Earlier this year, Eadon engineer Tommy Moore joined a white-water rafting trip on the 1,599-mile-long Zambezi River which runs along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. About 25 people came together for the professionally organised expedition on one of the world’s biggest and most powerful whitewater rivers. 

“The idea came totally out of the blue,” said Tommy. “A friend just asked me, ‘Fancy doing this? It’ll be a mega trip!’ And I thought, yeah, I can’t say no to that.” The trip turned into a three-week adventure, with about two weeks spent living and travelling on the river. 

Tommy had no previous white-water experience, so it was a real learning curve. “I do other outdoor sports but river kayaking and rafting haven’t been on my radar.” Each day, the group camped on the riverbanks, rigged the rafts in the morning, shared tasks, and then rafted through each day. The river varied from flat calm stretches to “wild class 5+ rapids” because it took place during high water at the start of the rainy season. 

“It was kind of like being on a rollercoaster ride…the rafts had seatbelts and roll cages. I was mostly just a passenger,” he said.  

Tommy enjoyed developing new skills during the trip. “At the beginning, I couldn’t read the river at all,” he said, “but by the end, I was starting to get a sense of where ‘the line’ is and how the water was behaving. It was great fun rowing some class 3 wave trains too!” 

The group saw lots of hippos, especially above Victoria Falls, where they’re common. “They look friendly from a distance… but they’re quite powerful,” he said. “We had to travel in ‘hippo formation’, with all the rafts close together when needed. Sometimes they got a bit too close, surfacing just a few metres away, and we had to row quickly to put some distance between us and them.” 

The trip also meant spending a long time off-grid. “We were largely isolated with no other groups on the river, and just a few shared waves with fishermen on the banks. We spent our evenings together at camp, sharing stories as a group, playing ukuleles and singing the night away. One night, people from a local village visited to share traditional food and dance. It was really lovely to experience and talk to people about life out there.” 

The trip made a lasting impact; “It’s hard to pick a single highlight,” he said. “It was just one big experience.”