Corsica 2010

April 2010 saw my first kayaking trip to Corsica and certainly not my last.
Kayak Session boss Phillipe Doux and friends were on hand to help anyone planning the trip and helped us get sorted with where to stay and provided a handy Corsica river guide.
http://www.kayaksession.com/corsica-kayak-festival.php

Mickey, Eoin, Dave, Jim and Will enjoying a Brewski after the 16km Upper and Middle Rizzanese

Our trip began the best way a trip can, completely unorganised and everything done on the fly. No plans, just go with the flow, so we all arrived in Nice, grabbed a rental car and headed for the Corsica Ferries. ( If you plan a corsica trip, get the rental car in Corsica, the day we handed back our car was the day we read the terms and it states that cars are strictly not allowed in Corsica )
So we loaded up our new born car, we got it with only 6km on the clock, and headed off.

The Car, The Mickey and the Donkey

Our first river day was the lower Golo, a brilliant warm up run with some nice rapids to help get us into the Corsica style of paddling.

Will running the Weir on the Lower Golo

Day two was the Upper Golo, great run but was a little low, some nice drops, and great scenery.

Our first big day was Day 3 on the Middle Vecchio, this is a long boulder strewn, undercut and siphon filled run. It was tiring paddling, but an awesome day.

Each day we were hitting new rivers, Middle Fium Orbo, Upper Fium Orbo, and then it was Travo day.
What a river, good fun, some nice big straight forward drops. Some grade 5 portages. and just good craic.

Eoin on the First of the Amphitheatre drops on the Travo

Its a few weeks after the trip now. But some things have really been burnt into my mind as great experiences. The Kayak Session Party at Ernella, The Rizzanese, The Codi, the Turtle Farm Adventure, and the Adventure home after cancelled flights.

Heroes in a Half Shell

The Kayak Session party was organised to entertain all the paddlers in the area. Each night of the week, paddling films were shown and at the end, a giant shindig, with Music from the local rebel band( very similar to rebel irish music ), a big traditional corsican dinner, and much tomfoolery and feck acting, which of course we had nothing to do with. It was awesome with Kayakers from all over Europe seeing who could out party who.Kayak Session Party

The next memorable moments were the Rizzanese and the Codi. Two amazing and commiting rivers. Both rivers are due to be dammed, so they were both on the must do list, and both were also my two favourite rivers of the trip. They featured the biggest drops and the most bang for your buck on Corsica, if they are still running this time next year, i will be back to give them one last run, but it looks doubtful.Dave on the Rizzanese

Jim on the RizzaneseMickey on the Rizzanese
Finally, the trip home, on arriving at Nice airport, we learned that the icelandic people were involved in setting off a Volcano to scupper our Triumphant return home. I felt bad for everyone else in Europe seeing has how the Icelandic peoples unprovoked attack on us made everything difficult for peope elsewhere. This prompted us to put on our thinking caps, which we found after much rummaging through our gear. The decision, rent a little van, make a roof rack, and drive across France to Cherbourg for the ferry. With the worlds finest make shift rack, plenty of coffee, and everything loaded, we sped, in 4th gear( 5th wouldn't work due to overweight gear ) through the night.

The length of France in 4th Gear, poor little peugeot

We finally arrived home, sleep deprived a few days after our expected hometime, TAKE THAT ICELAND!!!!

I would recommend Corsica to anyone looking for a challenge in Whitewater, but a solid group should be comfortable on most runs. There is also plenty of intermediate runs and aside from the paddling, Corsica is still a pretty cool place.
Also, bring an Irish flag, and chat to the locals, they know more about our history than you'd believe, and they are good craic too :)