I paddled the Greta in the Lakes today with Richy P. Yesterday the water level was below the mark on the bridge which indicates you can paddle it. It rained all night and when we checked the level in the morning, it was about a foot above the mark. WOOHOO!
Excuse me for the vagueness, but I can’t remember where we put in. I guess Richy P, or other wise folk could decipher from this photo of Richy with added Ray Mears points for the chest and arms folded
It was a full on 2 hour paddle. Every rapid more technical with bigger waves.
It started as a leisurely sunday outing at the bridge where we put in.
This only lasted a few minutes! The river just seemed to build. Every eddy meant valuable bailing time. I was properly swamped a couple of times and managed to hold out till bailing. Only just!
I would go so far as to say this was the most fun and challenging river I have ever paddled. Similar to the Allier in many ways. Every turn a technical rapid, one after another. No respite. Mentally and physically challenging.
Needless to say, it was a great day. And the bust Werner was worth every penny smile
P.S. I stopped taking photos when it got hard. I had enough to worry about!
Located in the Massif Central, South of France, the Allier is a River with a big reputation that I have been longing to do for quite some time. I’ve always missed out on trips to the Allier for some reason. A river with 3 sections worth checking out and definately a whole week if you want to do the lot.
The geology of the river is almost granite type volcano rock. I’m sure wikipedia could come up with the real definition. But generally lots of rocks creating obstacles throughout all the rapids. Plenty of places for pins and breaches.
We arrived very late at night next to the put in and pitched our tents after a ging gang gooly with a box of wine and much excitment for the coming days. My journey down there had started a few days earlier. I drove down to the South of France with the canoe on the car for this trip. It was more than eventful with a breakdown that threatened to stop the trip, but thankfully we made it to the put in. I was paddling with Blue (Tony Pape) and Yak (Ian Mckinnes).
We were paddling the Nouveau Monde to Alleyras section. 42 rapids in 18KM over two days. The most technical river I think I have ever paddled in an open canoe and energy sapping from the constant concentration required when you are hit with rapid after rapid in short succession.
The trip was over two days with a bivy at the side of the river half way down. So we were carrying quite a bit of kit, as any idiot can be uncomfortable, and I inherited Yak’s gear as he was paddling a kayak. The Bivy is everything about open canoeing. A time to share stories around a fire and enjoy good company under the stars.
We were blessed with great water levels and outstanding bright and hot sunshine. For anyone paddling the Allier, you should refer to Meteo France for water levels. If the water level is above 0.6, then it is runnable. We ran at 0.65 and day 2 it was about 0.75. Excellent levels with testing rapids.
All in all a great paddle trip. Take a look at the video.
Today we paddled the River Medway from Tonbridge to Yalding. Thats 6 locks including 2 canoe chutes and 4 portages.
I must say, this was a great days paddling. The weather could not have been booked any better. I’m even nursing sunburn this evening! You can’t beat a days paddling with loads of open boats. There must have been 20 – 30 open boats on this trip. Great fun.
The trip was organised on Song of the Paddle, with the help of Kent Canoes. The actual trip is two days long. As I’m writing this blog post, the rest of the paddlers are staying on a campsite next to the River Medway.
I’m not normally one for flat water paddling, but being local, I felt this had to be done, and I’d never paddled this stretch from Tonbridge to Yalding. Although the brochure didn’t mention 6 locks. That’s a lot of carrying canoes on a Saturday!
What is worth noting on the above canoe chute is that it has been designed containing brushes so fish can actually swim up the shute. So canoes can go down and fish can go up. More details here.
I’m logging this trip because I realise I have forgotten to post the video and record the trip. Afterall, this is my paddling logbook, I need to record the trip.
This was the journey I had been waiting 6 years to take. When I moved to Gravesend, I always knew Eurostar was destined to be there, I just thought it would be sooner. But now it has arrived. So it means a short cab journey to the station, then 6 and a half hours of unadulterated leisure to Avignon, South of France.
So back in June, we took the Eurostar Gravesend to Paris Gard du Nord -> metro Paris Lyon -> Paris Lyon to Avignon TGV. The one and a half hour stop over in paris. Just enough time for a beer and a french meal in a local cafe. Marvelous!
This journey by rail was everything that is great about travelling. No nervous early queuing like cattle when anticipating the train. No, just a fast moving landscape exteriour and the ability to unwind and enjoy.
