On a very warm and sunny morning we met early at the Millers Arms in Canterbury for a pre-paddle breakfast before launching off a shallow grass bank onto the Great Stour river shortly after 10am.
The first part of our trip took in the loop around both arms of the river through Canterbury passing under numerous bridges and even under some medieval buildings – which involved some very deft ducking manoeuvres for those on SUPs. Parts of the journey through Canterbury were through some very narrow channels with timber framed buildings either side of us, giving the trip an almost Venice like feel. It was really stunning.
The second part of the loop took us past the very colourful Westgate Gardens and on to the magnificent sight of Westgate Towers, where we stopped for a short rest break before heading out into the countryside.
The outward bound part of the trip was against the current, which was surprisingly strong in places for a relatively small river. Still, it helped to build up our appetites for lunch and a lot of the scenery was quite gorgeous.
After searching for a suitable landing spot for our lunch stop we eventually found a very pleasant grassed bank near Chartham where we got out fairly easily – although some of us did have a bit of an argument with the stinging nettles!!
After a leisurely lunch break we headed off back to Canterbury. As we were going with the flow the trip back was extremely easy and you hardly needed to paddle as we drifted along through the lovely Kent countryside. We did have one swimmer on the way back, which gave Joe – one of our new coaches – a chance to practice his rescue skills. The Great Stour is a pretty benign river though so it was no big drama.
We arrived back at Canterbury at around 3.15 pm after a round trip of around 6 miles. After loading up our boats most of us went off in search of some ice creams before the drive home.
This was another great trip organised by our Chair, Nic – with a great combination of scenic views around Canterbury and lovely countryside outside the City. Combined with the very pleasant weather it made for a really enjoyable day. You can watch a short video of the trip here, with a longer version here.
