On arrival, we began learning rescue techniques which would be drilled into us over the next two days, with special emphasis placed on self recovery, team work to recover casualties at speed (the river moves them at about four metres per second, so you have got to be quick) and leadership on moving water.

The leadership aspect is probably the most important, and the course introduced the concepts of communication in an environment where you cannot hear people but need to prevent dangerous situations arising by placing yourself in a position where you can be of most use, whilst keeping a line of sight with your team.

Some of our group moved onto more advanced water called the "Graveyard" due to the number of uncovered boulders. We started by playing follow-my-leader to warm the group up. We then took turns to lead the team, concentrating on the more demanding sections and route choice. After getting used to the strength of the river, we moved on to more challenging sections further down the course, past the gentler waters and into the river’s heart.

As we arrived at one of the bigger features, we were all apprehensive - and especially the youngest who was 15 and had never done anything quite like this before.

The group ran the first four features without any problems; then we came to the ‘ski slope’. We got out of our boats and scouted the route, after deciding on the best line to hit the wave and miss the unfriendly looking stopper at the bottom of the slope, the group ran the ‘ski-jump’. The rookie went over the top, straight into a wave and went over. From the bank, eyewitnesses said "It looked as though he did an impressive cartwheel". When he emerged, it was evident that he had got bashed around a bit by the rocks and water. However, this gave us an ideal opportunity to put the white water rescue techniques into use and the group soon had him back in his boat.

To prove that swimming in a retentive stopper wasn’t much fun (but well worth practising) the group headed down to Chapel Falls to work through a host of different ways to recover swimmers held by a river hydraulic. This proved to be a worthwhile but rather daunting exercise; it’s difficult to swim, float or even breathe with lots of foamy water re-circulating you in the river – it must be what being on the inside of a washing machine feels like! However, everyone agreed it was one of the most useful parts of the trip.

Everyone said their goodbyes at the end of the weekend’s paddling, with new friends made and many concepts to take away for future river running. It was a very worthwhile expedition, and the group were now looking forward to the winter season’s paddling armed with new safety, leadership and kayak handling skills.

Able Cadet Sam Pickup (Age 17) – Southampton Unit, Leading Cadet Greg Randall (Age 15) – Bournemouth Unit