Travelling Adventure Video

Rafting Video

I have created a video of the footage from our rafting adventure, please click on the video or follow the link below

USA – There And Back Again

This morning we departed Philadelphia, and travelled by bus to New York. This journey was the shortest of our trip at only 2 hours. We. Soon arrived in New York, and we’re ready to travel across the city towards the airport.

We took the subway from the bus station all the way to Jamaica (the district of NY) JFK Station. At this point I parted ways with Sam, Stephen and Steph and took the airtrain towards the airport. It was a disappointing moment as our adventure was finally over, it has been fantastic, I am now exhausted.

When I arrived at the airport I discovered that due to the baggage handler strikes my flight was to be delayed by at least 5 hours until 3:20am. I was given the option to check in for that flight or to queue for a possible earlier flight. I decided to try the wait, and lots of other Camp America people were doing the same.

After about 3 hours of waiting we were told that they had found 60 spare seats on an American Airlines flight and we could swap to this new flight. I accepted the offer and was given a £250 voucher for a future Virgin flight. This was great, but it did present another problem…American Airlines operates from a different terminal, and the flight departs 2h earlier than my original flight, giving me very little time to get there!

I quickly took the airtrain to Terminal 8 and checked my bag in with American Airlines. After a long queue for security I was finally nearly ready for my flight. I quickly bought some snacks and some gifts from the shop before grabbing a quick McDonalds and waiting in the departure lounge.

Just as I finished eating I needed to queue to board the plane, and eventually I was onboard. The plane was cool, it seemed very new, with an advanced entertainment system, wifi (pay) and plug sockets. The flight was about 6.5h, which I attempted to sleep for, with little luck.

I quickly went through customs before reclaiming my bag and entering the arrivals hall. After instructions from Mum I headed to the pick up area and quickly was on my way back towards Lowestoft. After a fairly short journey in the car I arrived home and was able to sleep and recover from my busy days travelling and jet lag.

The trip is now over, it has been awesome, I now have the next 2 weeks to catch up with everyone and sort our stuff before starting university! I will upload photos and videos ASAP.

Philadelphia – Penultimate Day in USA

This morning we left Washington Dc and travelled to Philadelphia for the final stop of our three week adventure. This is the penultimate day (for me), and the last full day in the USA.

Firstly, after checking out of the hotel we needed to reach Union Station, which was the other side of the city. Our route consisted of a journey on the tube, a changing of tube lines before reaching the station…the difficulty; this was during the busiest part of rush hour. When we were on the first tube it was very crowded with lots of city workers all on their way into the city centre, this made it a bit difficult. After a brief stop when Stephen felt sick we reached the Metro centre to change lines. Luckily after a 5 minute rest Stephen felt well enough to continue on our way.

The second part of the journey was much more comfortable, with much fewer people, so we could sit down. We arrived at Union Station, and quickly found our way to the busses.

We found that our route had been scheduled 30 minutes later than when we originally booked, but this was not a problem. We boarded the bus and then were shortly on our way.

The bus was a quick ride, only 3h (which seems very quick compared to our 20h journey from Beckley to DC), so was a nice journey. The greyhound stop is central in the city, so it meant that it was easy to walk to our hotel which is only 8 minutes away. The hotel seems very posh, we were lucky to get a good deal with Expedia. We checked in before heading out to explore the city.

The first stop on our tour was the Liberty Bell, this is a very symbolic icon of American Independence, which was interesting to see, however, without it’s history it would just be a bell (a fairly small bell at that!) but I was pleased to be able to see this famous exhibit.

After this we continued on past Independence Hall then Independence Mall (a small shopping centre with 6 of the same type of touristy shop). When Sam asked to find an ATM, this made me remember that we were able to visit the US Mint.

The US Mint is the location were all of the countries money is produced (although there are a few satellite sites). This was really interesting to explore as we were able to get an understanding of the methods used to create the money we have been using here every day.

We returned to the hotel to get changed into smarter clothing for our final big meal of the trip, at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is situated just around the corner. This was a fantastic meal, and a great way to “finish the trip”, this tasted great and really did sum up typical American Food.

After returning to the hotel, me and sam decided to make use of the hotel swimming pool and to swim some lengths before relaxing in the hot tub. This swim was very refreshing. After this we returned to the room and packed our bags. This is the final time I need to pack my bag, it is heavy at just under the weight limit, but does mean that I do not need to get rid of anything else!

Tomorrow I start my journey home, which will be exciting, the trip has been really awesome and a fantastic experience. More of a summary coming shortly, please see the next post 🙂

Exploring DC (UPDATED)

Today we have been exploring the city of Washington DC, visiting some iconic buildings and landmarks.

