After a number of mini-adventures on bikes with the Howarth boys we decided to go for an all-out adventure into Virachey National Park. The original plan to do a 4-day kayak trip was postponed after a series of unfortunate accidents/calamities that occurred to Tim including him gluing his fingers together with superglue, ruining his shorts, wiping chilli in his eye and then ending the day with spectacular vomiting…. I didn’t laugh once. Honest. The trip started out with Tim, Andy and I on the back of motos with Chris on his own…. After an amusing banter between father and son about the fact that Tim was silly to be wearing shorts and flip-flops on a bike the now legendary line “this guy hasn’t fallen of for over 30 years, I’m not worried” was heard. Half an hour later my moto driver stopped, turned round and returned to the scene of the accident…. Tim wasn’t really hurt as he’d used his moto driver as a landing cushion and luckily (?!) the whole thing had happened in front of a group of policemen. About an hour later, several cups of tea, an ear cuff for the offending driver and Findlay getting peed on by a baby, we were off again. What a good start… After a 2h comedy scramble on the bikes through mud, water, thorn bushes etc. we got to the drop off point. We waded across the first river with little problem and got to the bamboo raft at the second deeper, wider, fast-flowing river in good time. Andy and I got on first with the ranger and local guide because the raft looked unsafe for all of us to get on together…this was an understatement…as soon as we left the bank it started to unravel…the end I was at undid first…the guide lost the cooking pot which I caught as it floated past me…as I fell in wearing my rucksack… I’m sure those of you who’ve seen me in similar conditions can imagine how happy I was – woof! I laughed a lot then I got cross. It wasn’t pretty. ‘Nuff said?

Overall, a fantastic trip which lead us into an infrequently visited area of beautiful rainforest. We camped by an amazing waterfall on the first night and an even more stunning stretch of rapids on the second. We spent the nights in hammocks with mosquito nets after chilling out on the rocks, star-gazing. Wow. I felt/feel so incredibly lucky – I hope some of you get the chance to do this too.