Mucky

Robert from work lives in Portmuck. He used to be a commercial fisherman and he's full of stories of the sea, and of his many other exploits. We went paddling together last year in the USA on the river Kankakee, and since he's got a couple of sit-on-tops we always planned to get a paddle together a bit closer to home. After work tonight, we finally got it together.

I got the train to Larne where Evan, who did the coaching course with me and who's now doing the level two course, picked me up and we drove to Robert's house. When Robert finished work, he came home on his scooter and we met up with his girlfriend Maggie, carted the sit-on-tops down to the harbour and launched onto the glassy water of the Irish Sea. A leisurely paddle around Muck Island followed by a 'skills session' from Evan and a barbecue on the beach. perfect.

Eye Feel Good Route Blog

Here's the blog of the EyeFeelgood charity paddle from Antrim to Castlerock

Kit List

I came across this useful list of kit on the EyeFeelGood blog. They're organising a canoe trip next week from Antrim to Castlerock, the same journey as us, but probably a little bit further because we'll not be starting from Antrim... or will we?
It's way too late for me to get involved in their paddle this year, but it'll be interesting to see how they get on.

Now I can paddle

Ciara, my physio, phoned to say she's talked to Mr. Swain and i'm allowed to paddle gently on flat water. Just as well, because I already have, and I'm not very good at telling lies.

Paddling gently

Had a great afternoon paddling up and down the mouth of the sixmilewater in kayaks and canoes courtesy of MobileTeamAdventure. The two oldest kids were total naturals. we really have to get out as a family sometime.
Best of all, Mobile Team Adventure were assisted by Ricky Fee from EyeFeelGood. Ricky knows my wife Alex because she runs the local parent and toddler group in our church, and she's also been to a couple of Eye Feel Good fundraising events. He made it very clear that any time I want to borrow a canoe, I just have to ask.

I'd been starting to worry where we'd get hold of a boat for the trip. That's that problem solved.

In case you've never heard of Eye Feel Good, they're a charity which organises events to raise money to help people with cancer. Many of the events are outdoor activities.

obstacles

I've mentioned the surgery on my wrist more than once. I thought that by now it'd be practically healed and I'd be back to doing all the things I love doing. Well after one week in a backslab plaster, and four weeks in a cast, then another five weeks taking it easy, this is what my latest x-ray looks like.

It's an impressive x-ray, but there's still a gap between the two parts of the bone, and that's not good. "Non-Union", they call it and it's one of the risks of getting your bones surgically broken.

The plate is holding it in place so I'm allowed to do some cycling, though nothing too extreme, but my physio said I'm not allowed to paddle for a while yet.

Adventureland 2011

Northern Ireland Adventureland 2011. (Yep, that's one of the CAAN websites) The link probably won't work forever, but the idea is that you can try pretty much any outdoor activity in Northern Ireland for £10 this weekend. I think it's a great idea, the only problem is that it seems to be only people like me who're already into outdoor things that have heard about it. I've been telling everybody, and booked the family to go paddling on the sixmilewater on Saturday.

New Bike

Got a new Bike on the cycle to work scheme!

It's a Vitus Vee-1 singlespeed.




shame i'm not allowed to ride it!
I also got suspension for the marin - Rock Shox Sektor - which cost more than the vitus!



Cycle to work means I pay them off over the year, and I don't have to pay VAT or Income Tax on them. Bargain!



Now Why can't the government introduce a canoe to work scheme?

Route Planning - Done.

Outdoors activities are much better represented online in Northern Ireland than the rest of the UK. the Countrywide Access and Activities Network (CAAN) is an umbrella organisation whose job is to make it easy to get involved in outdoor activities. I've met the director, Caro-lynne Ferris and some of the projects they've completed and are planning are ambitious enough to turn Northern Ireland into the place to go for Outdoor activities.

