Yukon Buddies training run on the Yukon River
A few months back I had the pleasure of meeting the Yukon Buddies on Middle Harbour. These amazing women are survivors of breast cancer and were inspired by a team called Paddlers Abreast to take on the Yukon Quest, a 740km marathon paddle down the Yukon River in the north west of Canada. To say I was impressed with their drive and training would be an understatement.
Yukon Buddies at the start of the Yukon River Quest
The women had taken on a number of marathon paddles as training, including 100km+ training runs on the Hawkesbury, the 404km Murray Marathon, and numerous night endurance paddles. When I met them they were plying Middle Harbour in an outrigger canoe putting in the final kilometres before their trip across the world and into Canada.
Our Aussie paddlers in their voyager canoe
At the end of June the Yukon Buddies set off for Canada, making their way up to the town of Whitehorse to get familiarised with their hired voyager canoe, customising her with their own logo before taking her out for test paddling. Then it was time to set off on their epic journey through the wilds of the Canadian wilderness.
A few hundred kilometres down, a few hundred to go. The Aussie flag flying proudly at the stern!
The race itself takes more than 60 hours to complete and is one of the longest paddle races in the world. The wilderness is vast and largely uninhabited (unless you count the moose and the bears!) and the paddlers can travel great distances without seeing another human being.
Yukon Buddies taking on Five Finger Rapids
About half way down the river, the Yukon Buddies met the famous formation known as Five Finger Rapids. Fortunately the girls followed intructions and kept to the “safer” right hand route, avoiding the treacherous rapids of the other approaches.
Yukon Buddies - awesome effort!
In a race where 30% of paddlers fail to finish, the Yukon Buddies finally came across the finish line in a very respectable 68hours, a spectacular effort for a first time team. These girls not only did themselves proud, but represented their country with grace and honour.
So to Deb Hirst, Wilma Kippers, Rosie O’Donnell, Liz Trenam, Ruth Turnell, Tracey Bowne, Sue McClelland, Angie Aston and Vicki McLean – awesome job and a heartfelt congratulations from the Fat Paddler! You are truly an inspiration to us “normal” paddlers!
And finally, there is a longer version known as the Yukon 1000, a 1600km paddle that tracks all the way to Fairbanks in Alaska. This was held around the same time, and it is my great pleasure to announce the top four across the line were all Aussies! Steve Pizzey & Tom Simmat (both from NSW) came across the line in their solo kayaks in equal first in a time of 7 days, 1 hour, 27 minutes. In third place Rod Spinks and Greg Lennox (both from QLD) crossed the line in their tandem canoe in a time of 7 days, 2 hours, 58 minutes. Great to see so many Aussies beating the competition in this remote part of the world. More importantly, its great to finally see NSW beat QLD in something this year!
Congrats to these lads and the Yukon Buddies for doing Australia proud. Cheers – FP
UPDATE: A special congrats to the Yukon Buddies support crew from the paddlers: For the Yukon River Quest they got our boat organised at the start of the race, and were there waving from every vantage point until we were out of reach in the wilderness. They were there at Carmacks to ferry us to our hotel and while we slept for those precious few hours, they washed and dried our clothes, made and packed sandwiches (according to our orders), cleaned and reprovisioned the boat, and faced our bleary and sometimes cranky looks when they dragged us out of bed and sent us back onto the river. At the finish line they were just as emotional as we were, but swung into action to get our boat out of the water, stripped and ready to be loaded on the trailer straight away. We couldn’t have done it without them and will be forever grateful that they helped us fulfill our dream!
Behind every great all-female paddling team, are a team of great men!
Tags: Canada, Paddlers Abreast, Voyager Canoe, Yukon, Yukon Buddies, Yukon River Quest
Scarlett Woman ready for dawn action
This weekend’s paddle marked the welcome return of two misssing (feared lost) Team Fat Paddler characters. The inimitable Grumm (aka The Whinging Pom) and the Unknown Greenland Paddler, recently renamed “The Famous Tim Kennings” (as he was referred to in a forum last week).
