There's a monster in all of us...........

Nothing to do with kayak's but I've been cast as Dr Henry Jekyll (and Mr Edward Hyde) in our next production. Rehearsals are going really well and it is shaping up to be a belter. Give me a shout if you'd like tickets (maybe a discount for kayakers!!).

Return to the Cam

Apologies for being such an infrequent blogger over the winter - no excuses other than the kayaks have been lazing around in the garden propped up against the conservatory for a while. Still, Spring is about to spring into life - hopefully - and so now is as good a time as any to give them a wash, shake out the spiders and get them in order for the season ahead.

Just to get back into the habit of blogging again, I thought I'd show you a few snaps from our return trip to the Cam out of Grantchester where both Dawn and I ventured out for about 3 hours as we paddled to Cambridge and back. This is Dawn in the pilot seat of the Drama Queen:

This trip was done in the Autumn of last year and as you can see, the colours of the trees were breathtaking. Both boats behaved impeccably and we finished our trip with another face-filling stop at the Orchard Tearooms - wonderful!

A Midsummer Nene Dream

Okay, we’re a bit past midsummer, but this weekend just gone had to be one of the loveliest in terms of weather – it was a scorcher! And it works nicely as a post title :-) I couldn’t have picked a better weekend to take the Dagger on my first kayaking camping trip. Destination? The River Nene in Northamptonshire.

The River Nene is the tenth longest river in the United Kingdom and rises from three sources, all in Northamptonshire. It is navigable for 88 miles (142km) from Northampton to The Wash. The Nene runs through four counties in total, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk. Depending on where you live also depends on how you pronounce its name which includes variations such as ‘Neen’, ‘Nyn’ and ‘Nen’ – confusing. The river gave its name to the former Nene College (now Northampton University) and to the Rolls Royce Nene Turbojet engine – Rolls Royce practice being to name their gas-turbine designs after British rivers. Coincidentally, or not, Sir Henry Royce was born in Alwalton, a village by the Nene near Peterborough.

Dawn was going away with the girls for a spa weekend to celebrate Gill's 60th birthday, so I thought I would make the most of the weather forecast and the spare weekend. Friends Keith and Nina dropped me and the Dagger (thanks both) at the Nine Arched Bridge in Thrapston at about 9.30 on Saturday morning and already the sun was warming up nicely. By the time I got my camping gear secure on the back of the Dagger and eventually launched, it was already scorching the back of my neck. Here are some views from day one en-route to my overnight camp at Oundle.

It really was a beautiful day's paddle as you can see, which culminated in an overnight camp near Oundle where I pitched my tent next to some pigs! Actually, they were quite good company, very little smell and only an hour or so of snoring - I don't think I kept the pigs awake though! :-)

Sunday morning saw me rise early and after a camp cooked feast of sausage and baked beans, I launched in the warm morning sun at about 9am. Again, it was a lovely day and a beautifully scenic paddle as I headed towards Fotheringhay - where Dawn was due to pick me up in the evening. Here are a few snaps of the day:

Fotheringhay, my end destination, was particularly interesting. Fotheringhay Castle, which sadly is only a grassy mound and a small section of surviving masonry, was the birthplace of King Richard III as well as the place where Mary - Queen of Scots had her head chopped off. It's a beautiful spot as you can see, made even more lovely with the sight of four Red Kites circling around the church spire.

The Dagger performed really well. It's not dissimilar to the Drama Queen statistically, although it is a touch more 'rocky' having a slightly more rounded hull. This isn't a problem though and you certainly don't feel that it's going to tip over. The Dagger comes with a very comfortable seat pad and padded seat backrest which made the weekend paddling comfortable and easy on the back, the footrests are great and easy to adjust, both bow and stern decks come with deck rigging/bungee (although the stern deck bungee was just too tight to accommodate my 40ltr dry bag, so I cut it off and replaced it prior to leaving) which allows for plenty of on-deck storage - the boat did not feel at all unstable with 40 litres of camping equipment tied to the stern deck and there's also plenty of room for other equipment (I'd estimate about 30ltrs) behind the seat on either side of the ethafoam flotation. All in all, I reckon it's a great expedition boat for shorter, flatwater trips and I would quite happily take the Dagger away for a week, confident that it could cope with the gear. If I learnt anything on the trip, it's that I need to get myself a kayak trolley for portaging. Although I coped okay, and fortunately for me most of the portages were grassy so allowed me to drag the Dagger, the boat was heavy with all the camping gear and fresh water and my arms were aching  after completing half a dozen or more portages each day. But, there you go, you live and learn. I had a great weekend and can't wait to go and try somewhere else - I'll keep you posted.

