Krazy Kayaks

Happy New Year!!

Firstly I must apologise for not posting on here in far too many months, there are no excuses! And also whilst Dave has been going paddling mad in the swimming baths and River Don I've not been out in a boat in a while. There is no-where local to me thats doing canoe hire now which has made it difficult to get out, however my saviour turned up in the brake van of a HST! (Thats a High Speed Train for non railway readers). Imagine the looks I got from smartly dressed commuters as I walked down a packed train platform with a canoe over my shoulder! The temptation to start shouting "The flood is coming, I'm ready but are you?" was almost too tempting. My hugest of huge thanks to Mr Brian West who has lent me his canoe for practice, it'll make a massive amount of difference to me and the amount of time I can spend paddling in the run up to the main event in July. Next time I see you Brian the beers will be on me. The borrowed canoe can be seen in the above picture (would you believe that it's actually a fairly short boat!) and I'm as pleased as punch to be it's guardian for a while.

Dave has also managed to pull in £600+ of sponsership money which is fantastic and well on the way to the £1000 target. I'll be doing the rounds at my end very shortly and so expect to see me begging for whatever of your hard earned cash that you can spare, it really is for a great cause, BLISS really do make a huge difference to the families they are involved with.

As Dave has mentioned in his posts the route has changed ever so slightly again with the bulk of the route now being the Grand Union Canal and River Nene as opposed to the North Sea, it's a shame that! Years ago canal boats were pulled by horses that walked alongside on the tow path and therefore if anyone has a spare horse lying around that they wish to donate for a week in July please get in touch.

In other news, I have made a start on giving up the fags which I know will come in handy when I'm paddling 30 miles a day (or not depending on how mad looking at nothing but river and fields for a week sends me!). It's been 11 days now and so far so good. 11 days doesn't sound like much I know but all things have to start somewhere, we're planning on travelling 300 miles in canoes in 11 days so when you think of it like that............

Thats all for now, promise not to leave it so long next time!