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Articles, race reports and other consciousness of streams. All contributions by Chris Jones unless otherwise stated.                                                                                                  

In the 1800s, William Cobbett - champion of traditional rural society against the changes of the Industrial Revolution, grassroots radical and supporter of labourers' riots in 1830, published his Rural Rides - a series of articles about his travels around Britain on foot and on horseback.

Substitute the words 2000s, Chris Jones, Rivers Access, canoe and kayak and considerable amounts of beer and you'll get the feel for these articles.

The Avon, the Easy Way
Chris Jones

What a contrast to last February: warm, sunny, a gentle breeze and the water quite low. We launched at the Fish and Anchor Inn, which is about four miles downstream from the finish of the Avon Descent race. It’s on the B4510 east of Evesham, quite easy to find.

Can anyone tell me why there are so many pubs called the Anchor so far inland? There’s one at Bedford, another only a few miles down the Great Ouse at Great Barford, one on the Medway at Yalding, on the Wey Navigation at Pyrford…. Chris and I had a disagreement about it. I reckoned in the old days of horse-drawn and sailing barges, they would use an anchor to hold the boat still in the mud or gravel or whatever, and Chris said no they’d do what they do now, tie up to a post or a bollard. Of course it could be a joke by a large number of publicans. After all there are two houses in Banbury called “Sea View” (3 Newland Road and 13 Harrowby Road if you don’t believe me). And there was a pub by the River Tame in Tamworth, called the Jolly Sailor till it got demolished the year before last. And there’s a tasty pub on the A361 in Burford called the Mermaid. The signboard is a beauty: comb, mirror, fish tail, the works… trouble is, she reminds me of someone in our club. Now who would you associate with shipwrecks and rocks?

We paddled fifteen miles and shot five weirs, all nice smooth gentle slopes. We used Wavehoppers but we could have done them in Discoveries or similar.

There were long stretches of slow water. A bit more rain next time, please. We saw the usual birds: swans, kingfishers, herons, swallows, swifts, martins…. The most disappointing thing was the state of the banks. Some rivers you see wild flowers; on this part of the Avon it was oilseed rape, walls of it, often on both sides. Where does it all come from?

The first weir was just below the Fish and Anchor, and was followed by a nice rapid. Evesham weir is a huge rockery but there’s an easy fish pass on the extreme left. Just be ready to turn right at the bottom or else you hit the wall. The next three, Chadbury, Fladbury and Wyre Mill (just after a pub called guess what?), are easy slopes, which can be shot anywhere. Only a mile after Wyre Mill, we paddled through Pershore, which looks a peaceful place now, but which saw some horrific action during the Civil War. The old bridge still has the scars from the battle where several yards of the parapet fell in the river and dozens of men and horses drowned.

The weir just before the bridge looks not too bad from the top, but Chris and I chickened out. It’s a Fladbury-type slope except that at the bottom is a line of very large, jagged rocks like teeth in the jaws of Hell. Never mind, we portaged it on the right and a little way along, Chris spotted a steep but smooth gravel slope covered in nettles and leading down to shallow water in the weir pool. Seal launch! Yes! Wheeeee! Highly recommended, and a suitable end to a very pleasant trip.

The Wardington Rules of War. Further explorations of the Upper Cherwell.
Dom Murphy

 The A 361 is one of those roads that seems to pop up in unexpected places in various parts of the country, but the section I know best is the stretch between Daventry and Banbury. Coming down the hill from Chipping Warden to Wardington affords a view of a lovely old-fashioned patchwork of small fields, and in the middle of them and defining their boundaries, the Cherwell. A glance to the side as the road goes over the river at Hay’s Bridge brings the inevitable thought, “I’d love to paddle that”.

Mentioning such thoughts in the presence of Chris Jones has consequences. Consequences that found me standing by a riverbank on a cold, grey April day, having just stopped the freezing East wind from blowing my spraydeck across the road.

We launched at Trafford Bridge on the Aston to Culworth road. This lovely old bridge and its predecessors must have seen some sights in their time. Not only is on the Welsh Lane, one of the oldest of the drove roads, and far older than the Roman roads, but it was the site of a battle in the Wars of the Roses in 1469. No skirmishes when we were there, apart from a brief fracas between a pair of ducks, and we zipped underneath on a surprisingly wide bit of river.

