Stuart Reeve posted on November 02, 2009 03:58
There had been a deluge of rain the previous weekend and the river gods had smiled and given us the miracle of Hurley on 3 gates. I had also miraculously booked 3 days off in August to get a decent session in on this famous play wave so I could barely believe my luck.
Only a couple of us could get any time off of work so the 2 of us headed off to Berkshire on a cold Wednesday morning with the intention of getting a monster session in. We arrived, got changed immediately and high tailed it down to the river. There it was, Hurley on 3 gates and only 2 of us to enjoy it all to ourselves. A normal session at Hurley will last about 2 hours. After that, you are knackered from all the rolling you have been doing but we were like school kids given free range of a sweet shop and only got off the water after 3 hours due to hunger pains.
Lunch was consumed and then it was back for another dose of Hurley. As we got back to the weir so it dropped to 2 gates. No matter, Hurley was up and this was what we had been waiting for 6 months. The crowds started to grow as all the students turned up after their late nights. No matter, we got on with it and stayed on the water for 5 hours before the cold started to get to us and we decided to call it a day.
We were going to sleep in my car for 2 nights and then head home on Friday afternoon and so decided that we wanted a nice quiet lay by where we would not be disturbed during the night so settled on the put in for Hambledon weir at Alton.
A nice quiet evening was had in the back of my estate car and we were up at 7am and raring to go. Back at Hurley we changed quicker than Superman and were soon out on the water. No one was as mad as us so we had the whole place to ourselves on 2 gates. GREAT.
I got everything dialled in that I had been struggling with and was all set for a great day when the lock keeper turned up at 10am and shut one of the gates. We were a bit gutted but still happy as we had had the whole place to ourselves. No queuing, no hassle, just the two of us and the play wave.
We got off and went back to the car park. There were about 20 paddlers in the car park in various stages of getting changed who weren’t too happy when we broke the news to them that it was now on 1 gate. A couple of them went to have a word with the lock keeper to see if he would open the 2nd gate for them but unfortunately he wouldn’t.
I got changed and came home happy in the knowledge that I had been in the right spot at the right time instead of having a wasted trip of driving back through the rush hour traffic after a night in my own bed. 3 weeks later and it is still on one gate.