If you'd like more information on the trip - route, mapping, campsite location (even wild camp locations which I made a note of en-route) etc, etc, please leave a comment and I'll get in  touch.

It's the future....

So, I’ve gone and bought a second-hand Dagger Fiesta 9.3. This is the brown one which is made from 100% recycled plastic discarded during the manufacture of other Dagger kayaks. Sounds simple, ingenious even and reducing one’s carbon footprint has to be a good thing for us and the planet right? The questions from me are, why hasn’t this been done before and why aren’t all kayak manufacturers doing it? I’ve been recycling my household rubbish for over 10 years. At work, everyone has to place all used plastic cups into specially made bins so that they can be sent away for recycling – we’ve been doing that for as long as I can remember too. And surely, kayak manufacturers have had skips full of off cuts for years that they didn’t know what to do with. Now, I know that a few manufacturers (Venture Kayaks I think is one) now include a small amount of recycled plastic into their moulds, but to my knowledge the Dagger Fiesta is the first 100% recycled boat. There seems to be some suggestion that recycled plastic loses some of its integrity, that it simply isn’t as strong or impervious to impact, and yet, I watched a video on YouTube where some bloke from Palm was whacking the hull of a recycled Dagger Fiesta with a 2lb lump hammer! (There is a link from the Dagger website to this video) Although curiously, the same bloke suggests that he wouldn’t go on white water with the kayak because it isn’t as strong! Excuse me? Anyway, I’m no expert on plastic technology, but my point is that the recycled Fiesta looks pretty strong to me, even if it can’t be trusted on white-water. As a recreational boat for canals, lakes, slow moving rivers and inland waters it seems to fit the bill fairly well. Every kayak manufacturer should now be responsible enough to manufacture at least one 100% recycled kayak to ensure that the environment conscious kayaker (like me) is catered for and that they as manufacturers play their part too. That’s all I’m saying.

So, back to the Dagger Fiesta 9.3 – this is a boat for Dawn to use really – she loved her pootle around in the Drama Queen at Grantchester Mill pond, but the truth is that second hand Perception Kiwi’s are going for silly money at the moment - £250 doesn’t seem unusual on eBay – and this is for a boat which is, what, 10 to 20 years old? Don’t get me wrong, the Kiwi is a great starter kayak, but £250? Do me a favour.

So, it was with more than a hint of excitement that I spotted the Fiesta (an 18 month old edition) with a starting bid of £175 which included (wait for this) a Carlisle Daytripper paddle, a Palm fitted spraydeck, a XL buoyancy aid, and a brand new spare seat pad and backrest! And it was only 20 minutes from my house! The listing had only been on an hour and was due to run for a week. I emailed the guy and asked if he had a ‘Buy it Now’ price in mind. He replied and said ‘Make me an offer?’ I love it – here was a man I could do business with. I offered him £200 and the promise that I could pick it up the following day – he accepted.

Dagger Europe describes the Fiesta as ‘an ideal first kayak with simple outfitting and a stable hull shape.’ I couldn’t have put it better myself. The vital statistics of the Fiesta are not dissimilar to the Perception Kiwi (which was the main attraction for me) and so this should be a great boat for Dawn. Here are a few snaps of our Fiesta. I’ve already had her out for a weekend camping trip on the Nene in Northamptonshire (for reader review purposes only you understand :-) Dawn offered a simple and to the point, ‘Where do you think you’re going with my boat?’ and of course I explained that the world deserved to know just how a Dagger Fiesta performs on a camping trip :-) ) and the post for that will follow very shortly.

Would I were in Grantchester, in Grantchester!

Apologies for the delay in posting – I’ve just had too much on these past few weeks. I’ve got plenty to write about though – not least, our weekend trip to Cambridge which delivered one of the most torrential downpours I’ve ever seen as well as a lovely paddle along the Cam. I’ll also be writing posts about my solo weekend camping trip along the river Nene (this coming weekend) and a review of the latest model to join the Crooks Kayak Stable – a Dagger Fiesta 9.3! Hopefully, I’ll also have enough time to add more to the ‘Types of Kayak’ page too.

So…..Cambridge. And what a varied weekend it was weather-wise. Dawn and I dragged the caravan to a lovely little Caravan Club CL in Harston – a beautiful little village on the outskirts of Cambridge on the Friday evening. We rang ahead, as instructed, and the small holding owner was there to greet us at the gate when we arrived. We couldn’t believe our luck when she showed us to our pitch for the weekend – a tranquil little apple orchard all to ourselves!! Yet another reminder of why we don’t stay in hotels!!