After eating breakfast we departed our hotel and walked to the nearby tube station. We journeyed into the centre of the capital and began our exploration. The first stop on our tour was the White House. This was quite cool to visit, although it did not look very different to any normal buildings, although it did have a very high police presence outside!

We continued on our way towards the National Mall, on towards the Capitol Building. The route passed some important buildings and major headquarters, even a few embassies. The Capitol building was impressive, the structure was very iconic.

After this we returned to the National Mall, and revisited the Museum of Natural History, and explored some of the bits we missed yesterday. There was an awesome exhibition of some cool landscape photos (from a competition), there was a guy who started to speak to us (hearing out English accents). It turns out he was the director of the competition; he asked us about what we thought about the photos and also asked us to send him a photo from our travels, hopefully we have some good photos!

After this we continued on to visit what is in my opinion the most boring place on the planet; an Art Gallery (The National Gallery). This was incredibly boring, there was lots of modern “art” which was so awful it annoyed me! I much preferred our 8 hour greyhound delay. The most exciting bit was the sign which led to the exit, this was the best bit of the entire place. However, I think some of the other may have found it partially interesting.

It was great to have exited the art gallery, we were starting to get hungry (only a snack for lunch), so we went in search of food. We found it difficult to find restaurants in central DC, we we decided to walk to Georgetown, which was a 1-2h walk.

When we arrived in Georgetown we waked along the high street in search of food, there were lots of good shops, but we found it difficult to find a restaurant we all could agree on. In the end we decided to eat at an Italian restaurant. This was a tasty meal, even though it was a bit of a small portion for the price.

Finally, we walked back into central DC before taking the subway to our hotel. As we were waiting to cross a road there were about 20 police bikes and cars in convoy with some large vehicles with blacked-out windows, we think this was The president, Barrack Obama on his way to the white house ready for his speech that evening! This has been an interesting day (well…except that art gallery), tomorrow we continue onwards towards Philadelphia, for our final day of city exploration.

Afternoon in DC

After our early morning arrival in DC, we got some sleep and then we decided to head out to explore some of the city.

We took the subway to the Smithsonian museum complex that is alongside the mall. Firstly we went to visit the Museum of Natural History (via a toilet stop at the Museum of American History). This was really interesting, with exhibitions ranging from sea creatures, to geology and everything in between. There was so much to see, but we were quick in order to explore some other place.

After finding some lunch we continued along the mall to find the Museum of Air and Space, another interesting place with a range of exhibits ranging from early flight and the wright brothers, all the way to modern technology, and space exploration. This was a great place to visit, again so much to see.

After the museums closed at 5:30 we walked along the mall towards the Washington Monument, then on to the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pools. This was all good, it is an iconic area of which many famous speeches have taken place, from Martin Luther King to Forrest Gump.

We returned to the hotel, and quickly went to sleep after our tiring day of travel and exploration.

Are We There Yet?!?… Part 2

The last 24 hours have been very tiring, with an 8h delay on our bus.

Firstly, we woke up early ready to leave the hotel (from the taxi we booked last night), the taxi did not turn up, we rang the company and they said the driver allocated was late to work, so they sent another, we were eventually picked up and dropped off at the Beckley Greyhound bus stop.

The bus stop was just that, a stop, with a bus shelter and portaloo. The only sign telling us it was the greyhound was a cardboard plaque with “Beckley Grayhound” (yes, spelt incorrectly!) made by the locals. There were a few locals waiting at the bus stop, some of whom were loud, but they were all friendly (a bit amused by our accents).

The bus eventually arrived and we journeyed to Wythville, Virginia, where we stopped for our first transfer. The time was about 11 am, and there was a Mcdonalds next door (and we had 1h30m wait) so we got food before our next bus…

The bus did arrive, but the driver informed us that there was a problem with the hydraulics system, so we needed to wait until it was fixed (the problem was that the doors kept opening and closing, and the manual operation did not work due to a fault. Although this is the problem we were initially told, we soon found out that this is on the same system as the busses airbrakes, so would be dangerous if not fixes.

The driver tried a total system reset and some other adjustments, which did not work. Next a mechanic was called to try to fix the problem, however this had no luck. Now we had been waiting 2h since our planned departure time. A replacement bus was requested, however, the nearest available bus was 4h away.

Because of this the bus driver sorted out ordering everybody free pizza to keep everyone happy and fed during the delay. The bus stop was literally just an office in the middle of a McDonalds car park at a service station, so there was no terminal to wait at, do we waited on the bus. We read lots of pages of our books, and the pizza finally arrived. Everyone had a pizza party on the bus (only 16 passengers), we were happy to be receiving some food. The time was now 3-4 o’clock and we were expecting the bus in a couple of hours…

However, we later were updated that the replacement was estimated to arrive at 6-7pm. We waited for a bit longer, got some sleep and rang the hotel to check we could check in late, this was all ok.