So we paddled the Ardeche in Open Boats and sit on tops. We kind of got the bivi the wrong way round. Day 1 we transferred all the kit to the campsite, pitched camp and enjoyed the “apres ski”. All the bivi sites were full and wild camping is massively forbidden on the Ardeche. So we decideed to camp on the river and paddle the full 2 day trip of 32km in one day. Actually 6 hours. I swear I will never paddle another sit on top ever again! Here’s a video of me “surfing” Le Mas.
Video paddling the Lower Guil. Watch my unexpected roll at the start!
Last week I went for a couple of days kayaking in the French Alps. I haven’t paddled a kayak in the Alps before, so this was something I was looking forward to with an element of trepidation.
I feel really lucky having a good friend, Tony Pape, who lives in the South of France. It means I can fly to Nimes with minimal kit and get on the water within a matter of hours.
The drive to the Alps only took about 3 and a half hours. We headed for Embrun and hit the local town for beers and pizza. Embrun was a great town. I loved it. It was quiet with virtually no tourists. This is something I like. It gives me a chance to speak French and to experience France how it hould be experienced.
Each bar and restaurant we went to, we were made to feel really welcome by the locals. I couldn’t recommend it enough. We had a great night and then headed to pitch our tent next to the gorgeous and Serre-Poncon lake in the car park.
In the morning, we headed tom the river to paddle the Upper Durance. This is a relatively straight forward Class 2 paddle. Luckily, when we arrived at the river, there was a group of Scottish paddlers that kindly agreed to help us with the shuttle back to the car. This was fantastic, because it would have been a nightmare hitch.
Massively enjoyed the Upper Durance. Nice and bouncy and the perfect introduction to Alpine paddling. By chance, the local canoe shop was running a Safety and Rescue course that night, run by Deborah Pinniger – a previous freestyle world champion and an amazingly inspiring paddler. I felt priviledged to meet her. The shop cracked out the free beers and then we headed to the town for beers with the shop owner and Deborah. A great evening, and Deborah very kindly gave us a bed for the night at her flat. Legend!
The next day we paddled the Lower Guil. Again, another fairly easy paddle. But the last rapid was quite chunky, a definate class 3, with quite a few features to avoid and navigate. This rapid gave me the opportunity to practice my roll. I’m glad it still works!
All in all a great trip. I’ll be back there next week for more paddling. Can’t wait.
So this has been an idea festering for a bit. The Geek Paddle Fest. The main idea being that we go to the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham and have a big Yeee Ha! on the white water course.
For the uninitiated, you will be able to join in and enjoy the day.  Come along and enjoy the fun. This really will be a fun day for anyone, whether you have paddled before or not.
So the idea: A day on the white water course at the national water sports centre in Nottingham. I figure some of us will be ok paddlers and some of us may be complete virgins. I intend the day to be something for everyone.
White water rafting is a big thing on the course, and we have the chance to get stuck in and have a fun time. No experience is needed and we will have a guide to look after us. It is a fun filled ride down a bouncy course.
We will have access to demo boats and equipment, so come along and try the latest kayaks on this newly improved course.
I am yet to set a date on this trip. I’m interested to hear from people with ideas for potential dates. I’m thinking late July, early August?
If you would like to sponsor this trip, then get in touch!
Who knows, we could even enter a geek raft in the British Rafting Champs in October??!!!!
Hoping that @ActionLamb and @girlygeekdom come along. I think we probably need a wiki. But in the mean time, if you are interested in this, leave a comment and lets get this happening.
Image courtesy of Ebygomm under a Creative Commons license.
This weekend I did a whistlestop tour of the River Canche, in the Pas-de-Calais department of Northern France. Only an hour south of Calais, the River Canche is almost certainly my closest white water river in terms of driving miles.
I first heard about this river towards the end of last year, when my local canoe shop was organising a trip over the New Year holidays. I wanted to go, but we were committed to other things on the dates. So I’ve been itching to go and have a look at it.
If you’ve been following my paddling exploits on this blog, you’ll realise that I have spent time working in the Ardeche in the South of France. I also spent six months working in Normandie, and I never heard of this river at the time. I didn’t even think there was any white water in Northern France. Afterall, it’s flat.
The Ferry cost £45 return on Sea France, 15ft open canoe on the roof included. Cheaper than a night down the pub. I’ve since noticed norfolkline.com do £19 each way Dover to Dunkirk, which is 20 minutes drive closer to the Canche and cheaper. So there will be a regular thing happening here.
