How Dirty Kayakers get Clean..

Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Hot Springs is a small town in Arkansas. Famous for it hot springs that run in the surrounding country side and right through the heart of it.

The main attraction is a row of Bath Houses, sadly most are now closed and are being refurbished for Business use. One of the two remaining is a beautifully restored museum and tourist centre. The other is still a bath house today and that where us dirty kayakers got a good scrubbing!!

Below are pictures of the Fordyce Bath House which is now the Tourist Centre and Museum.

We also visited the Garvans Botanical Gardens where they have built this beautiful modern non religious Chapel in the woods.

More Pictures at the Webshots page...no dirrty Kayakers though!!

We are currently in Amarillio Texas after skipping through Oklahoma in a day.

At Last, Water!

Our quest to find water took us to the North Carolina and Tennessee border.
In order to get there Astro took us along a road known as Dragons Tail.. or to us normal people route 129. Dragon’s tail is a steep winding road 11 miles long with 319 Corners, very popular with bikers, sports car drivers and police. We had stumbled across a Honda S2000 rally which was taking place at the nearby resort.

Astro did us proud unfortunately she wasn’t fast enough or beautiful enough to have her photograph taken by one of the few photographers stood at tight bends.. We love her though!!
We camped the night at Fontana Village next to the largest Dam in the East, apparently the fugitive was filmed on that very dam!!
Hiyak (hike and kayak) Festival was being hosted throughout the weekend, so we did the paddler thing and turned up only to find we were the only kayakers amongst many Appalachian Trail hikers.. many who resembled Jesus like actors with long hair and beards..(Si told me the eat Dog food the whole way!!)

So At last we get to paddle – The time spent in the Smokey mountains allowed us to delay departing West to get in a couple of Dam release runs – Natural flow was still eluding us.…

First the Cheoah. A frothing Adventure of class IV/ IV+ so the guide says. This certainly got Cheryl’s palms a little sweaty, and a few roadside scouting runs only heightened the anticipation (or nerves). Fortunately Cheryl didn’t have to rely on Simon to guide her down, as we tagged along with some local guys to show us the lines. The paddle proved to be an classic continuous 7 mile run. Certain sections were brush ridden, leading to adventures bushwacking routes in places. It ranged from mellow class 3 to some classic technical class 4 drops and big rapids.
Some of the highlights included a 12ft Waterfall, offering a variety of lines from an easy angled chute, vertical drop, or creeky line. The final drop Yard Sale posed back to back holes to dodge which were the biggest holes of the run, which teased Cheryl’s first roll of the run out of her.
A highlight to the day was running into one of Cheryl’s friends Steph Lind (they paddled in Mexico together).

Our second paddle of the weekend was the Ocoee (Section 2) Again cold weather and miserable rain dogged our paddling, and our experience of the Ocoee was diminished slightly by this. This river is definitely one for a nice warm summer paddle. There were many good surf waves, and Hell hole was the highlight.

Now we start the long drive – mainly on Interstate 40, heading through Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California!!

Smokey Mountains - North Carolina

Lack of water forced us to go in search of other activities. Our Adventure mobile took us to the Smokey Mountain National Park.
Smokey National Park is the largest park in East North America…the scenery is breath taking.
While the weather wasn’t exactly scorchio, it was certainly warmer than any where else we had been.
We began our tour at the Cherokee Indian reservation, which boasted Santa land (Theme park and Zoo) and the enormous Harrah’s Casino…we searched for something a little more traditional and opted for the Cherokee Heritage Museum, which provide a great insight into the Cherokee heritage.
From there we traveled the Newfound Gap Road along with 100’s of other Tourists. The winding road takes you through the heart of the Smokeys. We stopped for a small hike/ stroll to the highest peak at 6643 the second highest peak in the east. To Cheryl’s dismay it was a 0.5 mile hike to the top along a concrete trail and at the peak a ghastly concrete look out tower.

