I have had lots of kayaks from river tourers to playboats and sea kayaks and the one problem I always have is getting the thighbraces to fit. It’s better these days with playboats,as they have lots of great adjustments, but then white water paddling is not something you get a lot of near my place.
I have the Njak sea kayak from Nimbus and it’s beautifully padded out under the deck for your knees, only my legs don’t really reach the proper spot. I need extra thighbraces. In my previous Raider X I got some plastic ones from a Dagger sea kayak and fitted them with a few bolts and a lot of bending. They were just great. At last I have found a set of after market set, designed to be fitted to composite kayaks. Bought them from Rosco canoes in Brisbane and I will get a review and photos up after I have used them for a while.
The Fixie craze has got me !! (well almost)
Everywhere you look these days there are young trendies on their single speed or fixed wheel bikes, in all sorts of cool colours. I used to prefer a single colour scheme on all my bikes, until I picked up my Argon 18 carbon road bike. Blue with white and black decals and ofcourse white handle bar tape and RavX saddle. A huge breakaway from red, red and more red of my past.
Well now I had this Cannondale on my spinner in the shed and always thought that one day I would put it to a better use than just spin sessions on a rainy winter’s night. I’ve done it now. The FLATLANDER . Red frame, white decals, gold chain, gold top mounted one finger brake levers, black bar tape, red tyres.
Why the Flatlander ? With a 52:16 ratio it’s not for the hills !
Robyn could’nt resist. She now has a flatbar roadie, blue with lime green tyres. She’s now looking for lime green grips etc etc.
DOWN TO 6 BIKES IN THE FAMILY NOW.
fixie- well it's a single speed really
Edithburgh- paddle out to Troubridge Island
Had a great weekend at Edithburgh on the Yorke Peninsula. Stayed at the local caravan park and paddled out to Troubridge Island on the Saturday morning. What is it about headwinds and me ?. Paddled out there into a headwind and it then changed direction 180 degrees and strengthened on the way back.
The island, or what’s left after the shifting sands, is really now a tiny conservation park for birds. The lighthouse, now disused, and cottage is available as a “weekend stay”, with the operator taking people out on his boat.
We landed checked it out (with permission from National Parks ranger) and took a few photos. Unfortunately our resident photographer, Donna, wasnt with us on this trip so we had to rely on our own ability. Me with waterproof Lumix, Gavin with a new camera and constantly stating “I wonder what this button does”, Mal B for a couple of wide-angle shots. Still we’re paddlers not photographers – luckily.
I’m doing the usual youtube and vimeo stuff so if the link is below, it’s up and running.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngavgUbGXCc
Thistle Island kayak expedition
Just got back from a week paddling around Thistle Island, near Pt Lincoln in Spencers Gulf. It seems that everytime I go over there I come up against headwinds, maybe it’s something I said to offend the weather gods.
Still we had a great paddle along the coast for 2 days and then out to the islands, camping on Thistle Island for a couple of days. A great trip with Mal H, Mal B, Miss Kathy, and Donna the photographer.
I came back with some great video, especially of a feeding frenzy of dolphins and birds. They had a school of fish on the surface and were really getting into them. Ofcourse I’m not sure what drove the fish to the surface but I can guess. Ofcourse Donna had 750 photos !!!! which means my video stuff will be saved by her stills.
Sweet Cheeks – well I certainly hope so
I’m hoping for very sweet cheeks from now on. Just fitted some Jackson Sweet Cheeks kayak seat inserts to the Njak. Great feel, just like settling into a bean bag. They are actually a bag of beans (like a bean bag) with inflator attached. You install into seat with side straps, inflate a little, sit in the kayak and let out the air, whilst squirming around to make it fit your shape. Then suck out the air, close the valve and you have a perfectly formed seat that conforms to your “rear end”. No more” rare ends” after a long paddle – well that’s the theory anyway. I will let you know how they work soon as I’m using them for a few days paddling around Wilsons Prom.
See more info on these at the Jackson site….http://store.jacksonkayak.com/products/Sweet-Cheeks.html They are available in quite a few shops in Australia at about the same price as on-line. Look for some one who knows about play boats or slalom and they will have them.
Check out the video review posted 26/10/11
Sean McDermott – a book and photographs
Just been doing a home office cleanup or really clean out as most stuff is going out to the bin. Came across a bit of memorabilia on how I got into kayaking. Met a “mad professor” at a party in the 1970’s and he was into kayaking. Said something about just coming back from walking and rafting down the Amazon river. We became good friends and paddled together, held up the bar in a few pubs, argued politics, stuffed around with polo kayak designs and generally had fun.
“Mac” (few people knew his real name) had many adventures and if you check the secondhand book shops on the web you may even come across a copy of Amazon Journey..From the source to the sea- the adventures of three men and a girl. Author John Ridgeway.Published 1972. Would have been an “interesting” trip with Mac along. Check out Ridgeway’s daughter Rebecca, who became the first woman to paddle a sea kayak around Cape Horn.
Mac was indeed a mad scientist, working at the IMVS labs in South Australia, then the United Arab Emirates, before returning to Darwin to work in tropical diseases.
Sadly he passed away a while ago, from cancer. Not a fitting end for a mad man, but life is terminal. Luckily before Mac’s death his son John was able to take the many boxes of slides he had from the Amazon River adventure, restore them and put onto disk.
| AMAZON JOURNEY Written by John Ridgway Hodder & Stoughton 1972The first expedition to travel from the furthest source to the mouth of this mighty river. This is my adventure with John Cowie, Sean McDermott and Anna Asheshov: a race against time in the High Andes, struggling to reach the jungle before the rainy season. I was thrilled when Marie Christine flew out to join us in Iquitos. July 1970 ‘Already I had a pretty good idea the expedition would be on. There was the familiar feeling of elation connected with any act of positive living, and the usual sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach – once again I would know fear in anticipation and feel the calm out on the edge of life where one mistake means death.’
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PADDLING SOUTH 