The Badger Mobile, the perfect truck for exploring Algonquin Park

Grab Life By The Shaft Tour Part 1 – Algonquin Canada

It was amazing to see the difference 6 months makes to the seasons in Canada. When I was last in Ontario, it was cold, snowing, and frankly, pretty painful. The scenery looked the same everywhere – white, cold and bleak. Having now returned at the end of Summer, the difference was astounding – lush green forest, early signs of the maples turning red, and brilliant sunshine radiating down on Canada’s many lakes.

Trucks with canoes seem to be a pretty common site in Algonquin

So here I was on my return to Canada, heading up the highway with a fair dose of jetlag and feeling more than a touch sensitive after a beer too many the night before with friends in Toronto. I was heading up to the Algonquin area to catch up with the crew from Badger Paddles when a truck caught fire on the highway and delayed us a few hours. Fortunately I had the good conversation of Gramma badger to keep me going until finally we caught up with Fiona and her Badger Mobile in Huntsville. Then we were off to Algonquin Outfitters where I had the most beautiful canoe paddle thrust into my hands, and eventually into my baggage, for the return trip home!

Randy from Algonquin Outfitters - and look at all those awesome paddles!

But I wasn’t here to shop, I was here to paddle, so we took off for Algonquin Park, stopping briefly to pick up a beautiful canoe kindly lent to us from Swift Canoes (where I got to meet Bill Swift, the President of Swift Canoes). Then we were off to the park itself, driving someway into it looking for a lake that wasn’t already crawling with paddlers. After 20 odd miles, we found ourselves at the put-in of Rock Lake, where we prepared for my first real paddle on Canadian water.

The Swift Keewaydin canoe at the put in to Rock Lake.

The weather gods couldn’t have delivered a nicer day. It was warm, sunny, and the lush forest looked beautiful as we slowly made our way into the lake. The wilderness here looked so different from Australian bushland but I was still drawn to its beauty. In many ways it felt to me like my visit to Alaska a few years prior – stunningly beautiful, but hiding dangers of the type we don’t usually face back home. That may sound strange coming from an Australian where the mantra at home is “if it moves, it can kill you”, but for us our dangerous creatures are small and injecty, not big and toothy (apart from our sharks of course!).

Could there be a more beautiful place to paddle? I call it "canoe nirvana".

Of course we didn’t see any toothy furry animals, just a mix of beautiful bird life on the lake. Loons and Herons played around us as we paddled our way from bay to bay, checking out the scenery until we finally made it to the impressive cliff that gives the lake it’s name. I have been told the rock itself has ancient native pictographs painted on it, but of course I wasn’t told this until after my visit, so didn’t manage to see any. It didn’t really matter though, the beauty of the place was quite enough.

The incredible rock face at Rock Lake. Truly beautiful.

The rest of the day became a bit of a blur as my jetlag started to give me a good kicking. We returned to the Badger Mobile and somehow ended up at some cabins nearby. Fiona’s husband Mike was waiting for us and before I knew it we were eating bbq’d steak and corn on the cob, sipping rum and ginger ale and having a good laugh. Then with my first day of travels behind me, I crawled into a bunk bed and promptly dropped into a deep, happy sleep. (To Be Continued).

That Swift Keewaydin again. Such a beautiful canoe!

Extra special thanks to Fiona,  Mike and Gramma from Badger Paddles for being my awesome hosts for the day. If you ever want to get a genuine feel for a place, it’s far better to hang out with locals, and these guys were brilliant hosts. Fiona also wrote this great blog post on my stay as well. Thanks again!

Tags: Algonquin Outfitters, Algonquin Park, Badger Paddles, Canada, Swift Canoes, Swift Keewaydin

Travis in the bow, looking out through non-stop drenching rain

With the 111km Hawkesbury Canoe Classic now only 4 weeks away, the need to train has become somewhat more urgent. Having been away overseas hasn’t helped either, so when the opportunity arose I wasn’t going to let a little rain get in the way. That being said, “a little” rain turned into “a non-stop downpour”, so we certainly got wetter than we anticipated! Still, Travis and Mikey arrived at Berowra Waters ready for our session – Trav and I in our Wenonah Minnesota II race canoe, and Mike borrowing a Current Designs kevlar kayak.

