The Stour River Part III: Unexpected Events

It was vary rare that any flow in the river could be detected which meant we had to paddle every inch of the way. We successfully navigated a small weir and managed to paddle the shallow waters following it. The Stour really does have some spectacular and remote spots along its course. One minute the river is fifty feet wide and the next it is barely wide enough to paddle.

Soon we were in Bures which is a typically quaint English village complete with water mill.  At this point there was talk about getting a taxi back to the cars which we had left at Dedham on the assumption that we would easily make it to Dedham by four or five o’clock.  Joel, who was paddling a Sterns Cordova inflatable kayak, was suffering from quite a bit of back ache due to the kayak seat in the Cordova being low and unpadded.

After a rest and a drink at this stunning location we agreed to push on as were able to fashion a more comfortable kayak seat in the Colorado using one of the spare Sevylor rangers inflatable kayak seats.  Fully refreshed we headed further down the winding river Stour.

Up ahead we could see some low hanging trees and as we drew closer we could see the dreaded pea soup weed covering the entire width of the river. Whilst the length of this latest patch of weed did not seem to stretch for more than thirty feet and the width of the river at this point was only about ten or fifteen feet wide, this latest patch of weed did have a dead ram hanging from a tree inches above the water line.
This poor creature had obviously slipped down the bank and in its attempts to make it across to the other side had become entangled in the tree.

Bumping our inflatable kayaks across the weed it was quite disgusting as we paddled uncomfortably close to the bloated and fly blown animal. This was the sort of thing that when you are planning your leisurely paddle you don’t take into account and you will you never find this on any map

The river Stour continues to twist along at a very sedate pace through various idealic locations with the river hardly seeming to be flowing at all.

The weirs every few miles break up the journey but unfortunately in view of the time of year and the recent dry spell many of them were unable to be shot in our inflatable kayaks.

Shortly after midday we stopped for a late lunch by a public house called the Swan in a place called Nayland which is yet another idyllic sleepy village.  Here the river runs straight through the village. After lunch we set off again and due to the dry river in places we had to drag our inflatable kayaks for about a mile or so.

We quickly found that the easiest way to get back  into an inflatable kayak whilst in the river was to jump into it at the same time as pushing it forward much the same way as a bobsleigh rider would.

When I considered the water was deep enough to paddle I pushed the kayak forward and jumped into it only to find that the water was not deep enough causing the inflatable kayak to stop dead in its tracks making me fall forward onto the bow where all my kayak accessories were packed.

Unfortunately I fell face first onto my metal flask causing the bridge of my nose to split open. If the water had been deep enough I could have fallen in and would have been in real difficulty as I was a bit dazed and confused on top of my nose bleeding quite heavily. To say our paddle along the river Stour was a leisurely one is far from the truth as we seemed to be faced with one issue after another.