The river Stour is a sedate river in Essex England and stretches for some forty six miles. This was the river for one of my first kayaking adventures which threw up some unexpected events.

On this particular paddle I was accompanied by four friends and we each had an inflatable kayak for the journey. Four of us had Sevylor Rangers and one had a Sterns Cordova

Due to a very hot summer the river was low and the rise had practically dried out so we started from a place called Henny Street which is about three miles further down river.

As this was one of my very first river runs and the first time I had ever paddled an inflatable kayak my friends and I had little experience and had not planned our journey as well as we might have.

As any experienced kayaker will tell you what is detailed in a map can look very different from what the river is actually like. It certainly does not provide information on river heights, conditions and the effects of the weather.

After spending a few minutes pumping up my inflatable kayak and loading up all of the kayak accessories, my friends and I were ready to go. It was early morning around 8am on a beautiful sunny Sunday.  We began our journey near the Swan public house, much to the amusement of its patrons.

Within seconds of being afloat we were faced with our first dilemma. The river immediately forked into two separate paths, one blocked by an over hanging tree and the other by a weir.

One of my fellow paddlers decided to try and tackle the weir which was a daunting prospect especially as he had never shot a weir on an inflatable kayak before.

Needless to say he got stuck half way down due to the rubber skegs on the bottom of the inflatable kayak and the weir only having a few inches of water running over it.  Luckily he was still high enough on the weir to get out and drag the kayak back up to the top much to the increasing amusement and ever growing crowed at the pub.

We then decided to take the route blocked by the tree which we did manage to negotiate but not before getting covered in leaves and pieces of bark. Thankfully all of the inflatable kayaks made it through this first obstacle without sustaining any punctures.

No sooner had we made it past the tree we came to a dead end and found ourselves in a small pond with nowhere else to go.

Confused about what to do next a local man appeared on the riverbank that seemed to be unhappy with regard to our presence in his garden pond. To our total embarrassment it now became clear to us that we were not in fact in the River Stour but in some ones back garden hence the reason the people at the pub found us so amusing.

Fortunately the pond owner quickly realised that we were hapless and inexperienced kayakers and pointed over to where the river was, a couple of hundred yards away.

One of the major problems paddling a river after there has been a long hot dry spell is the build up of weed and algae. This river weed is not dissimilar to pea soup and smells a whole lot worse!  Upon rounding a bend in the river we were faced with a huge patch of ‘pea soup’ that spanned across the entire width of the river.

Nick, one of the paddlers in the group was not as athletic as the rest of us, and as a result was lagging some way behind. Whilst waiting for him to catch up we let the kayaks drift up to the ‘pea soup‘ using it as an anchor. We took the opportunity to have a quick sandwich and a drink.

Not wanting to hold us up, Nick decided not to stop and to push on through the weed in order to make up some ground as the rest of us looked on.

The further he paddled into the duck weed the harder it became to paddle. The more he paddled the more the weed tangled up in his paddles and as he lifted the paddle to take a stroke the weed fell into his boat. We couldn’t help but laugh at his plight.

He eventually became stuck in the middle of the weed. Unable to paddle any further due to the thickness of it. However his predicament soon became ours when we made our attempts to get him out.  Upon seeing how difficult it was to paddle through the weed we decided to portage up the steep grassy bank.

At this point we realised one of the most important kayak accessories to have in your kit bag is nettle spray!  As we climbed up the river bank in our shorts we all sustained many nettle stings which soon stopped us laughing.

Another important item in your kayak accessories should be a decent rope. Luckily I had brought a rope with me but unfortunately it was not a good quality one. We threw the rope to our fellow stranded paddler who in turn tied it to the front of his inflatable kayak. As we tried to pull the boat the rope snapped and kept snapping every time it was retied.

At one point Matt slipped down the bank and fell waist deep into the stagnant weed. By this time Nick had worked out that he could edge forward by bumping along but it was a slow process and was extremely tiring.

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.

Nick was the first to go and once he had successfully reached the bottom we all followed. At first we were concerned about shooting weirs on inflatable kayaks which were laden with kit but they performed admirably and no one had any problems. We would have liked to have portaged and played at the weir but we were conscious the time due to the many delays and cars were was still some way off.

As we watched them swim nearer they seemed to be forming a phalanx formation and we started shouting and waving to Nick that he was about to be attacked.
Not wanting to miss the sight of Nick being attacked by swans I started filming with my mobile phone from the edge of the bank. When the swans were about twenty feet away Nick raised his arms which caused the biggest swan to hiss at him. He immediately put his arms back down.

I started to edge down the bank filming as I did. As I was looking through the camera viewer I had a distorted perception of where I was treading and the next thing I felt my foot slip away from under me and my right shoulder, head and neck smashing hard against the dry mud of the bank.

My fellow paddlers rushed over to help me up as I was very dazed and for the first few seconds I thought I had broken or dislocated my shoulder. It took about forty five minutes before I felt I could paddle again. Gingerly I climbed back into my inflatable Kayak, nursing a swollen nose, lump on my head, stiff neck and painful shoulder. I felt like I had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson rather than a sedate paddle along a lazy river.

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.

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.