The river Ivel rises just north of Baldock in Hertfordshire, but most of its course lies within Bedfordshire. It flows through Stotfold, Arlesey, Henlow, Langford, Biggleswade, Sandy and Blunham and joins the Great Ouse near Tempsford. The total length is about 25 km. I am grateful to Ian Smith who organised this trip as I had never paddled this river before and it had something for everyone and turned out to be a very pleasant day. Around 9.30 on Saturday morning eight of us including Gavin’s young daughter, Freya on her first ever paddle met up at the put in at Biggleswade. The morning was quite cool and overcast with the promise of rain but for now it was holding off. Ian had mentioned previously that there were a few weirs some of which were worth shooting and went onto say that the last time he paddled the Ivel he was with his daughter and attempted one of the weirs in his open boat and in doing so both he and his daughter got thrown out and went for a swim!
We got all our gear together and slowly paddled off, the first mile or so was a very narrow stretch with plenty of overhanging trees and tall reeds growing from the bed of the river to negotiate. In parts it was difficult to get purchase with the paddle as the water was very shallow. There were a few houses whose owners I envied a little as their gardens backed onto the river and I thought what a convenient way to get on the water. We eventually arrived at the first weir which brought about some debate as to whether we should run it, Bob said that on a previous trip he had gone down it sideways but I can’t control a canoe like Bob so I adopted the suicide technique and went bow first. The problem with this is with very little water you have to work up some speed and if you fail to do so you get a 15 foot canoe stuck half way over the top of the weir and then you have to coax your boat over the edge which I eventually managed along with Bob, Jim and IanŶ..I understood then why it was a good idea to go down it sideways. We came across a more exposed stretch of the river and then wind became quite strong and we were getting buffeted from river left to river right it was very hard going and the wind seemed to be forever against us. It was not far from here Bob, who was in front of the group came across an angry swan, he came very close to Bob with wings flapping and lots of hissing but eventually he or she let us all pass without trying to antagonise us further. We arrived at another weir and it was here we had a short lunch break. The weir had a sheer drop and again following more debate as to the merits of running it we eventually decided against it because of the lack of water which could not carry us over the drop. Following lunch, Ian and Dave broke out their canoe trolleys for a short portage and I was very impressed with Dave‹s ’state of the art‹ light weight plastic-and can be disassembled trolley in a tasteful forest green and black. The get in here was just beyond the weir but very steep and the boats had to be lowered by rope. I paddled back up to the weir and gauged the depth of the water; it was less than three feet deep so I‹m thankful we didn‹t try to run that particular weir. As we progressed the wind would not abate and I was getting tired and a mile or two further we came across another weir again not much water but Ian, Gavin, Jim, Bob and myself gave it a go. As I went over the lip my bow leaned over and hit the concrete ramp causing me to lose my balance a little but I stayed upright and reached the bottom unscathed. You may be able to see in this picture that Jim is holding onto the gunwales, but the technique of holding the sides is not in any canoe manual I have ever read but I think comes under the general heading of ‹if you cant get your paddle in the water hold on for dear life‹ We finally reached the get out at a pub we all anticipated getting a beer at but this was not to be as the pub had closed down and was now a ’gentlemen‹s club‹ We packed all our gear off and headed home, we estimated the journey to have been around 13 miles so a good but tiring days paddle.
Thanks again Ian
Les