The first mile or so was a delight. Water deep enough to get a full paddle stroke in, and wide enough for two boats abreast, no obstructions apart from a very low girder bridge which even Jonesy decided to portage. The reason for the unexpected volume of water became apparent when we rounded a bend and found a dam forming the eastern end of a large ornamental lake at Edgcote House, home of the Courage family. The river disappeared off to the right over a weir. No chance of shooting with a four foot drop into about three inches of water, so it was a tricky portage onto the narrow lip of the dam, then down through some pretty woodland and back onto the river.

The next section was tortuous. The river was now much narrower and much shallower. There were numerous sections of stony shallows which barely contained enough water to float a boat. If they’d had more water in them they’d have been rapids, but after jerking, scraping and hauling our way over the fifth of them, we decided that “crapids” was a better description, so crapids they became.

We eventually reached Home Farm at Edgcote, where the overflow from the lake fed back into the Cherwell, which made for a nice few yards of whitish water. After that, the river regained a bit of depth, and picked up speed. An old arch bridge at Edgcote was choked with wood and other debris, which look some time and a little ingenuity to get through. This was the first of three arch bridges taking footpaths and farm tracks over the river – really good construction and pretty as a picture.

The river now cut deeply into the sandy banks and sheltered us completely from the wind. On almost every outside bend there were kingfisher holes bored into the top of the cliff, and water vole holes at the bottom. Chris encountered a kingfisher coming round a bend – hard to say who was the more startled.

Lots of meanders now, and the river widened out into a beautiful stretch which was sheer joy to paddle, especially when we caught sight of the A361 and all the poor car-bound saps whizzing along it whilst we were out paddling. Hay’s Bridge soon came in sight, and a sturdy sight it was too: a good thing with all those pantechnicons rumbling over it on their way to and from Appletree. The bridge’s two arches provided a bit of fun, with pursuit races and other fooling around. Then onward to the weir at Hay’s Mill. There was unfinished business here. This was the weir which had thwarted us in our upstream explorations from the club – only about two feet high, but sheer banks either side – nowhere to get out and portage up it. Going down was no problem of course, unless, like me, you got the nose of your boat caught on a rock. I sat there for a while enjoying the sensation of water filling my cockpit before wriggling free.

After this, we were on familiar territory; twisty, turny, plenty of obstructions to battle over, under or through. We had to climb out of the boats for a few, but we never touched the river banks, so technically not portages according to the Jonesy rules. Chris made four additions to his collection of rescued plastic ducks; refugees from the Chipping Warden duck race, presumably. He’ll soon have enough to start a rescue centre. I bet bath night is fun.

Back to the club, a change of clothes, then a walk over the footpaths back toward Trafford Bridge. At Wardington, we came across a strange plaque in a field:

Many gwomes have, through ease of temporal access, found themselves locked in nearly constant battle with their neighbors.  Relatively evenly matched, the casualties mount and mount.  So, in the case of the gwomes between what is now the Thames (then the Aoselkan Channel) and the Wheel of Faith (the essentially pie shaped gwomes, all theocracies, centered near linear Leeds), a truce was declared (by agreement, different gwomes take credit on different years for suggesting it) and solutions discussed.

What they concluded was that a form of high-powered tranquilizer should be used in battle, so that soldiers would not be killed.  However, if you experienced that incapacitation, you were dead to your people.  Any attempt to reconnect, even eye contact or a wave, would lead to instant death and the slaughter of your whole family.  Instead, you were exiled to a gwome that did not border your former home (and there were complicated rules and negotiations for this) with nothing but what you had on you.  Collectively, these agreements are known as the Wardington Rules of War.

Turns out that some weird American guy, several sardines short of a tin has constructed an entire fantasy world which he’s called Kymaerica, and has placed these spoof commemorative plaques at various sites around the world. Deeply strange, and a peculiar end to a lovely morning’s paddling.

DW Diary.
Devizes to Westminster Race (21-24.03.08)
Katie Wood & Michael Punter.

No Man Is An Island

 Wey Navigation and River Wey, 16 March 2008
Chris Jones

Do you ever get the why-am-I-doing-this feeling? On the start line at Reading, perhaps? I got it on Sunday afternoon, wading through knee-deep floodwater towards Cropredy Bridge, pushing a car containing Mr Hills and Mr Murphy, with three plastic boats on the roof. A broadly grinning passer-by clearly had the why-didn’t-I-bring-my-camera feeling. To avoid undue suspense, I can reveal that the car eventually started, and that nobody had a swim, all day.

