Shell and I completed another Hawkesbury River Classic training paddle on Saturday, and in doing so we set a new personal record for the furthest distance we’ve paddled so far in a single, unbroken session. As you can guess from the post title, the paddle was from Windsor to Sackville, which is actually the first leg of the Hawkesbury Classic. Windsor is a good 30-40 minutes drive from home, so it was an early start to get up, ready, packed and out to Windsor by 7:30am.

After dropping Shell, our kayak and all our gear off in Windsor, I had a quick car shuffle (which included a ride on the Sackville car ferry) to have the car waiting for us at Sackville when we finished. By the time we’d all sorted out the car shuffling, got kitted up in PFDs, registered, attached race numbers, had a quick briefing etc. it was about 9:30am when we got on the water. Again, we were certainly amongst the more recreational paddlers on the day – in fact there was really only one other boat there that wasn’t a racing kayak (that kayak had a home made keel attached to the bottom to keep it tracking well).

Without going into the details of nearly four hours of continuous paddling (I think we finished in about 3 hours 50 minutes in the end with two approx. 5 minute breaks), it was a really enjoyable paddle, although the final few kms were tough. We set off from the starting line at breakneck speed, with a stroke rate that was way above what we are able to sustain for anything more than a few minutes. (Shell later confided that she’d kinda got caught up in the moment and was seeing if she could match the stroke rate of the more hardcore marathon paddlers around us). After our flying start, we eased into a more regular rhythm. The first 25 or so kms went by pretty happily – we made good time, and had the opportunity to chat with a few other paddlers along the way and take in the varying scenery we were paddling through. The final few kilometres were quite a bit harder, at least for me, but eventually we caught sight of the Sackville ferry and knew we were going to make it. Of course, shortly before we finally reached Sackville, we were passed by some of the more enthusiastic paddlers heading back to Windsor – apparently 32km on a Saturday morning isn’t enough for some people!

One thing that made the paddle a lot easier was our new CamelBak drinking bladders. With these fitted behind our seats and the drinking tube tucked into our PFD, it was a lot easier to have frequent drinks without having to stop paddling to unstrap and unscrew a bottle each time. We still have to work out the correct positioning of the tube (sometimes we still needed to miss a paddle stroke to position the tube correctly for drinking), but it’s a vast improvement over using our Sigg bottles. Surprisingly, they were quite cheap too (well, cheap compared with most of the other CamelBak systems), because they don’t come with a harness etc. We reckoned we’d be better off without having to carry the weight on our backs, and after Saturday’s paddle, I think that was an excellent decision!

Of course, we’re back at it again this Saturday – this time from Sackville to Wiseman’s Ferry, which is I think a shade over 40km. I think we’ll need to buy some kayaking gloves before then – even with calluses on my hands, they are still starting to blister by the end of each paddle. Not to mention the dry and rubbed skin in the webbing between the thumb and forefinger.