If you would like a good river guide for the Canche, then Kent Canoes have an excellent river guide. I used this to plan the trip and work out the get in and get out places. We didn’t do the complete two day trip that they have planed. We simply did Day 2 of that trip. Day one sounded a bit tame and I wanted to see the white water in a day.
I caught an 8am ferry from Dover to Calais and drove down to meet up with friends working in an outdoor centre located 20 minutes away from the Canche that we would be paddling with. We then drove to the Canche and dropped a car off at the get out point so we could shuttle back to the car at the get in. This took a bit of nosing around to find the right places as we had driven from a different direction to the guide we were following. But we soon worked it out and hit the water.
The day started off bright, sunny and hot, but true to Northern France weather, the day was punctuated with a few light showers meaning the anoraks had to come out.
I really enjoyed the paddle. It was great spending time time with Davy and Lindzy and a lovely paddle of around 6 miles, meaning we were never under pressure of time to cover distance. Simply to enjoy the paddle.
On the whole, the Canche is a very safe environment to experience white water. The rapids do not contain any obstacles as such, just bouncy waves. No rocks, walls or caves to avoid. A stones throw from south east England, the Canche should be a staple for every southern paddler and a great learning venue for white water skills, open boat or kayak.
There are three decent grade 2 play waves on the section that we paddled and a couple of weirs that are shootable.  The play wave on the slalom course is a classic grade 2, fed by two sluice gates. We played here for about half an hour. Unfortunately all the video footage of this is over exposed. You’ll have to take my word for it that we were popping cartwheels in trad boats
One thing that did keep the senses heightened was a couple of fallen trees that we encountered that were completely blocking the river.
I can imagine that with a lot of rain and a high river level, this could potentially be an accident waiting to happen, but at these water levels, it added to the fun. It also appeared as though some of the houses backing onto the river had very basic home-made sewage systems going from the house direct into the river. There was also a sighting of a floater. So the jury is out on the water quality, although it didn’t stink and look stagnant, and the river flow and current was fast, even on the flat sections, making paddling easy.
I had a chat with a couple of the guys from the canoe kayak club located on the slalom course and they said that the water is always maintained at the level we saw, as it is regulated and so always has a decent level of water with guranteed play waves. Just so pleased to find a decent play wave within an hour and a half drive from home. The fact this is in northern France, and a great excuse to see Davy, is the added spank on the bum.
Last weekend I did a smash and grab long weekend in the Ardeche, South of France. A smash and grab because I flew in on the Friday, enjoyed the customary first night sherbets, then hit the river for a two day river trip down the Ardeche, then flew back the next day.
The mighty Ardeche. And mighty it was. Great water levels. Decent paddling. At this time of year it’s the maker and breaker of legends. And it lived up to it’s reputation.
Getting to the Ardeche is easy. Fly to Nimes or Marseille, courtesy of our least favourite budget airlines, then a transfer of about an hour to the lovely Ardeche region.
Going on an Ardeche river trip at this time of year means so much to me. It means being 20, forgetting life, loving nature, working hard, caring for your friends, paddling hard, decent water levels, sleeping under the stars, enjoying life! It means so much more. For me, the best days of my life were as a canoe instructor in the Ardeche. When I go back, I am in that exact same instance.
So having real leisure time with my mate Blue and his wife Caroline was a treat. Coupled with a bivvy at Gaud and a BBQ that turned into a superb party with a group of French ski guides. Quite a mad night. There is nothing like a good bivvy and the smell of canvas.
The last few days I have been on a 4 Star Open Canoe training course at Llandysul Paddlers in Llandysul near Carmarthen, Wales. The centre is ideally set next to the river Teifi with prime positioning overlooking the slalom course down a 2/3/4 grade river.
Why am I doing this course? Well. I thought it a good idea to see best working practise for leading groups of peers in open canoes on various types of rivers and open water. I enjoy canoing and I want to canoe more. I guess that will involve canoeing with people. I suppose I should know what I am doing.
If you have no idea what I am talking about open canoes, think Canadian Canoes, kneeling and a paddle with one blade. The original type of canoe, whether a hollowed out tree or a hide stretched over a frame. The traditions of open canoing lives stronger than ever because of the development of these types of courses.
The Four Star Open Canoe seems to tick all those boxes when it comes to thoroughness for preparing to take peers on a trip, whether on white water or open water. I must say, I am impressed with the thoroughness of this course. Taking people on moving or open water is no mean feat. The task instills a certain amount of responsibility. Irrelevant of the situation.