Mike trials the Current Design kayak - fast, light, and a tad tippier than his Tupperware boat

Our plan was simple: paddle up stream as far as the high tide would take us, return to the marina for breakfast, and then paddle downstream for a while before returning home. Mike doomed us to a wet ride when just pushing off he said “I don’t think it’s going to rain, do you?”…. five minutes later the skies opened and rained on us for the rest of the day!

Arrival at the upstream rapids, and a little playing in the canoe amongst the rocks

We cruised upstream until we got to the final rapids and were taken with how fast they were flowing. Usually there is but a small trickle through them, but with all the rain the rapids had taken on a much bigger flow and a decent current through the rocks. Travis and I took a few spins paddling up into the flow, catching the moving water and rushing back down through the rocks for a bit of fun. Then it was back downstream, stopping only to show Mike my favourite rock pool and waterfall on the way.

Mikey points out the waterfall. At higher tide, you can paddle right into the rock pool

...then Travis does his best Mikey impersonation

On arrival back at the marina we indulged in a little egg & bacon goodness, washed down with fresh coffee, before bracing ourselves to head back out into the worsening rain. Then, well and truly drenched, we put in another ten kilometres or so through the worsening storm.

Getting a little respite from the rain under a cliff ledge

Travis takes a moment to sponge out the slowly filling boat

A wet but happy Fat Paddler - any paddle is a good paddle!

It may not have been the best conditions to get out amongst it, but it certainly reminded me of last years Hawkesbury Canoe Classic! As I said to Mike and Travis, better to train in the rain and get used to it than only be fairweather paddlers. Anyway, we still managed to get an egg & bacon roll in along the way – ha! Cheers, FP

The Hawkesbury Canoe Classic raises money for Leukaemia research and is an important charity to support – any donation via my profile page will be greatly appreciated.

Tags: Canoe, Hawkesbury Canoe Classic, Hawkesbury Classic, Wenonah, Wenonah Minnesota II

A freestyle river kayak, pumping ocean waves, an amazing kayak surf session!

If you’ve noticed I’ve been a little slack with my posts of late it’s because I’ve spent this past week traveling and paddling through Canada and the USA.  I’ve got a number of cool stories to share once I get back, but in the meantime I wanted to show you this great video of a whitewater freestyle kayaker taking on the surf of east-coast Australia. It’s this sort of footage that validates my decision to get a whitewater boat myself, have a watch and you’ll see what I mean! Thanks to Jim from H2O Performance Paddles for bringing this one to my attention. Cheers, FP

Tags: freestyle kayak, kayak surfing

I received this lovely review of my book today from US paddler Moulton Avery. He doesn’t have his own website but wanted to share his thoughts on the book, so I thought I’d publish it here. Thanks Moulton! Cheers, FP

The Fat Paddler is just excellent; it’s a great, inspirational read, and I highly recommend it.

To say that this is primarily a book about sea kayaking, however, would be doing a disservice to Sean Smith’s lovely, candid, and moving story, because The Fat Paddler is about a whole lot more than paddling. It is, more than anything, a very personal account of loss and redemption, one that will speak volumes to anyone looking for inspiration or for insight and a leg up during a period of personal loss and adversity. Pain, injury, trauma, suffering, tragedy, loss, depression – they’re all here in good measure, but they’re more than offset by warmth, courage, self-deprecating humor, tenacity, elation, love, personal discovery, triumph, and the kindness of friends and strangers.

This isn’t just average loss that we’re talking about in Sean’s case, mind you, but near-catastrophic loss; the kind that drags a lot of people down so hard and fast that they never really recover. The path to his redemption prominently features a sea kayak, but there is much to be learned from his book whether or not one is a paddler. It spoke to me personally in a way that few books have in recent years, due in large measure, I suspect, because Sean and I share that same path to redemption. Sea Kayaking has been my harbor of refuge during a period of personal hardship that threatened to drag me down as well, and I found his book very moving and inspirational.

And also really funny. Like the time he’s paddling on the brink of exhaustion, struggling in to one of the checkpoints on the grueling Hawksbury Classic, and his ground crew is yelling stuff like “paddle faster next time you fat bastard”. No one survives alone, and Sean is no exception. He has the love and support of his lovely wife and daughters and a bunch of really fine Aussie mates, the sort that any of us would be lucky to count as family and friends.

Tags: book review, Reviews, Sean Smith, The Fat Paddler, the fat paddler book

Paddlers at dawn. Amazing to think that every single day has such a magical start.

