"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own" Sri Chinmoy
Ross-on-Wye to Redbrook - 23 mile kayak - 5 June 2026 - Wye Valley
I started the year with big running plans, but the torn meniscus put paid to those! With cycling and running both on the slow comeback, I dug out (no pun intended) one of my beginner/touring kayaks and took to the river. My first two outings were wonderful, building up slowly with 6 miles then 8.5, but the real goal was to challenge myself on my birthday. I wasn't sure how far my longest ever solo kayak paddle had been, but it certainly hadn't been 20 miles, so I set that marathonesque distance as my paddling goal.If I could paddle that far, it would be a new personal record and the satisfaction of having transcended myself on the big day.
As June 5th approached, the weather forecast was looking rough. The arid record-breaking May (35 degrees in England for the first time since records began) had given way to another June Monsoon. These seem to be happening more and more now. Anyhow, with my time off for the Olympus Marathon cancelled, I was free to book my birthday off work which turned out pretty well. Kokila helped me with the shuttling by dropping me with the boat at Ross around 9.30 with a plan to pick us up at Redbrook 5 hours later, or thereabouts. That would mean not much hanging around and pretty constant paddling for the whole time - definitely a kayak marathon by my standards. It would also involve the Symonds Yat grade II rapid, a breeze for an experienced canoeist but a challenge for me. I've paddled on and off since I was around 10 years old but never put enough time in to master the techniques and skills - in boats, I'm an eternal beginner.
I dragged my boat across the grass in Ross to the easy put-in at the steps, steadied myself in the boat with my drybag stashed behind me, and meditated for a minute or so. I was the only boater in sight, with it being a week day and outside the holidays, but the weather was being kind and it was set fair for the day (albeit with a stiff headwind from the south to add to the difficulty). I headed downstream and started to paddle at around 5mph, as good as it gets in my flat & beamy golden boat. The effort felt easy on the arms, with 2 practice sessions behind me, but this would be three times the length of the previous trip and definitely not an easy task. Soon I was immersed in the atmosphere of the river, surrounded by swans and mandarin ducks, the splash of my paddle entering the water the only sound other than birdsong. Shallows and easy rapids came every so often and I got down them easily enough, the water always deep enough to avoid any grounding. I was singing to myself and loving the peace of being out on the water, the solitude, the dreamlike quality of the Wye.
I started to paddle hard to see if I could get my PB for the first leg to Kerne Bridge, but when I did finally pull myself under the arch of the old stone bridge, it was one minute over at 1:06. Still, the 1:05 was in 2014 when I was 46. Maybe I'll have another crack at beating that PB sometime but on this occasion I was happy to come close, seeing as I had at least 4 hours more paddling ahead of me.
The sun came and went, the cheeky little rapids too. I saw no fewer than 4 kingfishers, one of whom I chased from tree to tree down the left bank, homing in to get a glimpse of its gorgeous colours before it saw me coming and flitted to the next tree. Soon it crossed to the other bank. There were swifts in abundance, swans and geese, grey wagtails perched on branches just above the water, jumping fish coming out to swallow flies a few inches above the water.
Approaching Symonds Yat I began to get nervous - I had a few short stops to refuel and rest my arms but other than that it had been relentless paddling, pulling myself downstream. The only real question mark in my mind was the Grade 2 Yat rapids, something slightly out of my skillset - but I kept telling myself I'd done it a few times before and always managed to stay upright. The only time I swam on that rapid was when Balavan and I took an open boat down there and didn't make a great job of balancing the canoe. Solo there wouldn't be a problem, would there? I knew that if I did come out I'd be alone on the river, with it being a weekday, without any handy fellow canoeists to catch paddle or boat, so I'd be having to grab hold of both or wade out for them in the shallows below the rapid. Well, I didn't expect it to come to that.
When I arrived at Symonds Yat East, the rapid was all set up for a slalom event at the weekend, with poles hanging low over the river and a convientient START sign hanging just over the tongue of smooth water that I always aim for anyway. I went for it, paddled hard into the wave train, and soon found the poles were not going to make life easy. I didn't feel I had the skill to weave around them in the kiwi (not the most manoueverable of boats) so I opted for the blast-straight-down approach. At one point I had to nudge a pole out of the way with my head, the odd larger wave broke over the bow and soaked me up to my chest, the boat was bouncing but not tipping. I stayed upright and soon the rapid petered out into riffly shallows - job done.
The gorge south of Symonds Yat was lovely - I started to find myself entering into that dreamy consciousness that comes on long rides, hikes and marathons where you feel sort of merged with the landscape and everything gets a little - what's the word - numinous? In that little gorge, human civilisation hadn't penetrated and things still felt primordial. I soaked up the feeling, enjoying the contrast from the challenges of the city and its dynamic human consciousness. This was what I had come for, after all, that kind of total immersion in a physical challenge in an inspiring landscape. I felt very fortunate that I was able to take a day off ordinary life to do this.
Carrying on down the gorge I had more encounters with the teeming birdlife, marvelled at the seemingly infinite shades of green in the forested banks, carried on turning my tired arms over. Coming out into the straight section towards Monmouth, I hit a punishing headwind and my energy was tested. I started to ask myself if Kokila would have had enough of keeping herself occupied in the Wye Valley by now, and maybe I should do her a favour and finish at Monmouth. That would still be a PB in terms of total distance paddled - wouldn't it? After what seemed like a very long pull into the wind, switching from bank to bank to try and get shelter, I finally pulled myself up alongside the rowing club steps in Monmouth, just ahead of the stone bridge. I checked my messages and Kokila was clearly doing fine so I decided to trek on to Redbrook. There were more rapids just downstream of the town, on a new section of river I had never paddled before. I explored the Monnow for a few metres to see how it looked when it joined the Wye from the right bank - I was surprised at what a tiny river it was down here at the junction. I was remembering past adventures - swimming upstream of Monmouth in an Aquathlon years ago, or toiling through the hilly Monnow Valley to Grosmont on Audax rides.
Soon the river served up some more little easy(ish) rapids and I had to give it my full attention, then came another hard pull to finish the day. I wasn't certain how the take-out at Redbrook would look, so as soon as I came through beneath the disused railway bridge and spotted some cars and vans parked river-left high above me on the bank, I pulled in and took out my phone to check. I had paddled a few metres past it already! Lucky I checked, as 40 metres downstream there was another little rapid and once past that I would have had to carry on to Brockweir in all probability. The take-out was just a little step and a gap in the undergrowth, so I gripped the bank with one hand and the boat with the other and hauled my tired frame out on to the step. Then I emptied the boat of the last drops of Symonds Yat water still in it and hauled it up the steep slope to the green. Adventure over, I felt pretty well soaked and tired but very happy with the day. Nice to do a PB of sorts on my Soul's Day, my longest solo paddle in a Kayak, now at the age of 58.
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