Our first moving water trip and definitely our longest family paddle yet!
The day began at the cosy little town of Borrowash under a bridge, near a camp site, on the side of the river Derwent. Tyler, Kyle, my Dad and I stayed there while the rest of the group (Wes Osborne, my Mum and our leaders) drove their cars round to the other end of the route; a small place called Trent Lock. On their return the boats were lined up ready to be launched in and the four of us already there were eager to get on the water. Our leaders Martin Stretton and Richard Mathews gave us a quick safety talk and explained that our trip would be in two parts:
• Part one
The Derwent: narrow, moving and quite shallow resulting in most of us if not all of us got beached at some point.
• Part two
The Trent: wide, flat and deep it had the occasional boats and barges on it as well as some locks (which we avoided, you’ll see why later).
Part 1
Back to under the bridge, the talk finished and the day began. One by one we seal launched into the moving water and paddled to a calmer area then waited for the rest of us to get on. As quick as we could the day began and we all paddled off until we had to stop as the end of Richard’s paddle had fallen off! I was thinking well this is a good start as we’d only just got round the first corner and something bad has happened already. Luckily he’d brought a spare paddle just in case. That was lucky. During this time while he got his spare paddle out and put his old one away Martin showed how to go across moving water without going down stream. This was very interesting and enjoyable; no doubt a useful thing to know. For a long while we just paddled watching the wildlife and marvelling at the interesting twists and bends of the river enjoying the paddling and the scenery. We arrived at some hugely overhanging trees, but we’d been told not to go under these as you could get caught and trapped or even drown – this didn’t sound good. Martin quickly told us to go in single file through here. This type of thing was on and off for a while however there were some other things to look at to like the gaggles of swans or even the cattle in the fields above. After about one and a half miles we stopped for a quick break and a drink this you might think was safe but NO. A group of fairly young cows came to have a look at us so, as quick as the few who got out of the boats got out, they were back in once more! We didn’t set off straight away as we decided that we’d try out our new found talent we learned at our last stop. Well how should I put it most of us were fairly bad and got slowly swept downstream a bit. 🙁 Off again. This time with a bit more energy back in our systems we set off eager to crack on and see what the river had got waiting for us. Well it had got something waiting for us… Tyler called it a fluffy rock until the smell and sight hit him. Well those sheep we saw earlier obviously weren’t bright enough not to come out of their fields. Yes a sheep had fallen in long before we got there and had died in the middle of the river not a good day out for him! So we hurried past and carried on towards the first ‘rapid’ my word that was fun and Martin said that was only a small one. I couldn’t wait to do white water as soon as possible (and I still can’t – that’s our next trip!). We cracked on around a few bends and rapids until Martin gave the order to stop while he found a place to get out as just in front of us was a very dangerous and very steep weir. We found a place and one by one we got out, moved our boats past the weir, then came back to have a look at this water feature.
After a quick stop here we continued along the meandering river and were assured that just round this corner there would be a weir that was going to be more like a white water feature. Well soon enough we beached our boats, got out and had lunch overlooking what we would soon have to face: half a gushing almost menacing concoction of weir and ‘water fall’ and the other half was a huge rock and some large branches. Lunch went quickly and soon the thought hit us that we would actually be going down that beast in the next few minutes.
As a result of our caution Martin kindly led the way in his canoe, shortly followed by Kyle Swinburn, to show us there was nothing to be afraid of and we would all be fine. This definitely helped me if not the rest of us (thanks). The playing on this weir was about to begin. Tyler boldly nominated himself to go first and showed the rest of us how to do it. He was followed by me and this was just the most fun thing I’d ever done in a kayak – this was the “crème de la crème” of the day. Absolutely brilliant. Everyone did it and everyone had the same big grin on their faces and the want to do it again. Many of us did do it again and still got a thrill out of it. Those that didn’t watched as we came crashing down this incredibly fun water feature. Though sadly this had to end at some point otherwise we’d never get home. So we were thinking about starting when we heard this almighty splash looked round and saw Tyler swimming happily (with his boat back to the beach) in this large ‘eddy/lagoon’. How he fell in is a mystery but it was such a laugh! After empting his boat and putting his spray deck back on, we carried on down the river. Along the way we saw three herons but sadly it’s in their nature to fly off if you get to close although it was still quite a spectacle to see these birds fishing and flying. Not much else happened on the rest of the way down river.
Part 2
When we arrived at the confluence of the Derwent and the Trent, it was already much busier as it had 2 more boats but these weren’t kayaks or canoes but people in motor boats either fishing or cruising. Apart from the (not so) distant rumble of the motorway it was peaceful and calm. It was like going from one planet to another as the two rivers were really different this river was wide, flat motionless and slightly more busy. It was weird. We kept paddling at a slow pace none of us thought anything more was going to happen until we got out. But the recurring thought kept passing through our minds what happened to the “three weir” promise we were given at the start? Well boy! We had got a shock ahead of us.
Instead of doing a portages at the locks we went through a barrier that only we could fit through and ahead of us was that all too familiar ‘horizon’ line and the sound of gushing water. Yes, you’ve guessed it, it was another weir but this one was different to the other two in the sense that this one was like a huge water slide (I don’t recommend this as a water slide though as there are some quite vicious stones at the bottom). Like at the last weir Martin went first and one by one we slowly came down the steady yet fun slide then got buffered around by the rocks at the bottom (which you can’t see until you get close to them) and finally we got spat out and went to join Martin. On this weir, after everyone had come down, we tried to surf on its frothy bottom with not much success. That about concludes it as from here onwards we had a gentle paddle back to the busy car park at the Trent lock pub.
Great trip for everyone as it’s a mixture of moving water, flat water and a tiny bit of white water. Thanks to our leaders for putting it on and thanks to all the people that made this trip a good fun and sociable trip.
By Ben Hardy
We started where the black arrow is then followed the Derwent down to the Trent then followed the Trent to Trent lock (blue arrow).