The Paddler ezine WW kayak collection 2013 | Page 193

We suddenly felt

like we were no
longer in Kansas. It turned out to be the most
chilled out, beautiful place we had seen on tour.
A white water utopia for any class of paddler –
something for everyone. The water was 100%
spring and the clearest run I have ever seen. A
true fountain of youth. We only had two days
here but it was a place we will do our best to
include in next year’s tour. There are
an abundance of rivers in the area
that we just had no time to explore.
The Zrmanja has it all, beautiful,
tropical flats, progressive rapids and
even two waterfalls.

Austria

We could have spent weeks in
Croatia but we had a plan and it
was time to say goodbye to our
new, crazy white water comrades
and head north setting a course for
Lienz, Austria. We drove through
the night and arrived in Austria
greeted by the sunrise. We had only
one day in Lienz, to assist with the
La Ola rodeo. La Ola are our
Austrian Pyranha dealers and it was
great to get together and talk shop
and had a fantastic day testing out
the Jeds and having fun with the
Teva cardboard race.
The line up was small, only 21 men
and three girls. Was great fun
entering a rodeo, it has been years
since my last one, session format
too, my favourite. Scored an overall
third in the men’s final that
shocked everyone including myself.
Stoked. Was nice to be standing on
the podium with my old student,
Pringle and buddy Martin Koll.
Strait after prize giving, we jumped back in the
van and drove strait to Augsburg to meet up with
our German dealer Wolfgang and Tomas Funk
from Kober paddles at the slalom course to run a
summer fate style open day with gear sales,
demos and coaching. My highlight of the day
was David taking an eight-year-old lad who had
never been in a boat before down the course in a
duo. The kid’s face was a peach as he was
slamming through holes and probably cursing
his dad in German for making him do it. He was
in good hands, David glided down the course
delivering the young man back to his father who

was ecstatic. The boy could only say one thing,
“Papa, could you buy me a kayak now instead of
a football.” Priceless

Switzerland

Our official missions were now over until we hit
Huningue but that was over a week away. We
decided to fill that week with kayaking. We
headed across and down through Switzerland to
then go back to Italy for the Teva race, all in five
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