Getting the opportunity to be trained by Ashley St.john-claire and Matt Blue was too good an opportunity to be missed. These guys seriously know their stuff. But Matt will always be 7 stone dripping wet, the way I met him during my last season in the Ardeche and his first season down there. He now has hands bigger than Bocca and races on the GB raft squad. Top of his game, my hat goes off to the way he has progressed throughout his skills exploration in outdoor education.
Ash has a coaching style that builds the person up and then maximises those builds. An inspiring coach embedded in making people paddle better and have fun. I love his dog and I want to paddle with Ash a lot more.
The first two days was run by Ash on the river Teifi.
Day 1 – River Teifi
We started the first day getting to know each other and showing off our skills on the River Teifi. Although we are generally in a low water situation at the moment, the Teifi still presented some technical and challenging rapids with grade 2/3 rapids. In fact the final rapid was technically challenging for everyone and a real test.
The center hosting the course was Llandysul Paddlers, which has great facilities to learn canoeing, kaying and rafting in a safe and controlled environment. I slept in the bunkhouse for the duration of the course, and apart from the fact that O2 appears to be the only mobile opeator not to work on in Llandysul, I enjoyed the facilities.
Next to Llandysul paddlers there is a slalom course and quite a few rapids worth playing in. A great location to learn and enjoy in a relatively safe environment. We had some flat water sections too, a few shallow sections, and stunning scenery as we covered about 10km on this day. I was also introduced to poling. Something I have been avoiding for many years because I thought it was too geeky. But I stand corrected. I enjoyed poling. I am buying a pole.
There’s a lot to see from this river and it is a gorgeous environment to paddle in. Challenging and playful rapids allowing you to explore your skills and the outstanding beauty. Our exit from the river was quite tricky. We were exiting 40 meters infront of a weir, described by our coach Ash as: ” Nasty Death”. More on this later. But the easiest exit from the river to the boat trailer and ride home involved carrying the canoes single style . So a canoe per person carried resting on your shoulders upside down. Lots of hauling using ropes and grunting the boats about 100m vertical later, the day for us was over.
Day 2 – River Teifi
The second day built on the experience of the first day and involved re-running and playing in the rapids of the Teifi. We as a group were responsible for the timings of the day, and true to form we over ran. So we ended up with a repeat exit from day 1. Lots of huffing and puffing and hauling canoes in a general upwards direction accessed up a set of stepladders and a 100 meter steep upwards climb with a canoe on your head.
Day 3 – Open Water – The reservoir
I have always avoided getting too involved with paddling on open water like reseroirs and lakes. It has never floated my boat so to speak. I prefer white water rivers. So in all honesty, I was not looking forward to a day on a huge reservoir. [I need to confirm the name and location of this reservoir. I will update this post when I find out.] Again I stand corrected.
Matt Blue ran the day. Packed full of information, no sooner than we had started paddling in formation around the lake than we had arrived at lunch. We navigated to a bank and tucked into our own version of lunch, which in my case always needs to involve macrels in mustard somewhere along the lines. It is truly the best river food, tried and tested in the Ardeche courtesy of Super U.
The next part of the day was to involve rafting up and building a rig and sail that we could use to sail around the lake using a tarpaulin as a sail, a log, ropes, a few roof rack straps and karabiners. This is not the easiest to explain, so a picuture paints a thousand words etc. Here is the story in pictures.
Lash two canoe poles together
Creat a raft using a log and two canoes.
The sailing rig
The Team
All in all I had a superb 3 days. Great peple, great paddling, inspirational coaching and new lessons learnt.
This weekend I went to the British White Water Rafting Championships. The story behind this is that I used to work with one of the team, Matt Blue and have known another member of the team, Hoopla, for a few years. While I was paddling in the Alps a few weeks ago, we hatched a plan to enter a team.
The British Rafting Championships involved 20 teams in total, with 16 mens rafts and 4 womens rafts. The winners will represent Great Britain in European white water rafting competitions next year along with the runners up in both the womens and mens categories.
I’ve not been in a raft on white water for about 18 years, but I’m pretty much game for anything involved with paddling, so this was too good an opportunity to miss especially because the weekend was a great chance to catch up with old friends.
The competition was held at Llandysul Paddlers, in Llandysul, South Wales on the River Teifi. Llandysul run Raft Guide courses each month along with kayak and open canoe courses. With the competition course located right next to the centre, this was a great location to run the event with all activities taking place from the main Llandysul Paddlers raft base pictured left.