Grumm had 5 weeks earlier bought himself a Boréal Design Labrador from Sydney Harbour Kayaks and then promptly gone down like the proverbial lead zeppelin with some ghastly virus. I’d all but given up on him when he announced he was back and ready to get wet, and it was exciting to see him emerge from his house in the dark at 5.45am ready for the morning’s paddle. I also had the joy of listening to him attempting to sneak quietly out of the house but instead crash into furniture and open the world’s noisiest roller door, waking not only his household but most of the street at the same time.
Grumm, pondering his wife's reaction to his noisy house-exit....
“The Famous Tim Kennings” had not been seen since recent “controversies” where he was rumoured to have gone underground to escape the wrath of Sydney’s paparazzi. Cautiously emerging from his safe-house, Timbo had appeared in a new stealthy boat (sans Fat Paddler stickers) with a new method of hiding his identity.
Is that The Famous Tim Kennings? No, that's just some random bloke with a paddle for a head...
Without another word, our motley threesome set off under an amber sunrise heading away from the crazy storm swell coming into Sydney Harbour and towards the calm glassy waters of Bantry Bay, where the fabled Coffee Boat was likely to arrive. Timbo had remembered to bring his Greenland paddle and the two of us cruised along the shore of Middle Harbour, keeping a careful eye on Grumm who was powering his “No Rocker Rocket” through the still waters without any hope of steering it whatsoever.
On our eventual arrival at Bantry Bay we didn’t have long to wait before Garry and The Coffee Boat arrived, supplying us all with hot buckets of frothy milky coffee. We chatted away watching the white-bellied sea-eagles circling above as we sipped our coffee, before seeing the eventual arrival of the amazing Yukon Buddies crew who I’d met just the week before. Like us, they were also seeking Garry’s services.
Yukon Buddies - survivors on an amazing mission
Paddling over to them, we had a quick chat about how they were going, their training and the last minute prep for the Yukon River Quest that is now just weeks away. Then we were politely told off by their steersman for interrupting their training (can you call coffee-drinking “training”??) so we paddled off towards Roseville and left them to their training session.
A fairly urgent need was by now gripping a couple of us, so we pulled into Flat Rock Beach for a quick nature call. Looking back at our kayaks, we thought it might be cool to swap boats, so Grumm climbed into my Aquanaut, and I squished myself into his Labrador, discovering quickly that I am simply too bloody big for this sleek, fast boat. Nevertheless, I settled into the rocket and paddled off towards Roseville.
The Three Muskateers - Flat Rock beach
Grumm was thoroughly enjoying the secondary stability of the Aquanaut and the fact it can actually be turned. He was edging and paddling and generally having a ball in my fun little play boat. I on the other hand was trying desperately not to tip his rocket over into the drink, its narrow beam and hard chines twitching away as I tried to settle into the feel of it. Eventually the boat settled beneath me and I found that with the right leg-drive and body rotation, I could power it along at incredible speeds, quickly losing the other fellas behind me.
Grumm enjoying the Fat Paddler's boat. I felt instantly jealous!
The Famous Tim Kennings however was still paddling along the edge of the shore hiding his face from the prying public. As he did so, the Yukon Buddies crept up behind him in their red outrigger, giving him a quick nudge to get out of the way.
Ramming speed!!
As they passed by, we tagged along behind them giving them a kayak escort towards Roseville Bridge, where we eventually pulled over for another round of boat swaps.
Grumm in escort. He's such a gentleman....
For the final boat swap I had a quick play in The Famous Tim Kenning’s North Shore Atlantic, a beautiful boat designed for paddlers considerably smaller than myself. The Famous One in turn had a paddle in my Aquanaut, it’s HV configuration feeling like a small air-craft carrier to him as he got lost in its roomy cockpit. Grumm meanwhile spent about ten minutes trying to seal launch backwards off the beach – a very funny thing to watch indeed!