The bus arrived at about 8pm, just as it was getting dark. We transferred our bags, and boarded the new bus before departing to continue our journey after an 8h delay (9h30m stopped in Wythville).

We continued on this bus all the way to Richmond, Virginia, before exiting the bus in the terminal. We quickly went to the ticket counter, where they were very helpful and gave us tickets on the next bus to Washington DC. This bus was departing at 4 ish, so we only had to wait about an hour.

After boarding the bus we travelled to DC, arriving at 6:20 in the morning. Luckily the subway was now open again, so we were able to journey to our hotel without needing a taxi.

We eventually arrived at our hotel at 7:20, shortly after sunrise, and in time to eat the free breakfast after we had checked in to the hotel (this seemed strange checking in as other people were waking up. After eating some food we got a few hours sleep, woke up and prepared to journey into DC at 11-12 ish.

The day did seem very long with 20 hours on busses, and 24h hours between checking out of the Beckley hotel and arriving at our hotel in DC. This was very tiring, but was actually a good experience, as stuff like this happens when travelling. All future travel will seem quick compared to this.

Rafting Day 3 – Upper Gauley

Today has been an exciting day of white water rafting at ACE Adventure Resort. I have been the only one of us four crazy brave enough to take on the challenge of the Upper Gauley River.

Facts about Upper Gauley:
-2nd Best commercial white water rafting in North America
-7th best white water rafting riverin the world
-5 Grade 5+ rapids
– Lots of Grade 4 & 5 Rapids

We had an early start waking up at 5:45 to be ready for the safety briefing at 7:00 (after breakfast), after this I boarded the bus and we started our journey to the Summersville Dam (1h away).

The river trip was incredible, it started with some rapids called the initiation rapids, a collection of grade 3-4 rapids for everyone to practice their paddling before the first big rapids.

The first of the big five was “Insignificant” which was awesome. On the river the ‘scarier’ the name, typically the rapid is less dangerous, and vice versa. This was a great rapid spraying all of our raft with brisk refreshing cold water, I was in the front of the raft, so got a great ride, with lots of wash.

After this we continued further downstream, taking some runs down some good Grade 4-5 rapids. After this we reached the next of the big five; Pillow Rock. This was a huge rapid, with a steep drop in gradient, and some wild water.

Next we took on the longest rapid at nearly 1 mile long; Lost Paddle Rapid. This was a series of 4 drops and waves. on the first we rode the wave Hawaii-5-0 which was a huge wave which rushed us downstream. This was fantastic, and we ran a super line through all the rapids to get an amazing ride.

Up next was a rapid Iron Ring, which had originally been blasted with dynamite to clear a route for timber to flow downstream, this left sharp jagged rocks, which resulted in turbulent water. This was a great run, and we got loads of spray as we descended through the rapids.

This left us for the biggest, most fearsome rapid; Sweets Falls. this was a fantastic ride, the boat was completely flooded from all the wash. This was a great place to watch other rafts and kayakers attempting, with a large number of swimmers. This was the lunch stop, where we stopped at ACEs decking area with a large food platter and a great overlook of the river.

After this we continued downstream down a large selection of smaller class 3-4 rapids. When we reached swimmers rapid we got a chance to swim, which was very refreshing. Shortly after this we had the chance to jump from the cliffs into the water below, this was exhilarating and great fun.

The final rapid of the day was “Fluffy Box of Kittens” (formerly Guides Revenge until it was changed due to legal reasons) this is an awesome rapid where it is very easy to flip the raft if you take the correct wrong line. We were very close to flipping but managed to keep the raft balanced. Some of the other boats had some great swims here.

After loading the rafts and returning to ACE, showing and changing, I went back to the big tents to watch the video of the day (filmed by our kayak video boater). This was awesome, but I think I have some great videos from my GoPro, which I am excited to watch when I get home.

After reuniting with Sam, Stephen and Steph we found Eddie, the friendly bus driver who picked us up from Charleston. Eddie drove us up the mountain to our tent, we picked up our bags and he drove us to our hotel in Beckley. We had a good chat to him in the shuttle bus and he offered to drive us to a restaurant he recommended.

We arrived at the restaurant “Ryan’s”, paid $11 each for the buffet and entered. This was absolutely fantastic, there was a huge choice, of absolutely everything you could imagine; from a selection of meats, pies, pizza with every possible side dish. This selection was amazing, and the best bit was it tasted fantastic! This was not the end, there was also a huge selection of desserts, including some very nice chocolate cake. The best bit of all was seeing Stephens face when he found different foods, he looked like a young child at Christmas, so excited by all the presents and wanting to open all of them!