The competition consisted of various events, with each event carrying points depending upon time and position:
Time Trial – a balls out fast sprint against the clock over a course of about 500m of white water.
Head to Head – two rafts sprinting head to head down the same course as the sprint.
Slalom Course – upstream and downstream gates to navigate throughout the same white water course.
10km endurance race held on the Sunday.
We arrived on the Friday night, and decided to hold our team preparation, strategy meeting and hydration in the Porth Hotel. When I say preparation, I mean that true to form, we were the last to get kicked out the bar.
There are 6 people in each raft team and our raft was made up of Tony Pape (Blue), Richard Procter, Steve Greaves, myself, and two last minute additions made up of stragglers: Steve and Sam, our affectionately newly nicknamed team member called Zulu – I’ll try and add the full names here later this week.
The competition started bright and early on Saturday morning with a safety brief and introduction from Matt Blue, which you can see a video of this above.
The first event of the day was the sprint, where each raft would sprint flat out over the course. This would act as a bench mark for the head to head event and allow the fast teams to have first pick of their favoured raft. I gotta say, I was crapping myself before this event. Our team hadn’t event set foot in raft together and the hydration exercise the night before was seemingly having the opposite desired effect.
Suddenly, our time was up and we were on the water in the raft listening to the one minute count down waiting for our race to begin. 5,4,3,2,1. We were off. The adrenalin rush was immense. Putting everything into the 2 and a half minutes sprint. Here is a video of one of the sprints starting off.
The gulf between our raft and the GB team raft was huge. They looked like a finely tuned synchronised team of pistons. With every stroke, each paddlers arm, paddle and hand position were completely in tune, entering and leaving the water at exactly the same time. They were a complete joy to watch.
After the sprints came the head to head heats. This event ran like a knock out competition. So the better the raft, the more heats you ran until there was an eventual winner. We only managed two heats. We lost the first heat. Annoyingly so. It was a ferocious battle with our raft battling side by side of our opponents for most of the course. But we got edged into an eddy three quarters of the way down the course and ended up loosing all our speed. We’d been beaten and we were gutted. We felt we could have beaten them and our lack of practice time had let us down.
Head to head racing
Determined to make amends, we won our second heat with a cunning use of tactics by edging our opponents into an eddy. The same tactics used against us in the first heat. For us, the head to head was over. The feeling of winning was superb and although we didn’t progress any further in that event our spirits were high as went into lunch.
After lunch was the slalom course. I felt we had a good chance to hold our own in this, as we all know how to paddle and this event is as much about skill as speed. We had a couple of practice runs on the slalom course after lunch and we missed loads of gates. It wasn’t looking like it would be a good day for our raft.
We were one of the first rafts to go down the slalom course, and I’m not sure what happened but we pulled it out the bag when it mattered. Our first run was a near perfect descent. We didn’t miss any gates, and only managed to pick up 15 penalty points for clipping three gates. We got out on a huge high with applause from the bank. Only the GB raft team managed to have a clear run and there were not many rafts that managed to make every gate.
The 5th best white water slalom raft in Great Britain
Our second slalom run was a dismal showing. We were tired. It had been a long day. But we were confident we had done ourselves proud on the first run. We came 5th in the Slalom. The 5th best slalom raft in Great Britain! It was worth all the aches and pains throughout the day, and the 7 hour drive to get there.
The day was rounded off with a meal and presentation of the results with prizes for every raft that competed on the day followed by a disco. We partied long and hard into the night at the Porth Hotel, who looked after us really well.
Sunday morning was the 10km endurance race. Unfortunately I didn’t enter this. We needed to get back to London, and I felt sad watching all the teams kitting up and heading out to the course. I’m sure they had a great day again.
Our raft finished 10th overall in the competition out of 16 rafts, but we were all buzzing to come 5th in the slalom competition. If only we had put some training in.
A huge thanks to Matt Blue and everyone involved for an incredibly well organised event that ran like clockwork. Attention to detail was superb and everyone that competed was made to feel a winner and given a prize at the dinner in the evening.
As soon as I have photos from Jason Pacey (Magic), who was the official photographer, I’ll be updating this blog and adding some gnarly action shots.
We are already planning our raft for next years event and there is talk of actually training for the event next year
Paddling difficulty: Grade2. Weather: overcast and rain.