Blackboys Bridge is easy to find, the second time around.  Leave the M25 at junction 11, take the A320 then the A317 towards Weybridge, and where the dual carriageway starts turn right into a so-called business park. No suits, no swings, no slides, but plenty of roundabouts, and eventually we emerged into the real world, and there it was: the Wey Navigation, and another car with boats on the roof: Alison and Jane from Tonbridge.

The Navigation is fairly straight and lined with tall trees. It would be comfortable in hot sunny weather, and it gave us shelter from the biting north wind. There are a few landmarks: a pub called the Pelican- why not the Cormorant or the Parakeet?  There are portages at Coxes Lock (with tall elegant mill buildings, a large pool and a weir that looks shootable- in warm weather), at New Haw Lock and at Pyrford Lock (near the Anchor Inn). We passed the inn, even though it was the first time we’d seen it open since July 1862. Not sitting out weather, and we were a bit damp, best to keep moving, keep warm.   

Chris and Dom had some races on the straight bits: Wavehopper v. Europa. To make it fairer, they sprinted to a certain point, then turned through 180 degrees. One boat goes faster straight and the other turns easier. And both kicked up a tremendous wash, which entertained Dawn and Neil in the Canadian.

Half a mile after Pyrford, we came to a small, square, two-storey red brick house with large windows, and doors which seemed to open into space about eight feet above the ground. It’s where the poet and preacher John Donne lived four hundred years ago. He gave us the expression “no man is an island”, meaning we all depend on each other. Not a bad motto for a canoe club, even if some of us do spend rather too much time completely surrounded by water. Soon after this, opposite our portage to the Wey, we came to a moored narrowboat called “Cropredy”, perhaps evidence of the interconnectedness of all things, or maybe a phenomenon related to the Murphy Uncertainty Principle: nobody is ever really quite sure what they are doing, or why.

That’s the impression an observer would have got as we slithered down the muddy bank to the river, got in our boats, decided we were hungry, got out again, dug out food… Get this, Mrs Thatcher, there is no such thing as leadership. If something is worth doing, people will do it, and if you give seven intelligent people enough boats and paddles, they will figure out a way to get more or less anywhere. It’s a great feeling, turning round from helping somebody with their spraydeck, to find that somebody else has carried my boat fifty yards and put it just behind me.

The water wasn’t lumpy; the surface was quite flat. Only problem was, it was moving very fast in all directions at once. And then we came to the fallen tree. Chris, being Chris, went straight through it. Alison and Jane never complained, but they must have been wondering why we’d told them it was OK to use fibreglass boats, then turned up with plastics. They had to turn upstream of the tree, in a confined space. “I don’t think I can get round”, said Alison. “Oh yes you can, you’re doing it” I said, nudging the front of her boat gently. And she came round to sit snug in the eddy: a perfect outbreak, or whatever you call the things.

After that, the river widened out and the flow was still fast, but less turbulent. We passed the Royal Horticultural Society’s grounds at Wisley: lots of tall trees, with the good manners to stay up on the bank, and Brooklands museum, “the birthplace of British motorsport and aviation” as the notice modestly informed us.

We had to portage a weir at Byfleet. This meant going into a tiny narrow stream through a garden, posh even for this part of Surrey where millionaires are ten a penny, then scrambling up a steep muddy bank on to a road, through a footpath gate, down on to a muddy beach…. don’t let me put you off, it’s lovely- on a warm sunny day.

The water flowed quite fast all the way back to Weybridge. By this time Dom and Neil had swapped places, so Dom and Dawn were digging, and Neil had the Europa. He thought he was having problems keeping it straight. No, on a swirly river with a gusty crosswind, he was doing really well. 

 There was one last portage at Weybridge town lock to get back on to the Navigation. At the end of the trip- eleven miles- people looked cheerful enough, if a bit shivery. It was all OK if we kept moving, but if we stopped for more than a minute, the wind and rain stole all the body heat away. Jane summed it up: I’d said it’s a shame about the weather, and she replied, “I’d still rather do this than sit indoors”. And the people who went to Wey sprints and the training day at Mytchett would probably have agreed with her.

Two Minutes’ Thinking Time

 Thameside 2 Race, 17 February 2008
Chris Jones

 Sunrise over Banbury, and even the thermometer had hypothermia. Minus seven? Surely some mistake. It was still below freezing when we got to Reading. Alice showed us how to walk on water: this could be called a winter field sport. Nice to see some younger faces among the support crews. It’s a good laugh and you learn a lot of useful skills like map-reading, driving over bent narrow hill roads, avoiding parking rage incidents, and serving blackcurrant squash just warm enough to bath your baby in.

