Freestyle Kayaking by Bartosz Czauderna. Kayaking, traveling, lifestyle. Living the life! : Porto! aaah, Portugal*

As I couldn’t go to Uganda this year I was looking for some alternative to practice my endurance. On the end of the year my cousin Bestia has mentioned the trip they were planning for a while now and asked whether I would like to join. The idea was to go to Portugal as no one from Poland been creeking those rivers there yet and I’ve seen recently couple of some greate footages from that area so I was definetly in! At this trip team consisted of Arbuz, Kornel, Bestia, Topik (aka Świnia trufłowe [truffle pig], Łuki, Michał, Wiktor & me! We also had famous Lisek along but as he suffered surgery last week he had to give it up.

As we were looking for cheapest flights we’ve choosed to fly to Lisbona with Ryanair from Warsaw with Ryannair. [b] !TIP![/b] It turns out that you can fly boat with Ryanair for ONLY 30 euro as small sport equipment! This worked twice with super overloaded creekboats. [B]!TIP![/B]. They have just asked the length and weighted it but we just said it is for surfing the ocean. We tried to stay under 25kg but we didn’t really managed it, we just put first lighter boat for weighting and the rest just went through!

Lisbona has greeted us with beautiful sun and 16 degrees which for middle of February was very satisfying especially comparing to Polish circumstances at that time. We were lucky to get 2 cars with relings and as we had 4 (!) different roof-racks with us, we didn’t have problems at all with loading up the boats!

We went to nearby mall to get shopping and some car charger for camera as we were lacking one. Although we’ve had problems parking around it – the driver has stayed at place marked not for parking and for over a hour there was not problem at all. After repacking we’ve taken direction – north to start kayaking from the morning next day.

Our plan to organize the trip was relying on gauges which you get at aguasbravas.net – it seems they are updated weekly on Fridays. Unfortunetly as we arrived Friday and left after a week – they didn’t get updated at all during this time so we’ve faced a challenge as our local contact from the page didn’t respond to calls. We still had two guide books - one about Portugal – Portugal Kayak and one about Galicia – Kayak en Galicia. Mostly we were relying on Portugal Kayak as it had nice description and in most cases good maps which we could match with google maps & road map we’ve had. We got to northern region agreeing to decide which river to run first in the morning as most rivers that we were interested in were within close range. It’s said to be illegal to camp in National Parks in Portugal but if you look carefully you can find nice places to do it. First night we’ve spent in woods near Peneda area nearby some local camping. But later we’ve learned that hanging around public parks or churches gives nice places to eat like benches or even covered areas which are mostly also good for sleeping – which is good thing to remember if you plan going there.

First choice we were considering were Mouro (IV (5)) & Peneda (V) but for warm up we took Mouro first. The put in is at and take out is at. The river described as (IV(5)) in my opinion was around III+/IV with two X’s that we’ve carried. But the second one keeps coming to my mind as runnable – at least I have good reason to come back! Have to be kept in mind that we had probably low water level for that run.

We’ve also struggled as we brought camping gas torch and as we couldn’t get the bottles in the shopping mall we been to we didn’t have any tea for the morning and it was just few degrees over zero while sleeping outside. So after first river we’ve split – one team went to check Castro river levels and the other one drove with a mission for gas bottles. First we went to Melgaco where from we had to go Moncao. The issue here was that those were not big cities and shops in great number were already closed early afternoon as it was saturday! When you go to spain/portugal - keep in mind that great number of shops closes early on saturday and completly on sunday! Although we’ve been finding some bottles or gas torches at bigger markets - they were not matching themselves so we had to keep looking for. As the late afternoon was approaching we were already worried that we are going to skip both dinner today and tomorrow but with help came here big Chinese shop in Melgaco. Literally you could find there everything! Even the torch for repairing the boats later. Happily we came back with shield and catch up with rest of the crew.

On the second day we woke up under the layer of fresh hoarfrost as it got below zero in night but after refreshing morning with solid breakfast we were ready to hit second river on our target map – Peneda(V). It was definetly nicer run but in order to run it you have to walk from the village and then from described bridge in a guide book it’s quite a slow & extending paddle down as the river isn’t hard but has a lot of stones and is quite narrow and because of the water level we’ve had to take it in order to get to Peneda river. But after connecting together with that side river Peneda is just beautiful and offers great run of in my opinion class IV/IV+ which I really loved. Keep in mind that we had LW again. It ends in a same lake that Castro does and then you have to make a long paddle to the village on the right side – as described in a guide book.. Although you can get out on the road – notice there is no connection any close to it and you should carry the boats up straight away along with your drivers who does the shuttle.

Third day we went for Vez river (V+(6)) which is described as one of Portugal’s pearls. Again we’ve had LW for it but anyway the run is steep and has some great rapids starting with backbreaker and followed by really fast runs without place to stop. Then there is waterfall with T landing where you seem to land straight on big rock if you go straight. I’m really wondering if it is actually runnable? Maybe with more water than we’ve had it’s possible to jump to the left. As it was still early we’ve decided to run also a bottom part (IV+). It wasn’t bad but for this part it was definetly too less water but it was great to see a bit more of river and spend more time paddling.

Next day we’ve already found good water level on Castro (V) and decided to run the top part first. It was really great run – starting with big rapid consisting of 4 slides with a mean hole in the middle. Here we’ve spend long time scouting it and trying to make my mind how to do it but as I was already goin to my boat we’ve been caught up by French crew which defined the lane so I jumped between them. Later on we’ve had two smaller slides leading to 8m slide where I’ve nearly caught a tree in between and then S section with fast and super narrow passage. Everything was going fine straight leading us along with our French friends to big rapido-fall which were big unnrunable X. Luckly together we made a safe passage jumping 10 meters to the lake without boats and throwing all kayaks in. The next rapid is a portage as well , the boats got roped this time and we had a path on the side. Both are portaged on the right side. Then the river calms down definetly – it goes to class III+/IV

Other day we decided to hit third pearl of Portugal – Rio Cavado (V). It’s described as aquapark and it was definetly a nice run although not too demanding but still it has provided us great day on the river with a lot of slides , small drops and topogans.

And for the last day we went for famous lower castro section which is definetly describing what I do love about creeking! The put in is at the place of last run’s take out and take out is at the lake that Peneda drops in as well but this time on the left hand side. The run is just amazing it starts calmly for 4 kilometers then leading into some nice sections just next to the famous triple waterfalls. All the falls are runnable and you take all of them on left hand side, landings are aired and soft and the pools below are big enough to take time for everything. The trickiest part is the last one – although it’s always working with great landing and everything – it’s very hard to scout. You would either need to do it from the top scounting all three of them or we have managed for one of us to jump out after the second one on slippery rock and take a look what is happening as the waterfall is just behind the turn with small hole but all of us had a good lines even though I got pushed far right – it all ended up nicely and smoothly but you have to take in mind that you probably gonna run it a bit blindly. Also for us - the weather was quite rainy, so without that it would be probably a bit easier to check on that fall.

Anyway that was cherry on the cake for our trip, we’ve loved the wine, food, nature and of course the rivers! It’s been great adventure and definetly we are already looking forward to take up next one – this one region above – to Galicia! But that’s plan for next winter already! Now it’s time to get back into playboat and focus on preparation for European Championships!