Every March, Burton canoe club host the annual river Dove tour. This is the only date that this river can officially be paddled, due to access agreements.
Eleven HCC members met up for an early start at Aston bridge. After the car shuttle and the organisers safety brief, and a ‘bodge it and leg it’, footrest repair to Sara’s boat (don’t you just love cable ties) we launched and headed down to the first eddie for our safety brief/chat. Here we met a lovely guy called Pete from Leeds, who was on his own, so joined us for the day. We had a mix of solo open canoes and kayaks, for the 11 mile trip ahead of us. The river is grade 1/2, with a few shallows (very small rapids), it has 3 weirs and a few interesting bits to negotiate along the way.
The first real feature to negotiate is an old metal bridge that is partially blocked by a tree, where the river runs quite quick. After a quick inspection and a bit of safety cover, this was negotiated really well, with no problems. The first weir, with the lunch stop overlooking it (so always an audience). This is the biggest of the day, it is a very steep concrete slope with a narrow central channel/slide. Most kayaks can shoot this anywhere, but canoes and long boats need to use the slide. We had one swim here. Yes it was me, which made everyone’s day, especially Tess from RLSCC, who rescued me with a great shot from her throw line. The reason she loved the moment so much was 3 years ago it was an exact role reversal at exactly the same spot, so it was payback time plus everyone loves the trip leader swimming.
After lunch we moved on to negotiate the rest of the river, and 2 more weirs. The next weir is quite straight forward but has a scary looking standing wave, which is good fun, the third is a small very steep shallow slope.
A great fun day was had my all, with 6 swims in total. Well done to everyone. And thanks for the great teamwork/help from the more experienced paddlers on the trip.
Dave Clarke