The Famous Tim Kennnings back in his own boat. Hiding behind his dark sunnies still.
After we finished our boat comparisons, we all returned to our own kayaks and cruised our way back to the Yacht Club at The Spit for a civilised bacon and egg sandwich to end the mornings paddle. A great way to finish up the re-union of the Team Fat Paddler triumvirate. Until next time – cheers! – FP
A final look at Grumm's BD Labrador. Fast lines!
Tags: Boreal Design Labrador, coffee boat, Grumm, North Shore Atlantic, Tim Kennings, Yukon Buddies
Two very different paddle craft sharing the water - Valley Aquanaut and SUP
One of the great aspects of paddling is all the different flavours that are available. White water, flat water, ocean paddling, ski paddling, Greenland paddling, kayak polo, canoeing and of course the Stand Up Paddle (SUP) to name but a few. And there’s no reason why you can’t mix up the paddling types when you share the water, other than the obvious challenges of differential speed.
I was keen on an early paddle and invited SUP afficionado Rand to join me at the unreasonable put in time of 5.30am. He’d mentioned that he was considering doing the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic 111km paddle marathon on his SUP and needed training, so what better than pushing off into the dark for a paddle up Middle Harbour?
As I waited for him to get ready, I wandered around the shallows of The Spit with my torch looking for Ouchie. He was nowhere to be seen, but I did count several hand-sized baby stingrays in the area instead, sitting on the bottom like perfect miniatures of their bigger full-grown cousins. They were like little toys lined up in the water – my girls would have loved them!
FP lazily slip-streaming Rand on his SUP - haha!
Finally, and despite Rand’s nerves at pushing off into the dark, we set off north heading for the Roseville Bridge. He soon settled into the pace and enjoyed the lights on the water as very gradually the sky turned from black to a gentle grey glow. His fears now gone, we chatted away as the kilometres slipped behind us and we found ourselves at the Roseville boat-ramp.
Turning around, we paddled back to Flat Rock Beach where we strategically placed ourselves ready to catch The Coffee Boat on it’s trip to Bantry Bay. With Rand unable to stop his SUP, he paddled in circles until eventually he decided to head into the beach to wait for his coffee.
A lone SUP heading into Flat Rock Beach
The important arrival of The Coffee Boat
Within minutes Garry arrived in his little golden tug and brewed up a couple of fresh capuccinos for us, before chugging off into the distance. I paddled in and delivered the coffees to the beach where we enjoying the early morning light over our hot buckets of caffeine.
Setting off again, we paddled barely a kilometre when we came across a funny sight. Up ahead an outrigger canoe had also flagged down the Coffee Boat, with Garry furiously making coffees for the whole crew.
Hello, what have we got here then?
The girls from Yukon Buddies keeping Garry very busy
Rand and I pulled up for a chat and were amazed to hear that this crew of lady dragon-boat paddlers, know as the Yukon Buddies, were training to do the Yukon River Quest, a 746km paddle down the Yukon River in Canada that will take them around 65hours to complete! Just the week before they’d done the 111km Hawkesbury Classic course as training and were on track for their mammoth paddle task ahead.
After saying goodbye and wishing the girls good luck, we paddled back to the The Spit just as the weather cracked open with a deluge of rain. We packed our gear into our respective cars and then went our separate ways, smiling after our fun morning’s paddle with our two radically different craft.
Lastly, recently I made a donation to the Bridge City Paddling Club from Portland, Oregon (USA) who are doing a 12hour paddle to raise money for the Blue Planet Run Foundation, a non-profit that is working to ensure that safe drinking water is available to those in the world that need it. For my donation I also received a tshirt, which I promised I’d get a photo of here in Oz. So to all the dragon-boat paddlers from Bridge City, here it is. Cheers! – FP
FP meets the Bridge City Paddling Club at Sydney Harbour Kayaks
Tags: Bridge City Paddling Club, coffee boat, SUP, Yukon Buddies, Yukon River Quest