The excitement of the day were two Bear Jams…not Bears in jars, but cars causing jams in the roads to view bears…amazing how close they were…very cute and cuddly.

Day 2 in the North Smokey Mountains, and we decide to do two hikes one to Laurel Falls and a second to Chimney Tops an impressive aggressive steep hike among huge trees to a sheer sided rock face known as Chimney Tops. The climb to the top was amazing, sadly there was no view to see….only clouds. Thankfully that also obscured the sheer drops..

Day 3 And we moved to the West Smokey Mountains. We decided to do a 11 mile bike ride around a loop known as Cades Cove. This is much less mountainous than the rest of the Smokey’s park, and has been maintained as a ‘Settlers’ era exhibition of houses and buildings.

This loop tour is closed for cars on certain days, but not today, so we had to crawl round in a procession of cars, most of which were more concerned with wildlife viewing than cyclist safety. We didn’t see too much wildlife, no more than we’d see in the Vermont countryside…. This was our final day in the Smokey mountain, with some Dam release rivers coming up this weekend!!

More pictures on webshots – Smokey Mountains and Cades Cove Albums.
http://community.webshots/user/riverhoney

Blue Skies in North Carolina.

It only took a four hour drive south of West Virginnia to find blue skies and warm weather...hello from North Carolina.

Our first port of call was the Charlotte White Water Park. An outstanding adventure park, which just happens to have one of the worlds best man made white courses. The park offered three different white water channels, Instructional, freestyle and Race. The race channel being a challenging class 4 run...with plenty of holes and nasty recircing eddies to catch you out. Actually all the eddies were recirculating and surging.

Cheryl's favorite part was the conveyor belt..it saved a walk back to the top!! ferrying you from the end of the course back to the top.

We bumped in to our friend Alden Bird...we did quiz him when the guide book will be out!! Very soon...we believe.

Alden is trying out for the US slalom C1 team and was in training.

Unfortunately North carolina is proving to be a in a bit of draught and the rivers are extremely low.. we decided to head on out after a fruitless search we next be found in the smokey mountains heading out west.

More pictures can be found at the Webshots Album.

It Snow Fun!!

After spending a wonderful three days paddling in CT with old Friends (we paddled Quabog, T-ville and Natchaug). We decided to head to the warmer climates of WV.

Eban, John, Cheryl and Simon after numerous runs on the Natchaug

We arrived in WV and Spent our first night in our van, surprisingly very comfy. Unfortunately while we slept tempretures outside plummented and we awoke to 1 inch of snow!!

Simon was raring to go while Cheryl just snuggled further under the warm blankets. Simon paddled the Upper Yough and the Big Sandy before deciding enough is enough!!

John Logar on the Big Sandy.

While Cheryl was still keen to spend the night in the van Simon had decided a hotel room was more comfortable to spend our 3rd night of snow in.

Well as we said enough is enough...we can't take anymore snow. Tomorrow we heading south in to North Carolina...prey for Sunshine!!

Snakes on Van.

What’s Yellow and Red stripes, slithers and Jumps out at you while driving along the road?

I think Damo might have the answer..
Meet our newest crew member to the adventure wagon.

And yes Cheryl did scream hysterically and tried to jump out of the car while moving..

Goodbye Burlington

Finally the day has arrived where we say Goodbye to Burlington, Vermont and all our good friends. With our belongings packed, shipped to the UK or given away…we were finally ready to load up our tricked out adventure mobile.

Too much stuff and so little space meant a few cherished items didn’t make the cut, non essentials like tent, awning and our much beloved BBQ grill : (

Our first leg took us far! about a 10 minute drive. Our Friends and fellow Brits Jayne and Adam give us our last taste of civilized living. We couldn’t bare to depart Vermont without getting one last run on the New Haven. We left VT in style. Au revoir our Friends until we meet again BEAVER FEST or anywhere else on our trip you fancy!!