The river looked calm with a gentle flow, and the sun shone. There was only one thing to strike more fear to the heart than the prospect of a mass start just upstream of Caversham Bridge, and that was the briefing. “The water is cold. If you fall in, you’ve got two minutes’ thinking time. After that you’re a vegetable”. Thanks, mate, just write it on my grave: “He tried to dig for victory, now he’s up among the parsnips on the allotment in the sky”. Seb gave Keith his coat to take to the finish. “If I don’t see you again,” he said, “would you give it to my next-of-kin and plant a few flowers for me outside the club house”. Those weren’t his exact words, but that’s what it sounded like.

For me it wasn’t so much fear as helpless gibbering terror. We had the start from hell, an insane choppy chaos where Kathryn couldn’t steer and I couldn’t hold the boat level. No more jokes about other people’s stability problems and that is a promise. Just hope Keith had his thumb over the lens. At one point under that bridge I swear we were going backwards. It went on for about fourteen years, but somehow we emerged, at the back of the field, still the right way up and still talking to each other. After that, the rest of the race was fun.

Some of the portages were comical. At one lock somebody (a marshal? the lock keeper?) asked us if we were in a hurry. We figured the safest answer was no, sauntered down to the pontoon and put the boat on the water. Before we could say, “stand by to repel boarders” a guy with a K1 zoomed at us, lifted his boat over ours then climbed into it and paddled away, all without disturbing what we were doing. Now that is skilful portaging. Marsh Lock was nice this time: we got out and kept going along the right hand side and made good use of a metal ladder fixed to the wall to get in. Yes it was high but anything beats that awful long wooden footbridge and that park.

Henley Bridge brought back memories. Last year we did the race into a northeasterly gale. We tried to get under the middle arch, but the wind and current forced us to the left. All the time there was a guy on a bike up on the bridge, shouting, “keep right!” When we got under the bridge, we could see water piled high on the other side, and two-foot waves marching in all the way from the horizon. Kathryn just kept the rhythm going, and steered us through the swirly stuff and up into the waves. Magic. This year the water was nice and flat, and we could have any arch we liked.

The reaches between Henley and Hurley seemed never-ending; we were starting to tire a bit. At Hurley, Keith said, “You’re still looking strong; a lot of crews seem to be fading.” Well, that is very kind of you, but you’ve got one person who likes doing drama at school and one who was a teacher for twenty years. If we can’t put on an act, who can?

We even did the compulsory sprint finish. It turned out that we’d had nearly two hundred minutes’ thinking time, which is sixteen less than last year, and our feet were still dry. Always look on the bright side of life.

So that’s it for another winter. Kathryn’s going to concentrate on shorter, faster work ready for sprints and Hasler races, and I’m going to spend more time with my family. Honest. But fear not, the awesome twosome will be back. Many thanks to all, from Banbury and from other clubs, who have helped and encouraged us. No names, no pack drill. You know who you are.

A Game Of Two Halves
Waterside B, 10th Feb 2008.
Chris Jones.

The nineteenth-century writer R.S.Surtees described foxhunting as “the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt, with only five-and-twenty percent of its danger”. Wonder what he would have made of a real sport like marathon racing? Bodies hurtling every which way, a bit of blood and a lot of shouting: he’d have loved it, especially Waterside B.

It’s about seventeen miles, Newbury to Aldermaston and back, downstream first, which means pacing yourself (if you have limited resources like me) so you don’t die halfway back up the hill. In an ideal world, we should do the upstream leg first. Trouble is, there’s nothing at Aldermaston. Even the toilets are closed until the first of April. As Lisa put it, “I can’t wait that long”. Newbury has a lot going for it, even Cornish pasties. This time there was a strong flow on the Kennet. The weather was ideal: cold, sunny, no wind. It needed to be.

At the checking-in, Sophie asked us about how to reach the boat at high portages. “Who’s taller, you or Matt?” “Don’t know” “OK, Whoever’s taller lies on their front and reaches down, and the other person sits on their legs so they don’t slide in”. She didn’t believe it either. But they must have figured something out, as they got back in a very decent time. Don’t ask me how we do portages: I don’t know, it just happens. I do remember seeing Kathryn stood on the front deck, reaching for the top of the wall at Midgham Lock, if that helps.