This weekend I went paddling with a group of old pals and my wife at a canoeing event called the Tyne Tour. I’ve never been to this event before, and had never paddled the River Tyne before, so was looking forward to this one and especially seeing some old friends.
We loaded the car on Thursday night and drove to the camp site that we would be staying in hexham, along with the hundreds of other paddlers. I must say, I was amazed that it only took 5 and a half hours to get to hexham from home, and bang on google’s predictions. Having said that, we arrived at 2.30am, so there was not much traffic on the road.
The Tyne Tour offically started on the Friday evening. So because we arrived Thursday night, we were the only people on the whole of the site. Friday morning we got up early(ish) and loaded the boats on to the car and headed for the river. We would be paddling the River Tyne from Kielder Reservoir to Hexham, which is about a 30 mile paddle. This would make for a days paddling with a sense of urgency, especially because it gets dark around 4pm, so we were under pressure of time for the whole day.
I was truly amazed by the stunning scenery of the River Tyne. We pretty much had the river to ourselves and only saw 4 open canoes on the river for the whole day. The upper Tyne was a series of gentle rapids seperated by reasonably long flat sections. You might call it a long slog, but then setting off to paddle 30 miles in about 5 hours is always going to be.
We decided to have a floating lunch. I cracked up when I played this video back while writing this post. Everyone eating, and suddenly no banter or talking. It had been a hard morning.
It was a short lunch and we cracked into the paddling again. Unfortunately we didn’t make the whole 30 miles, we ended up only doing around 24 miles, as we ran out of light.
When we returned to the campsite, the desolate patch of grass next to the golf course from the morning was now rammed with tents, and resembled a music festival with refreshments vans and with vendors selling canoe gear.
Weather: Cloudy with some headwinds. Paddling difficulty: Grade 2.
Day 2 – Running Warden Gorge
We woke up with more than a slight headache after the evening festivities and headed to the water for 11am. It had rained quite hard during Friday night, although I’m pleased to say that I slept through it.
As the Tyne Tour had started properly, we were getting on the water with hundreds of kayakers and a few fellow open boaters. We would be paddling only 14 miles on this day and the grand finale at the end of the days paddling was the rapid at Warden Gorge. A reasonably challenging rapid about 50 meters in length covered in waves with a huge chance of either campsizing or getting your boat swamped with water and ultimately campsizing anyway. The folklaw to this rapid is built up by the fact that you are not allowed to inspect the rapid before running it, because it is an area of Special Scientific Interest.
Sitting at the top of the rapid and watching kayak after kayak tackling the rapid with quite a few capsizes and swims certainly focussed the mind. There were about 8 of us paddling Open Canoes and we negotiated the top part of the rapid and eddied out on the right hand side about a third of the way down to get a better look at the bigger waves on the latter part of the rapid.
I’m pleased to say that not one of us swam.Here’s a couple of photos from Ben Keen who ran the rapid first and setup to get some photos of us all coming down. I had a bit of a surf on the wave at the bottom, but it was carnage with kayaks and canoes everywhere making it difficult to have a decent go.
A 20 minute paddle later and we were back at the campsite and got ready to head out and see the fireworks. We had a cracking thai curry and quaffed one or two scherbets. A great end to a great day.
Weather: Cloudy with some strong headwinds punctuated with blinding sunshine on the final stretch. Paddling difficulty: Grade 2/3/4.
Day 3 – The final day
We woke up to terrential rain and my tent was sat in a huge puddle. I decided that I was going to head back home and miss the final days paddling which was a repeat of yesterday. It would have been great to paddle with everyone else. The river must have had a huge amount of water in it from all the rain and I’m told that everyone in our group swam. So it must have been pretty big water.
I had a great time at the Tyne Tour and I hope I’ll be back there next year. Great company and great paddling.
We took the new canoe out for it’s maiden voyage today. I finally finished fitting it out this morning and couldn’t resist the opportunity for a test drive.
Courtesy of a post over on songofthepaddle.co.uk, we decided to go and have a flat water afternoon on the River Medway, which is only about 30 minutes drive.
After getting back from my Alps paddling trip, I just had to go out and buy myself a new canoe. I spent ages thinking about which one to get. I had my heart set on a We-no-nah 15 Prospector for a long time and was aiming to drive to the Alps trip with one of those on the top of the car.