We offered Eddie some food, but he had already eaten, so declined, but he still sat with us an had a good chat. It was very entertaining to see the people working in the restaurants reaction when they heard our English accents, they thought it was hilariously fascinating (I don’t think they get many international visitors in Beckey). The meal was fantastic in every way, after this we returned to the hotel.

It was sad to say goodbye to Eddie, he was a legend. He has facebook so we will keep in touch, we have him a big tip, he kept trying to refuse it, but we insisted he had it, he was just so awesome. He even offered to help get us some staff discounts if we return. The other three are very happy to have an American friend, I am very happy to get another American friend in a different part of the country.

Sam and Stephen washed their clothes, I dried my rafting stuff and we have packed ready for our long journey tomorrow.

Rafting Day 2 – Lower Gauley

Today has been a phenomenal day rafting at ACE.

After breakfast we checked in, filled in some waiver forms, listened to a safety briefing and geared up before departing on our way to the Gauley River. When we arrived we took on the challenge of the river, and started downstream.

Facts about Lower Gauley River:
-3rd best white water river in North America
-In the top 8 White Water River in the World

The days rafting consisted of a mixture of Grade 3-5 rapids, some of which were super huge and powerful. All of the rapids and rocks had awesome names, from bone crusher, meat grinder and the Chainsaw, to Fluffy Box of Kittens!

At one point in the day the weather changed from warm and sunny into a torrential thunderstorm with thunder, lighting and hail. This made the trip even more exciting for the 30 minutes of rain, in which we were needed to help rescue a capsized raft from another group, this was exciting and exhilarating.

The journey finished with a grade 5 rapid called “Pure Screaming Hell”, which was a fantastic way to finish the day of rafting. After returning to shore and loading the rafts onto the trailer we were ready to go until we found that the thunderstorm had caused a tree to fall blocking the road back to ACE, however luckily we were not waiting long before it was cleared.

We returned to camp and dried off before watching the days video (filmed by an ACE camera guy in a kayak), getting dinner and heading to bed.

Rafting Day 1 – Lower New River

Today’s Rafting has been fantastic!

We have rafted down the New River, some facts are;

-The 2nd oldest river in the world
-The 4th best white water rafting river in USA
-Rapids ranging from Grades 2-5 (featuring 2 Grade 5 Rapids)

The day started with a fantastic breakfast from the ACE kitchen, this prepared us for a full day of paddling. After checking in for rafting we signed lots of paperwork covering almost any possible injury, even explosions (which must be difficult on the river). We geared up with PFDs, helmets and paddles before loading onto the bus. The bus drove us to the put-in point, we launched the raft, and we started on our adventure.

The expedition started off with a few of grade 3 rapids before we took on a grade 4 rapid. This was very exciting, we jumped lots of wave trains both forwards and backwards. We were also able to try out surfing the waves created by the rapid “big hole”.

After lots of excitement we reached our lunch stop, which was a nice beach in a large eddy. The lunch was delicious, it consisted of a wide range of cooked burgers, chicken, fish, as well as the usual sides. This was really tasty, and a great fill up after our hard work paddling.

After launching, we took on our first grade 5 rapid, this was exhilarating, and we really got some air as we jumped the waves. This was great fun, and was actually much easier than we were expecting, but that did not stop us getting a swimmer (Sam F) (although this was on one of the following grade 3 rapids).

The rafts carried us a long way down river, over lots of rapids some technical, others just powerful. However there were a number of times we were able to swim down some of the smaller rapids, which was good fun. There was a nice spot towards the end of the day where we were able to climb and jump a large boulder (16 feet) into the river below, this was daunting from the top, but exciting when we reached the water.

The guides of our trip were very fun and friendly, we also had a video boater (kayaker) who filmed us on our venture downstream. There was even one of the guides in a raft with 3 baby seats attached (with dolls, not children) for a comedy video they are filming for alternative rafting styles. There were 2 other people in our boat, then 4 other boats on the trip.

When we arrived at our get out point we loaded the rafts onto the trailer and got on the bus, waiting for everybody were ice cold drinks (cokes etc for us, bear for 21+) which was very refreshing.

After returning to ACE we had showers, got changed and headed back to watch the video of the day, which was really entertaining. We then went to dinner, which was a super tasty buffet, with lots of options from fresh salmon to chicken and beef, this was a welcome relief after a tiring days paddle. We then chilled out in the centre of ACE where there was live music etc before heading back up the mountain to head to bed, ready for another exciting day tomorrow.