Our view of Ben Nevis
Britain from my kayak.
I have navigated Britain’s waterways for many years with two trusty companions. We call ourselves The River Rats and we are bewitched.
On a wet beach, which is only visible at low tide and best accessed by kayak, at the feet of towering cliffs on the West coast of Scotland or Pembrokeshire, we have discovered secret lands. There are otters and seals, choughs and ravens. The guano-streaked crags are alive with the sound of kittiwakes. Out to sea, among the gannets and terns, porpoise and minke whale play.
At Chanonry Point in the Moray Firth, on the East Coast of Scotland, huge bottlenose dolphin were leaping between our kayaks as we paddled.
Off Lindisfarne Island in Northumberland, the eerie song of four hundred grey seals in the still air grew ever more plaintive as we approached.
There is magic in these places.
Our rivers and canals delight and surprise. The scent of a dawn mist and the cry of the coot has greeted us countless times. There is joy in the electric blue of the kingfisher or the metallic green of a dragonfly. There is calm in the plumage of a stately swan.
Some rivers have the reassuring cosiness and bucolic charms of Ratty and Toad. The Upper Thames is a nostalgic paddle. The Arun is serene. Other rivers are more spectacular. The Wye and The Tweed have sweeping escarpments and romantic ruins.
We’ve paddled past megaliths and under ancient stone bridges that still carry traffic. Castles look down on our progress. The huge abandoned stones of a Thomas Telford pier on the banks of Loch Ness, memorable as the site of a savage evening midge attack are, like so much that we survey, almost reclaimed by nature.
On The Medway, we cruised alongside forlorn clanking chains on abandoned piers of collapsed industries. We perched on a wrecked U-Boat and snacked on Twiglets. The mud flats are stalked by avocets and egrets, turnstones and redshanks. The echo of oystercatchers and sandpipers is constant.
By kayak you find the forgotten places.
Pollution is taking its toll. The Wye is in crisis and sewage discharges into our waterways and nitrate runoff from farming are rightfully gaining political and media attention.
An evening paddle in the Thames estuary put me in mind of Turners ‘Fighting Temeraire’. The nation’s favourite painting is depicted with the sun behind the old warrior ship as it is towed up the Estuary from the East to be scrapped at Rotherhithe. It must therefore be dawn and not sunset. It is said to be a setting sun representing the end of an heroic era. The silver rays of the moon point to the new industrial age. The view today would have the morning sun glinting off the hundreds of wind turbines of the London Array in the distance. Could these symbolise the dawning of a cleaner future?
Britain has staggeringly beautiful sights to discover. Nature is resilient but we will need to make careful decisions to retain itssplendour.
Nick Ford
Author of ‘River Ratting’, available at Amazon
