The Stour River Part V: No Way Through
Our next challenge was how to pass through a gap of no more than three or four feet wide which was blocked by a contraption that had been left over from some fun river raft race. It was made worse by the fact it was stuck in the dreaded pea soup. It took several of us to drag and lift the raft out of the way and of course this added extra time to our journey.
For a while after the river ran very narrow and in places it was not even wide enough to paddle. On these occasions we had to pull our inflatable kayaks through the water by clutching the reeds on the either side.
Joel, who was paddling the Sterns Cordova inflatable kayak found the going a lot easier in the shallow water as his kayak does not sit as low in the water as the inflatable kayaks.
At some point Ryan’s inflatable kayak developed a small puncture to the port side tube. Luckily it was a slow puncture and he was able to use the hand pump to inflate without needing to stop.
By this time the sun was getting very low in the sky and we were all very tired and longed for the journeys end. It was not long before we were faced with yet another set back. A huge willow tree had fallen across the river completely blocking our path. It had probably blown down in the high winds we had the previous week.
We were all very disheartened by the site of the tree which was made worse by the fact the river banks were too high to portage at this point and we would have to travel a good mile or so back to the nearest portage point. It appeared an impossible passage for our inflatable kayaks to manage safely as the dry sharp branches of the willow tree would surely puncture the boats if any attempts to make to through were made.
As we pondered the situation we noticed some movement up ahead from the other side of the tree. A man paddling a single seat rigid kayak emerged through the branches. We exchanged pleasantries and found out he was a river warden who was checking the river prior to a yearly event that is held on the Stour called the
Sudbury to sea run, wherein approximately two thousand canoeists and kayakers paddle along the river from Sudbury to the sea over two days.
He remarked that there was no way we would make it passed the tree on our inflatable kayaks without puncturing them. We said our farewells and he disappeared up river. None of us were prepared to paddle back up the river so we decided to give it a go passing through the tree.
Joel was first and made it through to the other side relatively unscathed. Slowly but surely we all managed to pass through the willow without puncturing any of the boats which is a true test of how strong and durable inflatable kayaks are.
