy season this time around. The locals worried of their crops and the animals that would likely die from the ensuing drought over the next few months. Hardly what you want to hear when you have travelled half way around the world for a rain dependent sport.
Photo by David Sadomka
We chased water in the west of Kenya for our first few days, knocking off a set of waterfalls and dropping deep into the Jungle.
Photo by David Sadomka
Though western Kenya has lots of potential, for what we where searching for we knew we had to head back towards the volcanic rock found around Mount Kenya. Volcanic rock is easily eroded by the river and many of the best rivers in the world have shaped themselves from this type of rock.
We struck gold with a first descent of the upper Niamindi. I have been on a few exploration trips now, often times you won't get what you want on these trips. Finding this section of river has been worth all the busts, the cuts and bruises from bush whacking through jungles over the years. I will personally aim to go back to Kenya to kayak on this river year after year.
Asides from that we put some pieces together on other rivers that people had partly explored over the years. Mapped out some massive waterfalls to hit on the next trip and where mostly astounded with what an incredible place Kenya is for kayaking. Look out for more media dropping over the coming weeks but for now check out the SEND highlight reel from the trip here -
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