Kate:
It was on a camp-out in July of this year with the Yes Tribe that I met Andy for the first time. At these camp-outs we would share our ideas and dreams; one of mine was to have an adventure of sorts on water, paddling a canoe, kayak or something a bit different and by the end of that evening Andy was on-board. A week later we shook hands over a pint with a firm idea to SUP paddleboard the length of the Danube, from source to sea. Skipping forward a few months and that idea and promise to each other is now taking shape and on the 1st March 2016 we will fly to Stuttgart in southern Germany and make our way to Donaueschingen to start paddling just two days later.
Our route will take us down one of the most beautiful and stunning rivers in the world to our final destination of the Black Sea. Travelling nearly 3000km we’ll pass through 10 countries, 4 capital cities and wealth of unknown excitement, all from the comfort of our paddle boards. We both love the water, but wanted to challenge ourselves with something that we’re new to (I’ve paddle boarded in Thailand, Andy in America – each time was no longer than an hour.) Our vision is to share this journey through blog posts, pictures, and video footage whilst not losing that incredible privilege of being off the beaten track and narrowing our horizon to the running water and living scenery around us.
Over the next three months we’ll be preparing for our journey, and I’ll be the first to admit that it is this section of our adventure that makes me the most nervous. Kit lists, spreadsheets, forming a website – it’s all quite alien to me but as I sit down to write this I am feeling that wonderful sense of purpose and excitement. This version of reality, stepping out of our busy London lives and placing both feet firmly on to our SUP paddle boards and the slower pace of life that is a river squeezes out any worry or doubts.
And so with that bigger picture in mind we'lI head to our next planning session, this time researching the 100 or so dams that we’ll be crossing on the Danube. I know that each of these small steps is simply a new experience and we look forward to sharing them with you as we countdown to the 1st March.
