Stuart Reeve posted on November 25, 2009 06:00
Having done the major faff of collecting equipment from the container we enjoyed a long, but fascinating tour (for those who are endlessly curious about London) through south London up by Southwark, into my terra incognita of Rotherhithe where Mike and the committee had found a wonderful, if very muddy (low tide) put in point.
We counted everything again, stood by our equipment, mostly listened to the briefing, sort of, left stuff which we were going to paddle with (lunch, jumpers etc) and left some guards and drove off over to Vauxhall where the rest of us would park up for the return at the end of the paddle.
An amazingly quick drive, for central London. I wish it could always be like that. Having changed into our rubber gear (seen to be believed) at the Westminster Boating Base we then waddled over to Pimlico tube and stunned a good deal of hung over folk on the tube up to Green Park (luckily en masse, no one did more than stare). Then onto the Jubilee, and the mysterious East London line, which in all my London years I have never travelled on; then up passed the romantically labelled Canada dock andGreenland dock and we quickly found the alley which led us back to the put in point.
Eventually we got into the water. At low tide, the Thames Flood Barrier had created a "no-tide" day; it looked beautiful, still and calm My usual reaction to that first push into the water and streaming away from the bank is one of complete delight and happiness "free at last" springs to mind, leaving all my worries and concerns on the bank. Lovely.
What a thrill to see London from right on the river. Riverboat trips are great, but being little on a large river gives you insights that you never usually have. I have never got over the joy of being on the water, with; I like to think, envious people, looking over at you, wishing they were doing this.
We had an easy paddle, with a good tail wind, under the bridges and a welcomed stop on a beach near the Millennium Bridge for lunch. There I kicked around on the beach to find pieces of delft pottery and possibly ancient oyster shells.
If anyone has read stories of old London (especially Claire Tomalin's sparkling biography of Pepys) you will know that until pollution from human wastage ruined the river quality in the mid 19th Century, fishing was widespread and oyster beds prolific. Oyster houses were everywhere in London (did this cause the 19th century population explosion..?) I left the delft and shells where they were and belonged.
Grateful for the tail wind and expecting more of the same, everything changed; turning the corner at Waterloo Bridge we got the full on head wind. This created some exciting swells. For, in the Thames you get the wash from the boats going by which hit you laterally, then the waves hit the embankment and hit you back the other way. You get used to it and enjoy it…in the end.
But as we were approaching Westminster the wind was creating small waves from the south westerly direction as well which made it lots more fun.....so we were getting pushed from most direction and, of course, the river was filling from upstream so there was more current. Everything else went well as we arrived back at Vauxhall, not too exhausted. Things I sort of missed...
I did not see the outfall of the Fleet River...and to all you paddlers: did anyone else? Most Thames tributaries are all long gone underground now, except the mighty Lea and our beloved Wandle.
Got a wonderful hot shower back at Vauxhall and then on to 'Chelsea Reaches' to a very nice pub and a bit of refreshment, photos and then the long trip back to the container to unload, tidy up and say our goodbyes.