Before the race, everyone seemed to be talking about you-know-what, the S-word, mid-stream portaging, chasing the fish, extra-marine activity, making a splash…well, it made us a bit nervous. So Lisa gave us a team talk, American style. When we’d decided whose god dam ugly ass we wuz gonna whup, we felt a bit more confident. Good job too: the start was dire. Hemmed in on all sides, two boats colliding dead ahead, and horrible choppy water that seemed to go on forever. It got better; it usually does.

We developed a more assertive attitude towards low bridges this time. Some we portaged, some we hugged the bank, but a few we shot and hardly slowed down. There’s a bump on my head, and Kathryn now knows that when she hears a loud “ouch!” directly behind her, it’s probably safe to sit up and paddle again. At one on the way back up, we portaged the bridge and lock together, and found ourselves in the garden of the Rowing Barge, surrounded by people drinking beer. Lead us not into temptation, or what? Serious athletes avoid alcohol; frivolous athletes aren’t averse to the odd pint now and then. It puts sugar, salts and water back into your bloodstream, is a brilliant muscle relaxant, and nothing beats the taste of cool English draught beer after a long paddle. Sorry, Ray, is this getting on your nerves? Less than six weeks to go, then it’s Hooky time.

The last two miles down to the turn were an education: fast, twisting and narrow. Sneaking round a left-hand bend on the way down, I started to say, “Watch out for boats coming up” and a K2 came flying straight at us. Well, we were offside, and all the front paddler said was “Keep out in the middle, guys, you’ll get the best of the flow”. Constructive criticism at its best. What hacked us off was the grumpy bloke in a K1 on the way back up. Yes, we were on the left but weren’t obstructing anyone, and he looked down his nose at us and just growled, “Wrong side”. Yes, mate, we’re on the wrong side, and you’re in the wrong sport. Why don’t you take up tiddlywinks, or accountancy, or better still, both?

The turn was interesting. At Aldermaston Wharf, we got out well before the lock, where a marshal was asking these hard paddlers to form an orderly queue and talk to each other nicely. Brave man, perhaps he’d like to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Then we ran past the lock, round a sign, back up and put on the water just above the lock. The next eight and three-quarter miles were hard work. We knew the current would be against us, but the strength of it was a surprise. Fit guys were running past us on the towpath, portaging for a mile because it was faster than paddling. Well, we made it to the finish and managed to look cheerful for the cameras. Like the bloke on the bottles of Cornish scrumpy, I was legless but smiling. Survival was our target; we survived. We finished, didn’t, you know, abandon ship, and we came ninth in our class. Just don’t ask, and if you do, the answer’s nine, and we don’t care!

Same Boat Last Week
Thameside 1, Aldermaston to Reading, 3 Feb 2008.
Chris Jones.

This is an underrated race. It lacks the carnival atmosphere and silly hats of Waterside A, but from a paddler’s perspective it has one of the most varied and interesting courses in the marathon calendar.

The start is squeezed between a very low bridge, several double-parked barges, a willow tree (yes, we did go through it, and no we didn’t lose our hats) and the first portage only a short sprint ahead. There is always a variety of paddlers, from the stalwart long-distance people with solid boats, spraydecks and serious hats who treat the race as one tenth of the DW, to slim teenagers wearing skin-tight boats and little else, for whom it’s just a longer Hasler race. No prizes for guessing who gets to the finish first.

 The water starts off as typical straight canal but then the river comes in now and again, hitting the boat sideways and slopping out the other side over a weir. Later the flow stays with you for longer and longer stretches, until there’s no more canal, just the narrow twisty Kennet, flowing fast and turbulent between trees and fields. The first signs of civilisation appear: big metal sheds, concrete walls, “Pompey for the cup” (Who’s their other fan, Keith?) A nice curvy terrace of Victorian houses, some with canadians in the gardens, and soon the concrete canyon of ‘Orrible Shopping Centre, half a mile of no mercy, a corporate cavern where discerning consumers can buy small bags of pebbles to lob at passing boats. Not that they got a second chance: that river really moves along. The sting in the tail is two miles upstream on the Thames to the finish.

For those who like portages there are all sorts: bog standard slippery canal jobs, ones where you have to change sides without crunching the rudder, overhanging banks, a very muddy beach launch, and a portage where you land on a platform made of glorified chicken wire. Plus Caversham Lock, a long one.

