The river continued on at the same pace but gradually began to open out, occasionally gorging up again for short distances. This produced some great wave train rapids interspersed with quite a bit of uneventful grade 2 and one small avalanche which attempted to pelt Tom with rocks – sadly they missed.

We continued on at a relaxed pace, but considering our progress on the previous day, we fully expected to finish the river that day. Sure enough, around two o’clock in the afternoon we reached the town of Aini, our finishing point. After a horribly steep climb with our loaded boats up to the town, we again located, through the medium of mime, a garden to spend the night in and wait for the Commander who hadn’t expectedus until the following day. We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking tea, pretty chuffed that we had done over 110km in a day and a half. The Zerfashan was a spectacular river with some very sexy geology and just the right amount of terror!

Once we had hooked back up with the Commander the next morning we spent the day paddling the Fon Darya again. The water level had dropped since our previous run, but it was still great fun and nowhere near as scary now that we knew where to get out for the portage and avoid the horrendously sketchy scree!

The following day we paddled the Iskander Darya again which had also dropped and so involved a lot more rock dodging but was still great fun