Sore bottoms, moodiness and excellent snacks!

So another week of evening training and what to do for the weekend?  On Saturday I went Easter Egg Hunting with friends at Disreli's joint. But Sunday was paddling day.  

We had a target of a 30 mile paddle from Windsor to Kew, along the Thames, so caught the train, with the boat in the bag, and after a very short walk were at the riverside assembling the boat.  

Then we got the boat down these stairs - that was fun, with a bit of paddling at the bottom.

And we were off heading away from Windsor - it's a shame we didn't get a piccy of the castle - Neither of us checked to see if her madge was at home.

This stretch is under Heathrow's flight path and we got a good view of the underbelly of many aircraft as they went over.

It got closer than it looked

Canoe Rollers at Richmond

I had my first experience of a floating dock made of many sections of air filled plastic  - quite amusing to feel the dock fall away from you as you step onto it.  We stopped  for a quick consult of the map.  As you can see we finally got a sunny day - I spent it in a t-shirt and then paid the price with lobster red arms.

Instead of portaging we mainly went through the locks and we took the opportunity to have our snacks as we waited for the water to drain out.  It was a meatball all round day, although I remain of the view that Esther is adding pasta.




Now this being a bit of a longer paddle we saw the first instances of moodiness.  Esther just stopped talking and was real head down.   Now when I'm a bit pooped I start singing - any nonsense but Esther goes really quiet so I decided to take advantage of the quiet!






Richmond lock is only open for the 2 hours either side of high tide and unfortunately we were a bit too late.  It's a long lock and I thought that we would have a long portage, then the man from the PLA pointed us to the canoe rollers so that you just pull the boat down the ramp.  A lot easier than the long carry.  What I didn't realise is that I would be sitting at the bottom for hours waiting for Esther to go to the loo.

Sarah waiting restlessly

I was a bit restless as all of this sitting in the boat with minimal movement was, to be brief, giving me a slightly numb bum.



Now I am told that I have ample in built cushioning but I think something may have to be done before the race in terms of padding and obtaining more in built padding is not the answer.

We arrived at Kew around 7.5 hours after we started, which owing for the loo stop and waiting to go through locks is, we think, quite a respectable time for a 30 mile paddle.

We then took the boat home, firstly on a double decker bus, then the train (from the station by Kew Gardens) and then Sarah walked in 20 minutes up hill to her house dragging the 24kg boat and with a HUGE  bag of kit.  That has to be the worst part of the day.

We'll be posting soon about our exploits on the river Wye.

Sarah