We truly do have it all within a very very small area. world class surfing, kite surfing, kite buggys on great beaches, sea kayaking as good as anywhere in the world, massive inland seas in Lough Neagh and Strangford with untapped potential. The mournes and Sperrins aren't very high, but they are proper mountains which are unbelievably accessible, allowing any of us to experience fell running, mountain boarding, hill walking, climbing, and mountain biking. We can develop world class road cycling, and horse riding, go caving in Fermanagh, we have some awesome cliffs, particularly at fair Head... CAAN's plans to develop Magheramorne quarry as a downhill mountain biking centre are very ambitious, and they have totally rejuvenated the previously disintegrating Ulster Way. What's even better is their venture Outdoors programme which makes outdoor activities accessible to those who would otherwise miss out.

CAAN's imagination is limited only by the fact that they're a charity, so alongside every project they take on they need to raise the funds to pay for it.
They've got a number of specialised websites under the outdoorsNI brand: walkni, cycleni, canoeni, which identify routes and promote activities. It's a great integrated system, and because it exists, Northern Ireland has a disproportionately large number of well documented canoe trails, including the Lower Bann Canoe Trail which we're going to travel this summer.

So there's less for Martin and me to do in the way of route planning this year than last - plus the fact that we're paddling down a big river, navigation won't be a major challenge.

skills are another matter, and equipment too.
I've done some paddling before. I took a canoe coaching course in 2009, but failed to graduate because I was out of the country on the assessment weekends. It was very useful though because it got me a lot of experience paddling diferent canoes and kayaks on flat water.

Martin's a bit of a paddling novice, but he's got plenty of time to find a couple of taster sessions.

Neither of us has any real knowledge of what to do beyond basic flatwater paddling so I've got to gain some experience of locks, weirs and a little bit of whitewater before we go.

The Initial Plan

Before we'd even set off from St. Bees last Summer we already knew what we wanted to do this year. It's a much more leisurely challenge, but i don't think it'll be any less memorable.

We're going to canoe the length of the Lower Bann.

phase two

It's time to dust off the old blog again as we prepare for some mild excitement in 2011. I had my ulnar shortening surgery in January and I'm not yet allowed to do anything that would impact the wrist, so the only thing I can do is plan.

I made a book

Mild Excitement by John McClean | Make Your Own Book

So That's it.

So That's it.
We rode down the slipway and dipped our front wheels in the water. The tide was in, so we rode round on top of the wall to get to the beach. I found a stone to match the one I'd picked up in St. Bees, and we got an ice cream each.
Except that wasn't really it. We'd both been using the ride to raise money for building work to our churches. When we arrived, we were surprised to find that Martin's minister was there waiting to greet and congratulate us.
Shortly after, Alex and Tiny arrived with the kids and we had an enthusiastic reunion, lots of splashing in the sea and a bag of chips.
As we were heading back up that hill to the cars we met the guys from Kirkby Stephen Youth Hostel just finishing their ride, looking as exhausted as we felt.
And so we went on to begin our holiday proper, camping on Humblebee Farm with our families, and the next generation began preparing for their own cycling adventure.

lost in the forest (Day 5 part 3)

We'd originally planned to go around Newton House Plantation, but from where we were standing it looked like there was a clear path through the middle. So we took that. It turned out to be a logging track that led us deep inside the wood before stopping. We had the demoralising choice of going right back out the way we came and around the long way, or trying to force our way through the dense forest and felled trees to the other side.

This is the one place where the sat nav on my phone really saved our bacon. Looking at the map I could see where we were, I could see what direction we were looking, and I could see that if we forced our way through the trees to our right, there was a path on the other side. Leaving the bike, I pushed through to get a look, and sure enough, far below was the path, winding along beside a stream. It wasn't an easy descent, with the dead trees cracking beneath our weight, but we made it down with only minor scratches and not a few twigs stuck in our socks.

From there, the ride out was challenging, crossing the stream a few times, balancing along narrow paths with impressive drops to the brook below, turning corners to be faced with unexpected steep climbs or obstacles, but the path turned into a lane, the lane turned into a road and when we got to the end of that road, we were on the main A171 to Robin Hood's Bay.
As we blasted down the hill towards the sea I wished I'd put my phone back on the handlebars after we came out of the woods, but there was no way I was stopping to put it back now. The gradients were insane - 40% at one point according to the signs, and I've no idea what speed we were doing. Well within the speed limit, I'm sure.