I wanted somthing that I could paddle both solo and tandem with my wife
Something suitable for flat water trips and whitewater
Something that could handle a bit of bashing around
I spent long and hard thinking about this. It’s not the sort of thing you buy that often. Thanks to Blue, Matt Blue and Phil Hadley for letting me bore you with my questions. I bought this from Kent canoes that is well stocked, 20 minutes drive away and meant I could drive to the store and came back an hour later with the boat and lots of new paddling kit.
I’m really looking forward to getting this out on the water. Next comes the job of drilling some holes in it and rigging it up with the bouyancy, painters and kneeling thwart. Not for the feint hearted when you are drilling a hole in a perfectly servicable boat.
My final day of canoeing was spent on Day 1 of the Ardeche River, in France. When I say Day 1, I’m referring to the section of river you normally do if you just run the river for one day. You get on at Creps and get off at Chame.
The day started off learning to surf a wave backwards in an open canoe. We did this on the rapid called Peachy. A great training venue, we had a good play here.
To finish the day off, Charlemagne never dissapoints. Everyone descended backwards and eddied out to have a play. We had great fun here. Bashing the kayaks out the way and jumping on the wave. Great to see the tandem surfing too. Albeit in slightly small boats. After playing solo on the wave, I decided to surf the wave tandem with Blue and had a swim trying to surf the wave backwards. Shame I didn’t get that on camera, but you do see me swimming while tandem with Danny.
A cracking end to an amazing two weeks. The end of the video sums it up. The last days paddling for the whole of the season for those guys who travelled home the next day.
Thanks to everyone on Blue’s Paddle Training for making me feel welcome and sharing some memorable times. Inspiring me to run out a buy a new boat. Stay tuned for that one and more video footage.
A huge thanks to Blue, Matt Blue and Phil Hadley for putting up with me on the courses and training. Really enjoyed being a trainee in your sessions.
After the high jinks of the Apls, I have been glad to get down to a bit of rest for a few days and a spot of work. Being on a campsite with wifi is awesome and means I am the same as at home.
This afternoon I went paddling with Matt Blue down the Upper Ardeche. A stalwort of the GB rafting squad, I worked with Matt back in 199something. His first season, my last. He since went on a skills mission, worked many seasons on the Ardeche, worked as a raft guide on the Zambizee and now paddles on the GB Raft squad.
We had spent the afternoon driving round looking for a river worth running. Then as if by magic, it appeared that the tap had been turned on. The river started appearing high and running well. Transporting water from a reservoir, down many levels, into the town to keep the resources moving. Amazing to see resource management and movement happening. Nonetheless, we embraced the water level and had a great paddle down a few hairy rapids.
There are two rivers feeding this. The Font blah de blah de blah (apparently), and the Ardeche. A great afternoon paddling. Some great rapids. Big and bouncy. Lots of rocks.
After this, Matt ran back the 2k to the bus with trailor and returned to collect us and get home. We stopped off for a Mc Doo and the obligatory walk round a sports shop and I bought a new river nife and tape for rescues.
Looking forward to 4* Leader training. Bring it on.
Waking up after another bivvy and another night spent round a huge fire and N glasses of vino (N being the positive integer greater than 1). People were practising their bushcraft skills of making an ashtray out of a log and burning the hole using embers and sticks from the fire.
Ipod music and a great night had by all. We had already paddled back to Carlsberg after having the most amazing steak dish, with three different sauces, plus a huge salad and a strange pasta and ham dish that lived under the dangling steak and received the nasty end of of the flamed cognac. Picutres to follow.
The Rab is a nasty rapid on La Durance river, in the French alps. The import thing to remember is that rapids change. And nasty rapids eat you and change.
I was paddling tandem down this rapid and we swam like fish. I love this photo. Still paddling to the bitter end.
Paddling the Rab, on La Durance, France.
I recorded this video of everyone coming down the Rab. Not for the feint hearted in an open boat. We unanimously love the typewriter move that sucks from the chicken run to the nasty hole. We did laugh.
We came to the Alps intending to canoe. However, a local Via Ferrata proved too good an opportunity not to miss. If you have never heard of a Via Ferrata, think of it as climbing for tourists. Throughout Europe, there are loads of these setup by either regional authorities to promote tourism to the area, or by commercial operations. The course consists of a fully bolted and cabled route. Wearing a climbing harness, helmet and Via Ferrata kit consisting of 2 slings with karabiners, you can safely traverse the route with virtually no risk.