There are some interesting bridges, too. Head butting is against the rules of boxing, and it doesn’t work on low bridges. We portaged most of them. No shame in that; if a large chunk of metal and wood is coming straight at your face at 5 or 6mph, it seems sensible to take avoiding action, and not much slower, especially if it keeps you away from the fish!

The weather forecast had promised us frost, ice, snow, lots of rain and a southerly gale: all hell let loose. What we got was cold and windy: mean little gusts that snatched at our paddles and once stopped us dead After Waterside A where we cooked, we got the heat balance about right, warm and comfortable.

It’s no go hypothermia, it’s no go dehydration,
All we want is a bit to spare in case of marination.

We got overtaken a fair bit…nice buoyancy aid, Julian. The crew of a K2 with a dodgy rudder apologised for blocking us. Kathryn nearly said “It’s OK, we were in the same boat last week”. Good job she didn’t, it might have caused confusion.

At the get-out steps for Caversham Lock, there seemed to be some kind of baptism going on. A Hindu ceremony, perhaps? No, just some Elmbridge paddlers. Say what you like about them, they certainly get totally immersed in their racing. We politely lifted our boat over the wet, struggling bodies and legged it for the lock. There we met Sophie, weary but not defeated. She went off like a rocket and finished way ahead of us. Two weeks before, she had been on the Dart, down a set of rapids called the Washing Machine. Maybe compared with that, the Thames seemed like a duck pond. Not to me it didn’t. My legs were shaking- not so much with fear as reaction from running over mud and trying to kill the footrest. Then I started hearing voices, well, one voice, in front of me, something about sprint and finish. “Slave driver” I muttered. And went for it anyway. The boat stopped fluttering and ran straight and level. Good call, Kathryn, just what was needed. A little bit of encouragement goes a long way.

We were happy with the result: six minutes faster than last year. OK, maybe we paddled defensively, but we pushed hard when conditions were right. Our portages were accurate but not fast. Well, we shall work on it. And we kept off the swimmers’ page again. Ray Pearce, please note.

No Particular Place To Go
Waterside A, 27 January
Chris Jones 

On Thursday night we paddled to the second lock and back with a set of hollow plastic balls bunjee’d to each boat, and practised sprinting. After a while, Kathryn said, “You’re not pushing hard enough with your right foot”. “How can you tell? It’s dark. You can’t see my feet.” “It’s the noise from the balls, louder when you push on one side than the other”.

On Friday afternoon I went out  in a Europa, and concentrated on punishing the footrest. People tell me those boats are a beast to steer, but it doesn’t usually bother me. That day there was a sneaky cross wind, which kept sending me to the right. Inspiration: what if I push harder with the right foot? It worked!

On Sunday morning outside Great Bedwyn village hall, who should I see but Ray, an evil grin on his face, making swimming movements with his arms. When it happens to you, mate, I shall be ready with a camera and one of those nice mugs they sell in the café at Newbury, that say “I fell in the Kennet and Avon Canal”.

We got an early start and all went well. Last year we were overtaken by lots of boats; this time we kept up with some. Boat 252 was our companion for a few miles. We would sneak up on their wash, then sprint past them to the next lock, only to be overtaken on the portage. Miss Wood and Mr Punter came flying past as if we were standing still. A bit later Alice and Graham caught up with us. We stayed on their wash long enough for Graham to treat us to a verse and two choruses of that fine R&B classic “No Particular Place To Go”. Chuck Berry, thou should’st be living at this hour.

An ironic choice of title, that: after a couple of miles our rudder packed up. It was flapping about like a demented salmon, neither use nor ornament. Received wisdom in marathon racing seems to be, if your rudder breaks, you retire. Well, I may be a bit shy, but I don’t do retiring. “Come on” I said, “The rudder may be shot, but the engines are still good: let’s finish.” So how did we steer? A combination of sweep strokes, selective pressure on the footrest, and the occasional emergency stop stroke on one side at the front to avoid a collision.

At the last portage where the whizzy Kennet channel comes in from the left, there was a whirlpool and a small crowd of spectators shouting helpful but conflicting advice, which we completely ignored. We hadn’t paddled thirteen miles to disappear down a plughole and come up somewhere near Reading. “How do we get past that?” “Er, put in as far back as we can, move to the right and paddle hard and straight.” We did it! “Yee-hah!” I yelled and nearly capsized us.

