Diary of a middle aged kayaker

Archives for river

Classic Val Sesia

My mate Dean booked flights to Milan six months in advance, giving me plenty of time to commit to a long May weekend paddling Val Sesia. Many things can knock a trip like this off the rails – a family emergency, an important piece of work I can’t say no to, injury or illness – [...]

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Road trip to Val Sesia and Ticino

8 Rivers with Dean, Andy, and (all the way from Tasmania) Harry. We spent five days in Val Sesia, to take in the Gene 17 Festival and paddle the classics, before heading east to Ticino in southern Switzerland for some new rivers.  We started with a couple of runs on the Sesia including the Gene [...]

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The force of habit

The weather in Britain has been cold and wet for a couple of weeks, and the only people not grumbling are paddlers who have appreciated the first Thames weir season for some 15 months.  I’ve managed three sessions at Hurley and one at Marsh weir. Last Sunday I was paddling and talking with Tim Ward, [...]

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Wilderness Journeys

Now that I live in the UK, one of the things I miss about Tasmania is the easy opportunity for a multi-day trip down a remote river.  Although parts of Scotland and Wales are pretty remote, there’s not the same sense of wilderness.  I think back to the three years between 1977 and 1979 when [...]

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Feel the fear and do it anyway?

I’m just back from three days boating in Devon. It was a great trip with the usual suspects, and unusually there was enough water to provide entertainment on the Upper Dart, Erme, Tavy and East Lyn rivers. After a summer of slalom and regular paddling at Lea Valley I felt strong on the whitewater, which [...]

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