The Stour River Part VI: The Journeys End
With all the set backs we had encountered we had now run hours over schedule and it was almost dusk. Fortunately the river was now quite wide and we were making good progress. As we approached Nayland the river was easier to navigate and weed free as it passed by the back gardens and moorings of people’s houses. Obviously this stretch of river was used frequently by the people living in the surrounding villages.
We started to see more people and other canoeists. When asking them how far we were from our destination they said probably another two hours which deflated our already heavy spirits. We had to make our destination before dark so whilst moaning and blaming each other we paddled on as fast as we could manage.
We portaged at the next weir which was too dangerous to shoot and unfortunately Nick fell into the water when getting back in his kayak. Luckily he had a spare set of clothes with him but to his despair he managed to fall in a second time and so had to complete the rest of the journey soaking wet.
We paddled on and on expecting to see our final destination at every turn only to be dismayed by seeing yet another stretch of river up ahead. Our fears really began to start when the sun disappeared over the horizon and what was a beautiful river by day turned into a black foreboding path ahead, full of over hanging trees hiding all sorts of cobwebs and undesirable insect life.
The air was starting to fill with flying insects and not expecting to have been paddling in the dark none of us in our entire kayak accessories had thought to bring a torch. To make matters worse a mist was quickly descending on the river surface.
At this point we started to become quite concerned. Even though we were not exactly in the wilderness we were far enough away from help and were stuck in the river due to very high river banks. The only think we had to light our way was the torch beams from our mobile phones which of course made paddling at the same time virtually impossible.
Thankfully after what seemed like an age someone spotted up ahead a place where we could portage and as we drew near we could hear traffic from a nearby road. It was a disused weir and we had to drag the boats up a twelve foot wall to get to the road side.
Once on the road we quickly became aware that we had reached a place called Stratford St Mary which was only about a mile from our destination. Two of the group went on foot to pick up the cars whilst the others packed up the inflatable kayaks and all the kit.
Soon we were in the cars and on our way home. It felt like we had been on a gruelling jungle adventure and not a gentle paddle along a placid river. There were plenty of moans and groans but secretly we had all enjoyed this little adventure and had learnt an awful lot about kayaking down a river.
