Be seeing you!
Today the Lee Valley Olympic Whitewater Centre began assessments for park n'play kayakers by introducing a members only policy for all those wishing to embrace the waters.
As part of the very first group to be assessed I got to claim the Number One membership badge, how cool is that? ( ...for any Prisoner fans).
If Stenna made whitewater parks...
The hour and half assessment started with a flatwater paddle through slalom gates with a roll, before moving on to mainlining the Legacy Course (this is similar in grade to The Nene excepting that it's maybe four times wider so a really nice introduction to eddy hopping, wave, hole and river running skills). We ran this again, making nominated slalom gates and eddies, before moving on to bottom drops of The Olympic course for more of the same. Watching from the eddy as the first candidate dropped over the horizon and pulled three massive enders (in a H3) before being exiting the hole.... and all this was happening in London! Then we ran the entire course showing various pilot skills as per examiner.
This course is said to hold possibly the best artificial whitewater in the world and it really is pretty damn funky; Nice horizon lines, alpine wave trains, surging eddy lines and generally powerful class IV whitewater from top to tail, add in large rubber buses and it makes for a challenging but funtastic way to spend an hour or two in the sun; in fact once the test was over our group stayed on for an additional hour of pay per play before getting off and having the obligatory mug-shot taken for our new members passes.
If only Boris could bring out assessments for drivers on the M25, we might all get home a little quicker next time!
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