We packed the boat up and caught the train from Charing Cross to Tonbridge and then paddled to Maidstone. The added benefit of the River Medway is that a lot of the locks and weirs have canoe chutes so you do not have to portage
Not quite as long as we'd hoped buy I'll admit the planning wasn't exactly scientific and was done by Sarah in a bit of a rush on Friday afternoon (at work - shhhh).
We played with a few things, working our upstream against weir streams, how often we should change paddling sides and some fast and slow intervals - note for next time - don't leave this to the end of the day.
This is us in one weir outlet. We did get a bit closer and I could start feeling the recirculation so we turned around. I've seen this at summer levels before and the mass of white under the weir and the noise it created was a bit daunting.
The EA are refurbishing Teston Lock so we had to haul the boat out and portage 500 plus metres - not fun. They have also omitted to put a landing/launching stage on the downriver side of the lock leading to muddy bums all round as we slid down the bank into ankle deep mud - I will have words!
As we got into Maidstone, Esther insisted on navigating our way to the station using road signs. Sarah wanted to stop for a spot of shopping - they have good shoe and handbag departments in House of Fraser.
Cleaning and drying the boat at the end of the day. As it goes on lots of rivers Sarah likes to make sure its as clean and dry as she can get it so we don't transport too many nasties.
It is surprisingly how heavy the Pakboat is when carrying on your shoulders or dragging through mud!!
ReplyDeleteDifferent sort of training....
And you took the lighter one out :)
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