Then it was time to put ticks in boxes. Finished? Tick. Didn’t swim? Tick. Didn’t come last? Tick. Beat last year’s time? Amazingly, tick. Only by a couple of minutes, but what the hell, there’s always next year. 

Dart Wildwater Weekend. January 2008.

Chris Hills

It was a lovely sunny day on Dartmoor as we headed up the River Dart towards New Bridge. It must be warmer down there as the Daffodils are already in bloom heralding the start of Spring. The car park was full of canoeists (WWR and playboaters) but we managed to squeeze into a little spot. We walked the sprint course to work out our lines and decided that it wasn't too challenging. We then managed to borrow a boat from Kevin (Wiltshire Youth) so that we didn't have to boat share - the weekend had got off to a flying start.

Once we got on the water, Sophie asked, “So how do I steer this thing?? which way do I have to edge it”. Well a short run on the flat (it was only about 30 yards long and flowing) sorted that out and we set off for our first practice run. All went OK but how do you avoid those damned rocks. They usually sit just under the water and are very hard to spot until you are on them. Sophie had quickly found a small problem with her borrowed boat - it leaked. So required to be emptied every run - At least hitting those rocks couldn't make it too much worse.

We all did the two runs for the Sprint race with unofficial places (and no handicap corrections) making Sophie 6th, Ian 7th and Chris, Vicky and Rebecca further back. Sophie was now quite pleased and declared that this WWR racing was easier than she had expected - not very challenging. At this point I muttered under my breath that she should reserve judgement on that until we had completed the classic course which was to be down the Dart loop on Sunday.

In the late afternoon after the Sprint race we set off for a practice run down the Dart loop with a Div A paddler to show us the correct lines. Apparently most of the lines are obvious except for a couple of the drops where you need to be careful. The features are all natural with no artificial weirs and have wonderful names like The Washing Machine, Lovers Leap and Triple falls.

Well the rapids came thick and fast with only short breaks between them, there were lots of standing waves and rocks hidden everywhere. Also a few light branches overhanging the river just to take your attention off the ever present rocks.

We paused at a corner and were told to go down the Left. I dutifully followed Lydia and halfway down – bang, I hit a boulder. The boat spun, my stern was hard on this boulder and the bow was hard up on some rocks on the bank and the water was pouring over the boat. I tried to nudge the boat off the rock but the rear was held fast and I couldn’t budge the front. All I succeeded in doing was losing both of my footrests. After several minutes held in this way and just before our guide came back to lift my bow off the bank, the water finally dragged the stern down and I decided that it was safest to exit the boat as fast as possible. It might have seemed like a spring day but the water was still pretty cold. As I emptied the boat and recovered the footrests I learnt that this was my first encounter with the Washing machine.

The next rapid in front seemed reasonably straightforward but Lydia in the boat just in front of me managed to repeat my actions and find a nice large boulder in the middle of the drop. Her nice composite was pinned in the centre hard up against this rock. I shot past the front of her boat committed to the rapid and not sure that I could have helped move the boat. Lydia made a quick safe exit from the boat and we retrieved her from the pool. She then made two attempts to get to her boat, which was still hard on the rock but on the second attempt the boat just folded up around the boulder. A cold, dejected Lydia then had to made her way back up to the start.

It was by now getting a bit late and our guide was getting anxious because he didn’t want us on the River in the dark. Sophie and Vicky were still up above the rapid, I assured them that it was actually an easy descent so Sophie shot down with no problem but Vicky was unnerved by Lydia’s experience and so portaged down.

 We pushed on quickly and shot down lovers leap. I came down last overshot the group enter the next rapid – yes nice and easy, only to see that I was heading straight for a granite wall with a slight undercut and on the wrong side of the current. Oh well, I’ve done this before, so I threw the wavehopper sideways, hit the granite wall square on and bounced off nicely. Everyone else learnt from my mistake and took a much better line.

 We then again pushed on, and you could tell it was getting late as the air temperature was dropping a bit. A couple of nice easy but choppy and rock filled rapids, and then the river narrowed and we hit drop, drop, drop but they were at strange angles – Ah, I thought that must be Triple falls. I’m not sure the lines that Vicky and Sophie took but I believe Sophie got a bit stuck and she ended up on top of Vicky’s boat.

A bit further on and you could see the road return to the river. The river though had one last trick up its sleeve and dropped steeply down giving a good fast flow with lovely big standing waves. The boat bucked and crashed through the onslaught and then suddenly we were down and into the flat calm of the get out point at Holne bridge. Wow, that was some ride!!

