Where to paddle next?

From our last few posts you will see that we spent over 2 hours on public transport getting to and from the River Lea in London for our first, longer, training run. When including putting together and dismantling the pakboat, (even allowing for Sarah having to tell me every step as I've not helped before), I reckon, for a 5 hour paddle we spend almost 4 hours doing paddle-related "stuff". Now that's not sustainable for our training days...carefully timed and packed into already full lives.

Even our second training run on the more beautiful River Medway took 2 hours transport on either end of our paddling. We at least managed to put the Pakboat together in 30 mins rather than the 1.5 hours the first time!! Now, I didn't mind this too much as the paddling was good but we only did 5 ish hours when we had thought it would be 6 hrs + and didn't want to do more as it would mean over 12 hours out of the house.

So, we are thinking of a few options but what other plans could we consider?

1. Talking to canoe hire companies on nearby rivers.
That would cut down on the preparation time with the Pakboat, but we'd be paddling a much slower, heavier boat that would hurt a wee bit (!) on the portages around locks - and cost more for each training session.

2. Putting up with the faff.
We'll get the boat prep time down maybe to 20 mins so we could just put up with public transport and yummy mummies and enormous buggies being mean about the Pakboat taking up "their" space on the bus...

3. Find places on the Thames that are less tidal but enough time between locks to get a real paddle in.
Possible safety issues, especially if lots of water around. Plus, my steering isn't up to this yet.

4. Circles on the basin for hours
Easy to do, easy access, showers etc and easy home BUT
Sarah would kill me......

As Ryerson & Anne say, it's about time on the water so any other thoughts to help us get time on the water in straight lines!?