Some places we travel to as new destinations, then leave with it feeling like home.
This was the case when I first arrived in Zambia, I felt like I fitted in to this place. I loved the lifestyle, the people and of course, the Zambezi river.
I've been on two trips during low water season and each time I left I just wanted to spend longer in this country and on this river.
With the turbulence in the world right now, myself and the Send crew had not linked up for a trip in almost an entire year. We set our eyes on finding a winter destination where we could stake out the bad times and shred and film on a river together. The Zambezi was the number one choice.
For a brief second it looked like my flight wasn't going to leave and Adrian unfortunately had to go back home to do some adulting right as I arrived but still we had three out of four of the crew + Benny Marr and it was raining, hard.
The rainy season came hard and early this season, gifting us with massive water levels. Every single day we got on the river, the rapids where shifting and morphing. Some were filling up and disappearing, others were just getting more powerful and occasionally a new rapid or massive feature sprung up out of nowhere.
You can really feel yourself getting better at kayaking and stronger on this river as you hike down, kayak in and hike up and out of the gorge each day. It is exhausting but oh so satisfying and after many of the crew had been locked inside away from the outdoors that we love it was gratifying to be back in the groove and out on the water everyday. Tired legs, arms or occasional hangovers couldn't stop us and we went out every single day.
The mist from Victoria falls kept growing as the river rose and more water spilled over it. The rain came almost everyday, which made it bloody tricky to film and capture the media we wanted to get but still we made it happen.
Myself and Benny talked a lot about the films that we grew up watching on this river and how they had inspired us. Shaky handheld footage, punk rock and savage kayaking. There was just something special about those oldschool edits! We wondered whether a new school video could live up to the videos of old...
It's happily never going to replace the older edits but I'm happy with the energy this video puts out, the vibe it gives to the Zambezi river at high flows and the memories from a trip that reminded me that no matter how crazy things get there's always always a smooth line to be found in amongst the chaos.
See you on the water,
Bren Orton
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