International Canoe Exhibition

Every year the canoe and kayak manufacturers and retailers of Great Britain gather together at the National Exhibition centre, Birmingham, to show off their new boats/new kit and provide a good bargain. Well, thats what used to happen. Since the 'ICE' has been part of the 'National Outdoors Show' the prices for stands have increased steadily each year. Unfortunately this has lead to fewer retailers and manufacturers wanting to/being able to afford to go. Therefore less new boats/kit to show off, less bargains and less visitors specifically attending the 'canoe/kayak' part of the show. Thankfully the Rough stuff boys are still there entertaining and handing out the guiness, this year though, they were charging for the black stuff (about £70+ for a pint of guiness, with a free paddle thrown in).

I always spend some time looking around the rest of the show, the World Cup Bouldering was amazing to watch, and the Mountain Biking Demo was also good. As the prices of stands go up though, there are more and more large retailers (such as Blacks and Millets) and less of the smaller companies, which is a real shame; if I wanted to go to the large shops I would wait for the Sales and head to Reading town centre. I much prefer the smaller 'quirky' stores, that offer a different range of clothing and/or more bargains.

The last few years PeakUK have run a freestyle demo competition in a 'wave box'. I hated that wave box - I could never do anything in it and I found it harder work than flatwater, I also didn't think it was a particularly good demonstration of freestyle kayaking (a big screen showing some big moves on some big waves/large rivers and a come and try it pool underneath would have, in my opinion, been a better showcase). This year though, Peak changed it slightly and had a 'challenge' type event consisting of a flatwater freestyle (hate it); an 'extreme' slalom - through the gates, hit the ball with the end of the boat, back through the gates and then roll (entertaining); and a bungy boater X (paddlers in Riot Creek boats with a bungy attached to the end - interesting). So, with a better variety of paddling this year and having not seen some paddler folk for quite some time I decided I would make an appearance.

The freestyle was OK, but obviously flatwater, I never practice my flatwater moves (generally because I would rather go biking or to the gym when there is no water, and if there is water I'm not going to spend my time on the flat). Perhaps I should do it more often for fitness - I was knackered after a minute of paddling!

Photo Tom Laws

The bungy-kayak was over quite quickly (about 10 seconds for me! See this photo, I'm in the red boat, definitely ahead but I guess I peaked too early!) and didn't cause quite the visually entertaining spring-back-and-fall-over manoeuveres that I was hoping for (stronger bungy required, perhaps), but at least the crowds could figure out what was going on.

The slalom was entertaining to watch (when it got to the last few rounds). Head to head formats are always good, and as it was over a slightly longer distance than the bungy, and was often down to who hit the ball the first time, it was actually quite exciting. I also did quite well, so thats always good! I won a nice fleece from Trespass and some fat face vouchers. Excellent.

The parties are usually good fun, unfortunately this year they never really got off the ground. So we all went to the pub instead. Still, lots of alcohol was consumed by all and as always, it was good to meet up with everyone that had been hiding away for the winter months (although, was it me doing the hiding?).

First day of spring was yesterday, but it is still really cold. Fortunately there is some warmer, wetter weather on the way. This is no consolation to the Hurley Classic organisers who, once again, have had to cancel (postpone this time until December) the Freestyle competition which was due to happen this weekend. It's going to be a great event, when it does eventually happen! In the meantime I'm holding out for a wet Easter holidays....maybe.

Boating in the UK

Finally it rained! 2 gates at Hurley last Wednesday evening, which surprisingly didn't feel too cold (this could have been because I avoided going upside down for the first 40 mins). It went up to 4 gates on Thursday which was good fun for some looping practice, which definitely did feel cold. On Thursday and Friday I managed to work during the day, earn a load of money, and still get a boating session in during daylight hours - supply teaching, fantastic (except for the annoying children, but I guess there's a downside to every job!). This meant I could avoid the queues on Saturday, safe in the knowledge that I had already paddled my playboating heart out for 3 days in a row (a rare occurence in this country at the moment). So we headed down to the River Dart for a bit of a party. It was good to catch up with lots of people down there. The Upper Dart was a sea of plastic on Sunday morning, but despite having rained all night the river level had not gone up at all. Still, there was at least just enough water to get down the river, and was good fun for my first upper dart trip since Christmas 2004 (and, I guess, will be the last until next season starts in October)! If only the water levels were more reliable.....

Hurley is back down to 1 gate, so it was a short but very pleasing few days of paddling, and all in all not as unpleasant as it could have been only a few weeks after returning from Africa.