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Video review of "The opening of the Third Eye", the latest production of Dave Kwant and Steve Rogers. This review contains 4 extracts of the video in Real video format. Nice rivers, cool paddlers and good soundtrack, what else to ask for ?

Who are they ?

Well, this is not the first time we review one of Dave's video. Have a look at Canada 2000 that PLAYAK reviewed earlier this year for instance. To say it again, the paddling scene in the highlands of Scotland is great! Nice rivers, loads of rain, and maybe more important, very nice people. "The Slugs" are just a group of mates that enjoy paddling together... a lot. Their motto is to "enjoy the ride and let the gravity do the hard work". In this trip to Norway during June 2001, only 4 slugs made it to the land of trolls and waterfalls. They were Dave Kwant and Steve Rogers (editors of the video), Heather Smith and Kev England. No international celebrity in here, just a bunch of very competent paddlers and believe us, combine this with the incredible whitewater of Norway and you get a very nice video well worth having in your personal collection.

Click to watch the official trailer for the video. Streaming Real video format. HI-FI [1800 kb] or LO-FI [800 kb]

The action

After Canada2000, we were expecting Norway2001 because "The Opening of the Third Eye" does not say much about the actual paddling in the video. So this is about Norway. Because they took the ferry with 4 people and only one car, they could take only creekboats with them so the "Opening of the Third Eye" is a pure creeking video although there are a couple of old school freestyle section (on and off the water) ...

The video is packed with creeks. We did count 12 different rivers in a 22 minute video (12 rivers in a 14 days trip, not bad guys !). That leaves the spectator with a whole range of falls/drops and lines on film that is really entertaining. As for the editing, we are no real expert to comment on it but we can just say that it does work very well. Maybe the best insight into the video is to watch the official trailer (2 streaming qualities depending on your internet connection: hi-fi or lo-fi). At last the name of each river is written on screen so that the spectator knows which one to try (or not) on his next vacation. One feature makes this video different from all the others we've seen: the comments. In a true BBC style, an off-voice comments regularly about the action, mainly to introduce the rivers. The comments are sometime cheeky to create a comedy effect that works very well indeed.

The trailer is actually the very beginning of the video, introducing the paddlers and their sponsors and after approximately 3 minutes, the action starts.

It follows pretty much a chronological order and from the very beginning, the action is quite impressive. The first waterfall the Slugs paddled just after their arrival in Norway demonstrates that there is a buffet "à volonté" on the ferry and that the "à volonté" applies to alcohol as well... Have a quick look at the fall (Real video, 100kb) to understand what I am speaking about... Not really my idea of a warm-up. From second one, the spectator knows that these guys came to Norway to run some pretty serious stuff.

The action carries on the "Randelselva", a river immortalized in "Mothership Connection", one of Arndt Schaeftlein videos where Brad Ludden, at the time a young teenager, broke his nose on a big drop (see above on the right). Well, it all goes fine for the slugs, except that they missed the get out and because the river got a bit too gnarly, they end up portaging ... on a railway line ... and there is a tunnel ... and they walk into the tunnel carrying their boats ... and a train comes in the tunnel as well ... but I am saying too much, watch the video if you want that much detail!

The next river is the "Myrkdalselva". Slabs and sunshine, nice. It carries on smoothly to "Brandset" where the Slugs give their definition of kayaking: "Enjoy the ride and let the gravity do the rest ... but the gravity in Norway seems stronger than normal". After more river action, there is a short scenic bit with a ferry crossing in the narrowest Fjord in the word and also some pictures of the Jostadalbreen glacier. Amazing. The action carries on with more waterfalls on the "Jostdalselva" and the "Sogndalselva".

Follows the "Lora". There is a nice playhole on the "Lora" ... but the slugs only took big boats for their trip! Nevermind, they can try and believe us it works. The Riot Big Gun does spin and the Eskimo Salto can surely be cartwheeled. This is an entertaining little old school freestyle bit. The "Lora" also has a big rapid, one of the few that most Slugs will portage. But Kev England, decides to give it a go...

... and he survives which is not obvious when you look at the rapid! We would not say that he was in total control. The steep slide at the beginning made his Salto fly from left to right and the recirculating eddy in the middle must have given him an incredible amount of stress before the final drop. But he lines up the whole rapid with style and the footage of this drop, with two cameras, two different angles and some nice retro black and white is really good.

Then it is the "Tundra" canyon (Real video, 324 kb). The soundtrack is faster, the canyon is continuous, maybe too much for Heather who gets a pasting in a hole before choosing to wet-exit her Microbat. Apparently, she was not the only one to abandon her craft and Team Slugs had to rescue a pinned boat. Their rope skills seem pretty under average to say the least ...

Apparently, the get out involves climbing up a dangerous landslide. This time, the Slugs decided to help gravity push this landslide in a stable configuration and in a true "Still Twitchin'" style, they push the biggest rocks down (Real video, 140kb). It is a pretty hilarious section although some people might argue that it is dangerous/irresponsible business...

Next comes the "Skjoli" this is a very very steep and continuous river and it is pretty much full on at the water level they are paddling it. They carry on their trip with the "Valdalselva" and use some underwater footage to show how pure the water is in Norway in general. The "Rauma" provides some more waterfall action and then it is finished... Well, almost, the video has actually two ends; when the spectator has almost left the sofa to switch the VCR off (or is he using a remote control), the soundtrack accelerates again because the Slugs cannot leave Norway without dealing "with some unfinished business on the Sogndalselva". They must have portaged a section earlier on and got back to it. It is a very nice sequence: three waterfalls in a row and quite high as well. The action is filmed from different angles and we wonder whether they ran the fall more than once. There is also some slow motion which suits particularly the soundtrack. Then this is the end. The music slows down, shows the camp in the evening, the people who looked tired after 2 weeks of non stop action, some interesting evening footage where a dented boat is fixed in front of the fire in the evening and a series of scenic slides and that's it, the 22 minutes are gone.

What we think at PLAYAK

It is refreshing to find a creeking video now that the emphasis is mostly on playboating in warm countries... The editing is very good and the video never gets boring. 22 minutes is rather short though and some people might say it was too short... We also enjoyed the fact that the rapids are not presented as almost unrunnable and the paddler as "invincible aliens". It looks hard and surely these drops are not easy to paddle but the whole video made us think that we should go and give it a go ourselves. Quite good from our perspective.

To put it short, buy it! If you are thinking about going to Norway to paddle, this video deserves to be on your bookshelf with "Mothership Connection", "Full Circle" and "Sickline". It gives a really good impression of what the combination of big water with steep rivers looks like. If you are just looking for some nice river-running action, you might well be interested as well. If you are only into freestyle, I would advise you to watch it as well, it might open a whole new world to you !

Review by [mail address protected from spambots with javascript] , December 5 2001.

All pictures and movies on this review are copyright © Pacland 2001. More pictures, movies and great paddling adventures on the Slugs website.

"The Opening of the Third Eye" is sponsored by SystemX, Eskimo, Teva, PEAK UK, Riot, Bomber Gear, Highland Canoes, Hydroscapes and NFA Head Gear.

[ Apologies for spelling mistakes in the norvegian river names ... ]