Ever since I decided to take on the 2010 Hawkesbury Canoe Classic in a canoe, people have thought me mad. Why would any sane person decide to do a 111km ultra-marathon in something as wide and slow as a canoe? Why would anyone add several hours to such a painful challenge, on purpose? Why not just use a kayak or a surf ski like everyone else?

Those who own and love canoes understand. These are not boats designed to finish anything quickly. These are boats designed to take their paddlers on a journey, whether that be a gentle meander through wilderness or a Deliverance-style adventure through back waters and across rapids. Canoes are boats that bring adventurers or families together with the promise of well provisioned exploration. They are comfortable, fun, and a pleasure to paddle.

Travis at bow with the Emergency Bucket, containing wet weather gear and coffee supplies.

In 2010 I took on the Classic with my friend Gelo in a 14 foot plastic canoe, covering over 93km in 17 and a half hours through torrential rain, gale force winds and breaking waves. To most, we looked crazy, pushing our little boat through the storm. But for me, this had been the greatest, most FUN adventure I’d ever undertaken, firming up my love for canoes even more.  Being stopped due to weather at 93km also firmed up my desire to push a canoe across the finish line in 2011, and with that challenge firmly in mind I started researching just what sort of canoes were used for marathons in the home of the canoe, North America. The rest as they say is history, and on this day I was getting the chance to take out my chosen race boat for the 2011 Classic, a Wenonah Minnesota II care of Paddle and Portage Canoes.

Wenonah Minnesota II in Barracuda layup - looks amazing with the sun behind it

We’d chosen a trip downstream from Berowra Waters for the test, a long meandering offshoot of the Hawkesbury River itself. This gave us plenty of pretty wilderness, a mix of small and wide water and plenty of distance to stretch out in. We were also joined by kayak paddlers Pam and Meg, keen also to do these waters at dawn and work on their own paddle training. With the three of us ready, we pushed off into the fog, enjoying the deserted glassy waters and the spectacle of hunting sea eagles circling above us.

Pam and Meg enjoying the perfect glassy waters of the early morning

For Travis and I this was more than just an early paddle though – this was a test of the boat we’d be paddling for 111km. We experimented with trim, shifting some weight around in the boat until we seemed to be sitting level, and then started to put in some firm but relaxed strokes in the “hit and switch” style. Before we knew it, the canoe had rocketed ahead of the others, clearly taken by surprise by the boat’s pace.

The Minnesota II is a long boat - 18'6" of shiny sexy aluminised composite

A whole lotta boat. And boy does it love being paddled!

Of course once Meg actually tried she shot past us, but Pam struggled to keep up in her plastic kayak and we came to realise that this long knife of a canoe had a decent turn of speed. And importantly, it was requiring very little effort behind the paddle to get it up to that speed. The boat was almost silent as its sharp bow cleanly sliced through the river waters, leaving just ripples of wake behind us.

Coffee stop at the 10km mark, with the Hawkesbury River just behind us

After a beach stop and some freshly brewed espresso, we set off upstream heading back to our starting point. We decided to meander a bit more and get a bit more distance under the belt, exploring hidden creeks and campsites along the way. Regardless of tide direction, the boat moved efficiently and silently through the water, taking us for miles as we chatted away. Without our knowledge, Meg clocked us on her GPS and gave us a cruising speed of 8km/hr, a great time considering we weren’t really trying.

The Wenonah Minnesota II is a beautiful boat - sleek, long and fast

As we got closer to the Berowra marina, we started to encounter lots of decent sized boat wake from passing cruisers and fishing boats. The Minnesota feels a touch twitchy in the primary stability stakes so I nervously awaiting the impact of broadside wake on the canoe. When it came, the canoe just rolled with it, not even close to throwing itself over and feeling perfectly safe. In fact it handled the wake so well we turned the boat perpendicular to it and allowed the boat to surf the waves across the river.

The Barracuda layup makes the Wenonah Minnesota II look like a long blade

My feeling on the MNII at the end of the paddle? Absolutely wrapped. This is a magnificent boat that handles beautifully and allows effortless efficient paddling, and I can’t wait to take on the challenge and adventure of this year’s Hawkesbury Canoe Classic in her. Hope to see you out there! Cheers – FP

Special thanks to Travis & Paddle & Portage Canoes for importing the Wenonah MNII for me!

Wenonah - maker of fine performance canoes

Tags: Barracuda, Wenonah, wenonah canoes, Wenonah Minnesota II, Wenonah MNII