River Avon - Crew's Hole to Hanham and back

Four of us set off from Crew's Hole on the River Avon for what was advertised as a flat water paddle. However, despite the sunshine that afternoon, a tremendous amount of rain had fallen in the preceding few days and the river was running very fast. Our aim was to paddle upstream to the pub at Hanham but there were several places where we appeared to be paddling very fast and not moving very far. At one point we had to go past a pleasure boat right into the fast current and I seemed to have to use about 4 paddle strokes for every inch. I felt as though I wasn't moving upstream at all, but fortunately the boat had some writing on it and I could see that I was moving a letter at a time. A couple of motor boats passed us at one point and we were aware that their engines were working very hard to move comparatively slowly. Rather a lot of vegetation and debris was floating downstream- and much of this also needed to be dodged.

Eventually after several rests in eddies, and two hours of hard paddling everyone apart from Ruth made it to a bridge over the river- a little way from the pub. We then turned round, and having tried to stay out of the fastest currents on the way up - we found the fast currents on the way back and got back to the carpark in about half an hour. While paddling back, we were aware that it was incredibly peaceful and we could hear grasshoppers in the grass on the bank. The evening had been a very enjoyable break from the working week, and we, yet again, had chosen good weather. I think we all slept really well that night!

Thanks to Dave for planning and organising the trip and keeping us going, especially when it seemed extremely hard work.

(Paddlers: Keith, Mike, Dave and Ruth)