Stuart Reeve posted on November 02, 2009 10:56
This trip was supposed to be a weekend but ended up as a single day trip. This was probably a good job given that open boating is actually quite knackering. We started off from the Longridge centre at Marlow and quickly realised this open boating lark isn’t as easy as it looks.
The front paddler is the engine and the back paddler is the rudder and the brains behind the operation. There is quite a lot of technique to get the thing to go in a straight line. So in the end we only paddled about 1 ½ miles down to a riverside pub and then sat and ate our sandwiches.
Once our lunch had settled we all had a go at paddling the boat individually, proper Red Indian style. Ray Mears eat your heart out. Then we had a leisurely paddle back up stream. Everyone seemed to have improved their skills with a bit of practice. I’d already started dreaming of wilderness paddling in Scotland.
We stopped where the river split into a separate channel for a bit of a muck about. Everyone tried a few trust exercises in standing up in boats and swapping places, resulting in the expected dunking of a few of us. We carried on paddling back up the channel looking at the amazing riverside houses straight out of the Wind the Willows.
After all, there is nothing quite like messing about in boats.