This is not climbing. The course is made easy by a series of large metal staples allowing you to safely climb vertical and overhanging rock faces with virtually no climbing experience. They do leave out the odd staple here and there, to make life a bit tasty on occassion and to get the heart pumping. Especially at that height. ALso, various bridges and wires, making it look like a scene out of Indiana Jones. There are also a series of zip wires spanning both sides of the gorge at it’s highest. As we were out of season, unfortunately these were closed
The one we were doing was the Via Ferrata in la Durance gorge, which provides excelent views of the white water river below and the surrounding area. Not for the feint hearted, the Via Ferrata is 800m in length and 250m in height. Quite something dangling at that height off a sheer rock face with a video camera in one hand while holding on for dear life.
I also shot a series of mobile video as it became a bit hairy trying to dangle at that height with a video camera. Even so, still pretty difficult with a mobile!
After getting to the Ardeche and settling in at the campsite, I spent the first night meeting up with the rest of the instructors on the paddling course and quaffed a few beers in anticipation of the trip.
We left the Ardeche on the morning of Friday 19th September and headed to the French Alps for Serre-Poncon, near to the town of Gap, where we would bivvy at a secluded spot right on the lake. The bivvy site, known as Carlsberg, because if Carlsberg made bivvy sites, they would probably be the best in the World.
The drive to the Alps took 5 hours, followed by the obligatory trip to Decathlon to buy a few last minute essential items of sports kit. We arrived and paddled the 2k distance in open canoes to the bivvy site in the dark.
I’ve never paddled a canoe at night before. Not like this. Not carrying 3 days worth of supplies and in truly stunning surroundings. The moon was not strong, but the stars were out and we were treated to a wonderful shooting star display and a great view of the milky way. A truly stunning place, we did not see another sole there for the whole time. Set overlooking the lake, a remarkable place to bivvy. Reminds me of everything I enjoy about being in the outdoors.
We made the 2k, pulled our boats and kit out the water and carried everything to the bivvy site to meet the rest of the instructors. When we got there, they had already setup a great camp and had a huge fire going. Everyone was sitting around, drinking wine and talking with great expectation of the days ahead. People were carving things out of wood for the camp and doing bushcraft skills. A real back to nature experience.
At the end of this video, you will see Martin paddling an open canoe using a stick. He was dropped off to go a walk up the mountain you can see behind him by himself. Early into the walk, his rucksack straps broke and he had to turn back. Liuckily we had left a canoe over that side of the lake, but no paddles. So he paddled the 2k with a stick.
If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that I have disappeared for a few days on a canoe trip to the south of France. I have hooked up with a friend of mine that is running a canoe instructor training course down here and it was too good an opportunity to miss.
I arrived last Thursday afternoon, courtesy of Ryan air from Luton to Nimes and transferred to the Ardeche, South of France. My connection with the Ardeche is that I worked there for a few years when I was a lot younger as a canoe instructor. Paddling the river, teaching groups of English children how to paddle a canoe at an outdoor activity centre.
I left the outdoor education industry when I was 22, having completed 5 summer seasons working for an outdoor education company, as I felt there was not a career path capable of paying the right money for the amount of responsibility. This was shortly after the Lyme Bay incident that massively shook up the whole of the outdoor education business. And rightly so. I shudder to think how many lives I was responsible at the tender age of 22. Leading groups of 50+ people down the Ardeche river on a weekly basis in the southern French climate on a white water river. The buck stopped with me. They were the best days of my life and those memories stay with me always.
Things have changed somewhat since I left. Many of the people I worked with are now top of their game in the canoing world. Something that I hugely admire. Both professionally and from a lifestyle point of view. It’s something that I felt I would never be able to achieve. So I moved on. But I still enjoy paddling and I am making a huge effort to get out there and paddle as much as I can again. It’s something that is good for the soul. You just can’t beat a days hard paddling, followed by a few glasses of wine around a camp fire on a bivvy site.
This post should act as a bit of background to the trip, so you can understand where I came from and how much canoeing and the south of France means to me. I am recording video, taking photos and will be blogging the whole trip. The first three days of the trip should follow shortly:
Day 1 – Drive from Ardeche to Serre Poncon in the French Alps. Paddle to the bivvy site and camp out.
Day 2 – Via Ferrata – an unexpected beauty. Brought my climbing days back. Truly awesome.
Day 3 – Paddling La Durance in open canoes – A grade 2/3 river
I was inspired to blog this trip after reading the most excellent blogs by Thomas Otter about his recent Italian Cycle trip.