 We got a lift back to the car at New bridge, still slightly shaken by the trip and all a bit cold with excessive waiting around. Sophie had by now changed her mind and was a bit nervous but determined to do the race the next day. Vicky was cuddling her boat and saying she’d rather watch from the bank  tomorrow. I was wondering how to get through the washing machine safely the next day and thankful that I had a solid wavehopper.

 Well, driving over on the Sunday, Plymouth was covered in thick mist, but as we got up onto the moors the mist cleared and it was a bright sunny day. Brilliant – except there was a frost on the ground and that meant it must be fairly cold out there. On arriving at New Bridge, Vicky confirmed that she would not be paddling today, but Sophie was still quietly determined not to be beaten. We soon found out that Ian had taken Rebecca down for a early morning practice run, had hit a large rock, knocked a large hole in the top of his boat and had lost his footrests. I’m not quite sure how he managed it, but he did manage to sweet talk Vicky into lending him her boat so that he could escort Rebecca down in the race.

 In the race I was off a minute before Sophie, so I started off at a moderate pace (as I hadn’t warmed up properly and I wanted her to catch up so we could go down together – She is a faster paddler and in a quicker boat so it wouldn’t take long).

  It all started very uneventfully, with just the now familiar rocks hitting you from the left and right, and if you truly got it wrong then launching over the top of them. I recognised the washing machine as we approached it, and lined up for the LHS. This time I could see the boulder in the channel and decided to go further Left to avoid it. It wasn’t the right move as bang, bang, bang I bounced off numerous rocks, felt support for my Left leg disappear as the footrest gave, fought to stay upright, but yes I had made it in one piece. There was a group of play boaters at the washing machine and they gave me a funny look – I don’t think they had seen someone take that line down before and probably never will again. I saw Sophie sail easily down the Right of the channel and thought – yes – that was a much better line.

  Lovers’ Leap came up, so as shot down the rapid I changed my line, and ended up miles from the rock face but got turned by the eddy. Sophie went though and just clipped the wall, but we were safely through. A little bit further on we came across Rebecca getting back into her boat; Ian seemed to have everything under control so we carried on.

    I sailed over the first of Triple falls, felt the boat lurch sideways, started to think about what I needed to do for a roll, went for a deep support stroke and found so much grip in the water that the boat came up beautifully – Yeah – No swim. Sophie meanwhile was obviously getting overconfident as she decided to come down the drop sideways. I think she must have changed her mind on the advisability of this action quite quickly, as she seemed to be out of the boat before it hit the water at the bottom. Actually she said afterwards that a youngster had shot past her saying ‘follow me’, she tried to do this too late and paid the consequences. Just as Sophie was starting to empty her boat Rebecca came over the drop unsuccessfully and we then rescued her. We got her out easily but her boat was unfortunately disappearing down the rest of triple falls.

  As I set off in pursuit, I couldn’t see a thing as my glasses were wet so I threw them to Rebecca, who gave them to Sophie who put them down ….. and that’s the last we saw of them. Setting off in pursuit without glasses was interesting as it meant that I was concentrating on features immediately in front of me and not looking ahead as much. Well, I cleared Triple Falls, but dropped deep into the stopper, and had the disconcerting sight of my wavehopper held a foot under water before I was spat out. I retrieved Rebecca’s boat and was just about to get out and sort it when Ian turned up and took over.

  We were almost at the end now so I thought I might as well finish the race and headed off for the line. I now had to contend with a paddler following me, who kept shouting sorry as he nudged my stern and threw me off line.

  I went across the line pleased at having done a clean run although my time was obviously well compromised and thinking, that was much easier than the first run – I would love to do another run and go down the washing machine cleanly this time.

  Rebecca soon came bravely over the line with Ian’s paddles (hers having disappeared at Triple Falls) and then in came Sophie.

  After we had got changed we struggled back up the bank to Triple falls but alas there was no sign of my glasses or Rebecca’s paddles. We chatted to some playboaters and thought that the Falls didn’t look that bad from the bank.

  We then retired back to Ashburton for a monster meal in a country pub (but I couldn’t drink any of the excellent beer – Jail Ale from the Princetown Brewery) before we made the long journey home. It might have only been a 4 mile race but Sophie and I were both exhausted. That felt much harder than if we had just gone and done Waterside A, Still it makes good DW training!!