By Andi Brunner
Photos: Andi Brunner
and Max Irman

This winter, a friend told me about the Bzhuzha race in Georgia, a part of the Extreme Kayaking European Cup 2018. So Tom and I decided to go. I was really looking forward to this trip, mainly because it was something new as I had never been to Georgia before, so I didn’t know at all what to expect. With this article I want to provide you with some information on Georgia and the race itself.

A WW trip to… Georgia

Before the trip

As always when you have to fly somewhere, the trip actually starts at home – in this case, Austria, with booking the flight, organizing a car, trying to keep your luggage under the allowed weight, etc…

I booked the flight, which was pretty easy this time because Wizz Air is cheap and they have no problems with transporting kayaks. They do offer that you can travel without normal luggage to get it even cheaper – so I just took hand luggage and my Jackson Nirvana. On the one hand, it made all the packing easier as I wasn’t allowed to bring too much and on the other hand, it was quite a challenge because I had to pick the most important stuff. In the end my boat was way too heavy and I had to wear almost all of my clothes. But usually they don’t even check the weight, which was fortunate for me.

The Machakhela

I arriving in Georgia in the middle of the night and luckily, we found someone who picked us up at the airport. With little sleep and a lot of driving we came to the first river: the Machakhela. The Russian guys said that there is a great upper part but there is a 30-minute walk to the put-in. So we decided to go for it. After 15 minutes of hiking we were stopped by a Georgian soldier. He told us that we were not allowed to go there because we were too close to the Turkish border.

Although our Russian friends tried to explain to him that we would be descending to the river in a few hundred metres he refused. At least we didn’t have to walk all the way back because they let us join them in their truck. I had second thoughts on this as they raced along the dirt road as if there were no tomorrow – I should have decided to walk back!

In the end we paddled the middle Machakhela, which was really enjoyable with continuous Class IV with many small drops. There’s one rapid in this section you should scout since there are siphons within it.

Afterwards, at the take-out, there were some Georgian people relaxing and invited us to join them. They offered us some home-made wine and a classic Georgian food named Kachapuri. Actually we didn’t really speak to them because they didn’t understand us, however, the people are very friendly!

Food and sleep

For dinner, we went to a restaurant where the prices are very cheap, in fact ridiculously so! Two big portions and a drink for five Euros – awesome and the food is really tasty. They use plenty of meat, potatoes, cheese and butter. So we also went to the restaurant for breakfast because it saved time, tasted good and was cheap. For the night, we had a small room in a hostel but after a few days we started sleeping in the tent close to the festival site. In general wild camping is no problem in Georgia, where it is similar to Norway, the people seem to be happy when they see someone enjoying their country. We also decided to make some sightseeing time during our trip on the advice of Egor.

The Bzhuzha Race

Some days before the race we started to train and became confident with the lines on the Bzhuzha river. The Russian guys told us that the Bzhuzha is one of the most beautiful rivers in Georgia and indeed, it was really amazing! You have both easy whitewater with pretty steep and challenging rapids. There is a top section starting from the dam that is not very long but super nice. I would classify it as a Class IV+. After this one you have the middle Bzhuzha – a long continuous Class III-IV section with one solid Class IV rapid in a small gorge. It is a one-metre drop which is quite hard to boof and you go deep if you do miss the boof!