Always Something New

I was ready for another session on Friday, got everything together and found the car wouldn't start. By the time I'd sorted it out it was too late to get going so I had to scrap the session and wait for another day. I found that the club's weekday trips were on the go again with a session scheduled for Monday and I booked myself in. After a bunch of rescheduling over the weekend this trip ended up as a reprise of last September's one way trip from the club, through Teddington lock, onto the tideway and down to Isleworth. Knowing by now the full rigours and travails of a club outing I had fortified myself the night before by carbo-loading a spag-bol and then supplimented that with a bowl of porridge in the morning. After some early morning faffing about getting cars, kayaks and the six participants in the right places at the right times, we duly set off from the clubhouse bit after 10am. Crossing the rollers at Molesey wasn't too much of a problem except that the water level is still high and meant that I had to step upwards to get back into the kayak rather than down, which is the more familiar action. After some negotiation and instruction from our leader I finally settled for a kind of controlled Fosbury Flop into the cockpit with only a wet posterior for my trouble. We pushed on down the long curve around Hampton Court towards Kingston bridge with the flow taking us along quite well. At some points I was actually leading the pack, although probably at the expense of excessive energy expenditure. This part of the river is still on yellow warning boards so the flow is fairly considerable and it was helping our average speed quite considerably. Looking at the Garmin track later I had recorded speeds of up to 6mph and on one occasion topped 7mph, something of a record for me. We pulled in for a short, pre-planned respite just before the bridge. There were two landing stages about a hundred yards apart and the others piled into the second, smaller one of the two. I could see that I was going to get into trouble again with the flow carrying me past the landing if I had to stand off and wait while they extricated themselves, preened a bit and had a chat before pulling their boats out of the water to make way for the next. I pulled in at the first staging and walked up to join the group, who at this point were sharing chocolate biscuits. Onwards from there I settled into what passes for me as a steady rhythm and continued along the curve to Teddington lock. Here the river becomes tidal and we had to push out into the weir stream which was fast and swirly. Once again I ended up with wet feet and rear end on the almost submerged landing. By this point one of our number had decided to withdraw from the excursion rather than 'overdo' it. To retire he had to paddle back up the weir stream, no mean feat in itself. Our leader shepherded him up the stream while the rest of us tried to maintain position a little further down the river. This proved easier said than done. The others selected part of a wharf wall to cuddle up against while I practiced my back paddling to remain stationary, which went well for a while except for a slight sideways drift which took me close to a large mooring post a few feet out from the wall. Getting bored with the back paddling, where I discovered that wing paddles don't provide a support stroke when the stream is coming from behind, rather they tend to dig into the water and pull downwards, which is quite disturbing to find out in the middle of a fast flowing weir stream, so instead I decided to tree hug the post. This was fine until I came to disentangle myself from it. I can admit that it probably didn't look very elegant as it caused some concern to one of our number in that he thought I was about to go in and came paddling up ready to do a deep water rescue. He may well have been right, but this time I was lucky and came clear without mishap. Just past Teddington an obelisk on the bank marks the transition of the waterway's authority from the recently much maligned Environmental Agency to the Port of London Authority. The countryside becomes more and more picturesque from here, as you pass along broad reaches, by Richmond hill and through Richmond itself. Just past Richmond one last portage remained to get past, the Richmond half lock. This is more of a barrier that is lowered two hours after high tide to regulate the flow up to Teddington. Passage through the barrier is via a gated lock on one side and an overflow slipway on the other. Last time I went this way the barrier was open and we just paddled through, this time it was closed and we chose the slipway. When I signed up to this club I had expected that outings would be through warm, sunny rural idylls, peaceful gentle paddles while communing with the wildlife. Perhaps spotting the odd Kingfisher and the only likely hazard to be the odd attack from a swan. What I hadn't expected was white water kayaking. The water coming off the barrier was roaring into the river on the other side. It was flecked with foam, boiling and swirling out to both sides so that the only spot we had to launch was into a cauldron of fast water flowing in all directions at once including under the overhanging trees on our side. We received some of our leader's wisdom by way of advice on how to handle the conditions. 'Launch sideways, use support strokes and let the current carry you down. If you get caught up in the trees then... well, you get caught in the trees.' Two of the others pushed off before me and made a reasonable fist of getting clear of the turbulence, and then came my turn. Getting in was okay, just the now usual wet feet and bum, and our leader steadied the boat while I elbowed it into pointing in the right direction. He then pushed me off into the maelstrom with a cheery 'You're on your own now... Good luck'. My boat wanted to go in any direction but the right one. I managed a few strokes paddling, rocking and rolling but in the end settled for just keeping upright. Gradually the flow took me into more manageable waters and I recommenced paddling. Our finish point was only a couple of hundred yards further on and in fact if I had gone in I would probably have washed up on the pub's foreshore sometime later. But even with the finish line in sight I know well to my cost that fate can throw a curved ball at you even as you congratulate yourself that you've arrived without major trauma and are still dry. The last time I arrived here I stepped out of the boat and immediately fell into the water. Not wishing to make a repeat spectacle of myself, this time I exited the boat with exaggerated care and pulled the boat out of the water for the last time. It was an enjoyable trip, my first on the Thames this year. I've really got to make the effort to get out more on the big river trips as I've probably learned more from the vagaries of this one trip than I have from much of the paddling I've done on the Wey. Paddling on the Wey has served a useful purpose, building stamina and style, but it has it's limitations.