Needless to say, we’re visiting this site again in October. But back to this trip – by the time we set up on the Friday evening, there was little time to do anything but eat spaghetti bolognaise and crusty bread washed down with a bottle of French red whilst listening to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra playing themes from the ‘Detectives TV Shows’ on Radio 2  – ‘ain’t life grand?

We were up early on the Saturday morning and Dawn dropped me and the Drama Queen off in the lovely village of Grantchester – south of Cambridge – where I put in at a bridge just outside the village.

Grantchester is noteworthy for a number of reasons – it is said to have the world’s largest concentration of Nobel Prize winners, it was home to the Edwardian poet, Rupert Brooke who lived at the Old Vicarage (now home to the author Jeffrey Archer – Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare and his wife Mary), nearby is the infamous Byron’s pool where Lord Byron enjoyed ‘skinny-dipping’ as did Virginia Woolf apparently, and the village hosts a Barrel race on Boxing day every year which culminates in a hog roast party at the Rupert Brooke pub. Village life – marvellous! And, of course, it is home to one of the most wonderful tea rooms in England – The Orchard – a must for everyone’s bucket list.

I set off paddling at a little after 9 and had promised to be back at 12 to take Dawn to The Orchard for lunch. My original plan to get as far as the ‘Backs’ before turning round was scuppered – I’d be lucky to hit Cambridge given the time constraints, but anyway, off I paddled and it was simply wonderful. The weather was perfect, warm but mainly overcast, although the sun did pop out occasionally and, more importantly, it stayed dry.

The Cam, certainly the stretch between Grantchester and Cambridge is lovely – slow moving and bursting with greenery. Grantchester Meadows (the path through it is known locally as the ‘Grind’ although for the life of me I don’t see why – it’s a fine walk through lush meadows - as the name suggests - bordered by impressive woodland) full of dog walkers and cyclists accompanied me for the first few miles of meandering river, although I was completely alone on the water until around 10ish when I neared Cambridge itself and then, all of a sudden, the Cam was awash with Kayakers – I’d happened upon Cambridge Canoe Club!

Having picked my way through novice paddlers splashing their way from bank to bank (hark at me – the experienced kayaker with 2 months under his belt! :-D ) I continued on until I entered the city where my way was finally blocked by a considerable number of punts. No, that’s not a spelling mistake – punts are flat-bottomed boats with a square cut bow originally developed on the River Thames - here’s a photo:

I had reached my first portage point, but decided instead, after a glance at my watch, to turn back and paddle gently south to Grantchester and my lunch date. It never ceases to amaze me how the light constantly changes on the water – have a look at some of the photos and you’ll see what I mean:

As you can see, the paddle back was lovely. Instead of finishing at the bridge where I started, I took a right fork into the heart of the village and ended up at a lovely pool beside Grantchester Mill. Take a look:

Dawn arrived and had her first ‘go’ aboard the Drama Queen:

We both nearly toppled in when I helped Dawn out of the boat, but we survived and headed for The Orchard (passing the previously mentioned Baron Archer - dressed in an old cricketing jumper – on the way). The Orchard really is a fabulous place on a sunny afternoon. We had cheese ploughman’s followed by fresh fruit scones with strawberry jam and Cornish clotted cream all washed down with lashings of piping hot Darjeeling – wonderful! Take a look:

The last photo (admittedly not very good quality but it was taken with my iPod and was a bit rushed) is of the last flying Lancaster – the City of Lincoln – passing by presumably on it’s way to or from an air show – what a fantastic sight – and noise as it roared past! We spent hours lazing in the warm sunshine listening to bees humming and birds singing and the sudden appearance of the Lancaster was a perfect finish to a lovely afternoon. The following day we were treated to thunder storms and rain that bordered on terrifying – we sheltered under a shop canopy in Cambridge along with lots of other touristy types and the rain was so heavy and so utterly deafening that everyone simply laughed and spent an hour grinning inanely at each other as they pointed constantly at the rain as it pelted down like stair rods – it really was a strange experience.

This last photo is a memorial to the poet Rupert Brooke in the garden of the Old Rectory:

So, that’s my first paddle on the Cam – as I mentioned earlier I loved it so much we plan to return in October where, hopefully, I will get time to explore the ‘Backs’ in the Drama Queen – I’ll keep you posted.