Finding some whitewater- summer is back!
tomthepaddleman | May 11, 2008After ringing around, to find that both the nene and HPP were shut, and constantly checking the thames weirs levels to see if hurley would go up to two, I decided to go to the local weirs of hertford and ware. The weirs at hertford are at the best of times shallow and combined with the low levels this meant having a nice bump and scrape adventure. The main weirs at hertford consist of mainly steps or a combination of steps with gates for flooding. After a quick surf at a weir called two step the decision was to paddle to ware to shoot a weir and for some ‘fitness’ training.
So we set out on a long paddle to ware taking over an hour, made even worse by having to paddle like mad to keep up with the longer boats, after several angry swans, dumped trollys, cartwheels and flatwater loops later we arrived at the flood relief weir at ware.
The weir itself is a crescent shaped weir which drops a good 2.5-3.5m and is the closest you will get to creeking in Hertfordshire without travelling over an hour. I was expecting it to be similar to the other weirs at hertford shallow. As soon as i hi paddled off the lip i decided to see deep it was by pencilling the drop. I was pleasantly surprised and recommend it to anyone who wants to practice the crash position or boofing. Not quite scotland though. first competition is now a month away at Cardiff bay then in July it is the mighty nene, and a week ater that i’m off to the alps for 10 days. Can’t wait should be good.
Tom