Having attended Dee Fest for the first time in 2024, I knew it was an event that I was keen to return to! If you’re not aware, Dee Fest is a white water kayaking festival on the river Dee in North Wales. It is also exactly the kind of event I love! A bit of friendly competition, time on the water with friends and lots of opportunities to have fun. Read on to hear about my account of Dee Fest 2025!
People talk about girlfriends or boyfriends who ‘got away’ and they never truly got over. For me, the kayak equivalent of this is the Pyranha Kayaks Firecracker! I took a Firecracker 232 down the Tryweryn in the early days of it’s release. My thoughts at the time were all pretty positive but I already had both a Z.One and an Ozone so decided I didn’t need another ‘fun boat’.
Fast forward a year, and suddenly, I was surrounded by paddlers grinning ear to ear in their Firecrackers, having the absolute time of their lives. I found myself regularly thinking about that kayak. Last autumn, Pyranha generously lent me a demo to test out, and six months later, I’m hooked. I’ve now ordered my own Firecracker to replace the demo when it’s time to send it back. While I’ve favoured the 232, this review applies to all sizes— so read on!
Imagine being a young kayaker, dreaming of exploring wild rivers and kayaking with your heroes. Now, imagine having a mentor by your side, guiding you through every splash and turn. This is the reality for the participants of the Palm Groms Mentorship Programme.
Following the Park Jam series this year, I couldn’t stop thinking about the incredible impact of the Palm Groms Mentorship Programme. Many of the Groms and their mentors were involved in the Park Jam events. Seeing the positive influence this programme was having on young paddlers inspired me to learn more and share it with the wider paddling community.
In this blog post, I’ll take you through the origins of the Groms programme, share personal stories from the young paddlers involved, and highlight the insights from their dedicated mentors.
Years ago, I signed up for an advanced white water safety course which was run by the legend Chris Eastabrook. During this course, Chris introduced me to something that he called ‘counting lemons’. In a nutshell, there was this idea that often when things go dramatically wrong on the river, there were usually lots of smaller things that had gone wrong in the lead up to that moment. He referred to these smaller things as ‘lemons’ and it has led to a safety measure that is now an integral part of my kayaking called ‘counting lemons’. This idea has genuinely changed how I approach kayaking and my decisions around safety. Keep reading if you want to know how!
I wrote a blog reflecting on my paddling one year and it has now become an annual tradition for me to do so. I enjoy the process of reviewing the year from a personal perspective as well as from the perspective of the wider paddling community. I try to include the lows as well as the highs and so here is my final blog of 2024!
I saw a post on the Paddle365 social media page a couple of months ago advertising their ‘Snowdonia Advanced Week’ as a pre-Christmas week and thought…. what a perfect way to start my Christmas holidays! So I booked myself on and have ended up having a really lovely week. A perfect Christmas gift to myself! If you want to hear about my white water pre-Christmas adventures, then read on!
For UK and Irish paddlers, October brings with it an exciting couple of weeks as the Park Jam events series runs. Park Jam is organised by Pyranha Kayaks and Palm Equipment in an effort to bring people together for some fun on the water. The aim of the Parkjam tour is to inspire the next generation of paddlers across the UK. It’s a chance for kids to paddle with and be inspired by the Palm and Pyranha teams, and hear from them about their latest adventures. Over the course of 3 weeks, team paddlers from both Pyranha and Palm tour white water courses across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Paddlers are encouraged to come and join them for some fun on the water, with the opportunity to then hear from and meet those paddlers afterwards.
I was involved with some of the Park Jam dates in 2023 and was thrilled to get involved again in 2024. Life has been a little busy lately but I managed to join for 4 out of 9 of the dates and had a great time during those events. I am sure there will be blog posts aplenty from team paddlers in the coming weeks to share a more official account but here is mine if you wanted to hear it!
Have you ever noticed that it is often seen that the ‘experts’ in a sport that have far more self doubts that the ‘beginners’? I have developed as a kayaker hugely since I first sat in a kayak 10 years ago. Yet the better I got at kayaking, the more self conscious I became about it. I have really struggled with feelings of imposter syndrome over the last few years and in the last few weeks especially I have been considering this topic more deeply.
This article, like many of my blog articles, has been a way to help me process my thoughts and feelings on the matter. If reading this helps you to process your own feelings – even better! A little warning that this article is very personal and really quite long! If you want to skip to my ‘top tips for dealing with imposter syndrome’ section I really won’t be offended. You can do so by clicking this link.
Euro Open, a freestyle kayaking focused event, took place here in Nottingham at the start of September. James ‘Ibbo’ Ibbotson first set up the event many years ago and it has long been a successful kayaking weekend which combined the British Freestyle Championships alongside some fun novice paddling events. This year, River Legacy took over the running of the event, alongside GB Freestyle . My lovely husband Tom is one of River Legacy’s more active volunteers and so ended up taking on most of the organisation of Euro Open. Naturally that meant I got signed up into running it as well!
This article is here to tell you all about how that went! I have written this blog from my perspective as someone who was involved in both running the event and participating in it. This is not as ‘official’ Euro Open blog account and so please accept my very biased account of Euro Open 2024!
River Legacy is a charity which provides funding for causes within paddlesports in England and Wales. They support numerous paddling events and in doing so are able to raise these funds. Everyone involved in River Legacy is a volunteer and there is a huge amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. I wanted to write an article to raise awareness of who River Legacy are and what exactly it is that they do.