ThePaddlerUK 76
When Beth Hume and I started planning our next kayaking adventure, we
discussed various possible destinations. Sulawesi was not one of them. In fact,
I did not even know where Sulawesi was – one quick Google later helped
me discover it is one of Indonesia's islands. Indonesia was recommended by
our friend Tim Burne, with the promise of a beautiful, cultural country and
some fairly relaxed paddling, which sounded ideal given that our initial plan
was to travel there as a pair.
Fast forward a couple of months
and I noticed Amy asking for Christmas trip ideas over Facebook. After fairly
minimal convincing she was in, and a couple of days later two of her friends,
Jenny and Susan, asked if they could join us. All of a sudden we were a
group of five.This was a pretty exciting prospect because we could now look
at doing rivers which we could not otherwise have attempted, in particular
the Lariang. Recommended by Tim as one of his “dream missions”, the Lariang
is the largest drainage in Sulawesi. The top part down to Gimpu has been
successful descended by six groups, all with rafts and all earlier in the season
when the water level was lower. We knew that now we had a big enough
group this river would be the main focus of our trip. We just had to pray for
the right conditions.
By Beth Morgan